The Dying Daily

THAT FUNG FAT-YUNG'S son is totally absorbed in the English-language Economic Times says much about the plight of India's only Chinese-language newspaper. Unlike his parents, Lee Yeng-won studied English at Calcutta's St George School, made a small fortune from sauce, and spends much time away.

His 75-year-old mother, however, reads only Indian Sheung Pao, one of the world's few handwritten newspapers, that has served Calcutta's Chinatown of Tangra for nearly four decades.

'It's very important to us,' she says, running her hand across its beautifully crafted pages. 'We hear it is about to shut down because of mounting losses and falling circulation. When it is no more, people like me will miss it terribly.'

For many mainly elderly Chinese in Calcutta, Sheung Pao, known in English as the Overseas Chinese Commerce of India, is the only easily accessible source of information written in the only language they can read providing information about their roots.

Ten years ago, the paper sold 1,000 copies daily. Now circulation is 300 and falling. The paper's 82-year-old editor, Guangzhou-born Chen Chi-jui, and his all-Chinese team of eight men and two women, know it is dying a slow death. Tangra's biggest bane, apart from countless other sources of information, is persistent emigration and successive setbacks that have broken the prosperous community's back. The dying daily and its rundown offices, epitomises a crumbling Chinatown.

'The paper's future is bleak,' says Chen. 'One can even say it has no future. It's still handwritten to keep down production costs, but losses are mounting because of dwindling circulation. One day, sooner than later, the trust which owns the paper will announce its closure.