Border tensions and Covid-19 leave India's Chinese-language tourist guides lost in translation

"I don't see that many Chinese tourists," says Kavde, who grew up in Ellora village - a 45-minute drive from Aurangabad - surrounded by what the Lonely Planet calls the "pinnacle of Deccan rock-cut architecture".

The Ellora Caves, a Unesco World Heritage Site, are one of the largest rock-cut cave complexes in the world, a 2km stretch of more than 100 Hindu, Buddhist and Jain monasteries, temples and prayer halls carved out over a period of five centuries from AD600.

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Fourteen years ago, Kavde had moved to New Delhi to study Chinese under a Singaporean tutor in the hope of gaining some extra business.

The 12 southernmost caves at Ellora are Buddhist and, he reasoned, should prove popular with the Chinese tourists who were visiting the country in ever greater numbers.

Kavde with a tourist at Kailasa Temple, Ellora. Photo: Pankaj Kavde

Things didn't turn out as he hoped. "Over the past few years I have seen some Chinese tourists, but not that many," he says. "Perhaps they go to North India rather than West India?"

But since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has grounded international flights and curtailed domestic movement, what was once a trickle has now all but dried up.

Across India tour guides are struggling to make ends meet, and those offering Chinese-language services - a handful of which are listed on the Ministry of Tourism's website - are among the hardest hit.

For these guides, their problems are not limited to Covid-19 but compounded by tensions along India and China's undemarcated border in the Himalayas, where tensions between the countries have been simmering for months. Relations have plunged since a clash in June that killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and to which New Delhi responded by clamping down on business links and banning more than 100 Chinese mobile apps.

Many have memories of how tourism dropped in 2017, when the two countries were involved in another border stand-off, at Doklam. Things had seemed to be improving since then, with the Indian Embassy in Beijing's announcement of a relaxation in its e-visa policy for Chinese nationals coinciding with the second informal summit in India between the two countries' leaders, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi.

The relaxation meant that from October 2019, Chinese nationals could get a multiple-entry visa with a five-year validity for US$80, compared with the one-year multiple entry visas previously available.

But with border tensions flaring once again and peak season just weeks away, many tour guides fear even relaxed visa conditions may not be enough to tempt the Chinese back.

"This is really worrying, and we can only hope that things get back to normal by the start of the next tourist season in 2021," says a Chinese-language tourist guide based in New Delhi. "A lot of my colleagues are working as guides full-time but now we may have to start looking to convert our skills maybe into business."

Kavde with a tourist at Cave No. 32 at Ellora. Photo: Pankaj Kavde

The beginning of India's peak season is just weeks away. In 2018, 30 per cent of tourists visited from October to December, while a further 27 per cent visited from January to March, according to the Ministry of Tourism.

China presently accounts for a relatively small slice of these visitors. Of the 10.56 million tourists that visited India in 2018, 2.67 per cent came from China, making it the eighth largest market behind Bangladesh, the United States and Britain, among others. However, that slice is rapidly growing - or at least, it had been before Covid-19. Indian government data shows tourist numbers from China rose from 1,371 in 1981 to 281,768 in 2018.

The most popular years have been since the turn of the century, a time that coincided with a notable increase in tour guides like Kavde studying the Chinese language and applying for regional licences.

"Around 2000, the market for Chinese tourists began to open up. We started to think of it as a business opportunity and began to study Chinese," says one such guide. "I went to Delhi in 2006 and then three years later to China to learn Chinese."

On the Ministry of Tourism website, a string of "Kumars" - a common surname in the eastern Indian state of Bihar - are registered as Chinese-language regional tourist guides in Bodh Gaya.

Bodh Gaya is one of the most important Buddhist pilgrimage sites; it is where, several centuries ago, the Buddha attained enlightenment under a bodhi tree.

Consequently, it has traditionally been a draw for Chinese Buddhists who visit India on pilgrimage circuits that typically run for several weeks and take in major religious sites in both India and neighbouring Nepal. Recently, it has been conspicuously quiet.

"The pandemic has really crushed us. All of us are badly affected," says one "Kumar", who takes pride in speaking "100 per cent Chinese" to his clients. "I used to consistently get big groups, 20 to 25 people, before the pandemic. Several were senior citizens who were thrilled to be on pilgrimage to see Buddhist sites."

Roushan at the Taj Mahal with Chinese tourists in Agra, India. Photo: Manish Kumar (aka Roushan)

Another guide, Manish Kumar, 36, who goes by his nickname Roushan or Luo Shan for his Chinese clients, has a similar tale. Prior to the pandemic, business had been going well, boosted by Chinese interest in the Golden Triangle of Delhi-Agra-Jaipur, Roushan says.

Much like in China, Chinese tour groups travel in large buses, and it is not unusual to travel up to 300km on any given day. In Agra they visit the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort; in Jaipur they visit the city palace, Jantar Mantar, Amer Fort, Hawa Mahal and the Jal Mahal.

Roushan, who would often work with these tour groups, says that before the coronavirus he could make US$270 for four to five days of work.

But his last interaction with a Chinese tour group was when he bade farewell to one at the airport in Delhi on January 29 this year.

Roushan with a Chinese tour group at the Amer Fort in Jaipur, Rajasthan. Photo: Manish Kumar (aka Roushan)

With Chinese tourism drying up, it has become harder for guides like Roushan to keep their language skills polished.

Roushan says he is fluent in Chinese, though not as good as a native speaker, and he still struggles with some words. "When you have to say ci the air has to escape your mouth, which I find very difficult," he laughs.

Like many other tour guides, Roushan began his career interpreting for an industrial company.

"Many of the machines were coming in from China at the time, and when I came face-to-face with a Chinese client explaining the technology to me, I had absolutely no idea what he said. Everything went above my head," he recalls. "Then we started from the basics and I asked him to explain slowly. 'Where does this part go? Where does that part go?'"

Roushan, who made business cards describing himself as an "interpreter and Chinese tourist guide", has found interpreting for tourists far easier but like others will face a tough choice if the tourists don't return: either return to industrial interpreting or find a new job altogether.

Roushan with a Chinese tour group in Jaipur, Rajasthan. Photo: Manish Kumar (aka Roushan)

"Tourism is much easier in comparison," says another Chinese-language guide, Sudhanshu Raj, who began as an industrial interpreter after studying Chinese in India and spending three years in Shenyang, China, studying linguistics.

He recalls buying a dictionary for 650 yuan (US$95), then beginning the daunting task of "trying to understand machinery" on his first day as an industrial interpreter.

Back then, when he first began guiding a group of tourists, Raj wrote down difficult words in a notebook for easy reference. He jotted down the Chinese equivalent for the Taj Mahal or the Archaeological Survey of India, the agency tasked with preserving cultural monuments in India.

Until Covid-19 came along, one of his biggest cultural hurdles had been trying to tempt Chinese tourists to eat Indian food. "They were always concerned about stomach problems, so they never wanted to eat spicy food," says Raj, who goes by the name "Shu Tan" with his Chinese clients. "At times, some would opt to eat naan and butter chicken or just wait to go back to the hotel to eat instant noodles."

Vegetarian Manchurian is the most authentic Chinese item available in India, he says, earnestly. But even in the good old days, were there any takers?

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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