After capturing folks from Middle East and Africa, Bollywood is capturing Chinese hearts.
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/singapore/story/0,4386,152845,00.html
For Bollywood’s sake, Chinese fans learn Hindi
Non-Indians are learning Hindi for work purposes and also for a love for things Indian - especially made-in-India movies
By Theresa Tan
ACCOUNTANT Madelene Cheong is such a big fan of movies made in Bollywood that she is taking classes in Hindi, so that she can understand what the actors in the films are saying instead of reading the subtitles.
'‘You lose a lot of the nuances in a translation,’ explained the 33-year-old, who became interested about three years ago and now watches a Hindi film almost every day.
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Miss Cheong, who has progressed to intermediate classes in the language, loves the song-and-dance routines, a staple in such productions.
She is one of a number of Chinese, Malays and expatriates here turning up at the Hindi Society’s language classes for adults at Beatty Road. They make up 50 to 60 per cent of the students.
The non-profit society is one of the few places where one can learn Hindi here.
It takes in 10 students in each class and conducts about three to five 12-week classes every year, offering introductory, intermediate and advanced Hindi classes.
Students pay $120 for three months of introductory lessons, each of which is two hours long. They learn to speak and understand basic conversational Hindi, and to write in the language.
Lessons in the world’s third most commonly-spoken language - after English and Mandarin - and the language of the world’s largest film industry, can also be taken at the Punniya Language Centre, a commercial language school at Peace Centre in Selegie Road.
Not all are drawn to Hindi because of the pull of made-in-Bollywood shows, which have been attracting worldwide attention in the last year or so through films like Lagaan, which was nominated for the Oscars, Monsoon Wedding, last year’s Venice International Film Festival’s top prize winner, and Devdas, the first Bollywood production screened at the Cannes film festival.
Some turn up as they see trade with India eventually growing the way that with China has been. Last year, the Republic and India did about $6.9 billion in trade.
The promise that this will grow prompted Mr Vincent Subramaniam, a 47-year-old football coach who speaks Tamil, to take Hindi lessons.
‘Ten years down the road, India is going to be a huge economy. And if I venture into India, where most Indians speak Hindi, it’s good to pick up the language to do business,’ he said.
Hindi Society committee member Rai Kailash said that there are definitely more non-Indians in the classes now.
He said: 'Some are businessmen who learn the language to help them in their work in India. Others learn for fun. And there are those who learn as they enjoy watching Hindi films.
‘There’s been quite a mixed population since we started eight years ago, ranging from those in their 20s to retirees in their 70s.’
Miss Gwen Sin, though, is attending Hindi classes as she is in love with all things Indian.
The 25-year-old freelance photographer has been to India twice in the last two years to take pictures, and wants to be able to communicate with the locals there as well as find out more about their culture.
‘Their culture is very rich and colourful,’ said Miss Sin, who also enjoys watching Hindi films.
‘Their movies have strong morals. And as a Chinese, I can relate to those morals.’
