Armenia's outsized footprint in Asia brings home the benefits of globalisation

What is the connection between Hong Kong, Yangon, Singapore, Penang, Surabaya, Calcutta and Shell Oil? Answer: Armenians. In fact, there is an Armenian Street in Singapore, Penang, New Delhi, Calcutta, Chennai, and Dhaka. Armenian Street in Penang is located in an area that draws visitors with its Muslim mosques, and Chinese and Indian temples.

A good friend's observation about Hong Kong street names, particularly Chater Road, piqued my interest in the Armenian connection. Having worked in Chater House, I had not realised that Sir Catchick Paul Chater was born of Armenian parents in Calcutta and became a successful businessman in Hong Kong, co-founding Hongkong Land with the Keswicks.

The Armenian diaspora is probably the largest in the world in relative terms: only about a third of the estimated population of over 10 million Armenians live in Armenia, while just under half of the total Jewish population of about 13 million live in Israel.

Armenians in the Far East came via India, mostly as merchants. In the 17th and 18th century, Armenians were already important traders of Indian goods for the Russian and Italian markets. From their foothold of Surat in Gujarat, western India, they began to trade with China. Despite being affected by wars -a letter in 1797 described an Armenian trading ship that lost all its possessions after being attacked by French frigates- they prospered.

There is no doubt that Armenian entrepreneurs played an important mercantile role in British colonial history in the Far East. Singapore was founded by Sir Thomas Raffles in 1819. By 1835, the small Armenian community in Singapore had grown prosperous enough to build the Armenian Church of Saint Gregory, the country's oldest church.

Anyone who had travelled in the Far East was likely to have stayed in the chain of hotels that the Armenian Sarkies brothers -Martin, Tigran, Aviet and Arshak- founded in the key commercial cities: the Eastern & Oriental Hotel in Penang (1885), the Raffles Hotel in Singapore (1899), the Strand Hotel in Yangon (1901) and Hotel Majapahit in Surabaya (1910).

In addition to the church and Raffles Hotel, the Armenian contribution to Singapore included the founding of The Straits Times newspaper, by Catchick Moses in 1845. Singapore's national flower, the orchid 'Vanda Miss Joaquim', was named after Agnes Joaquim, who was from a prominent Armenian family.