Chinese Restaurants: Madagascar (complete episode)

Did the Chinese come Madagascar in the 15th century, years before the Europeans? And how have recent immigrants integrate in the most multicultural country of the world? These and other questions are answered as we visit Restaurant Le Jade in Tamatave, the port city with a large Chinese population. More traces of Chinese settlements are revealed as the filmmaker visits the oldest Chinese immigrant on the fourth largest island of the world.

[@amyfeinberg2415]

This is the most educational food/cultural show I have ever seen. Thank you for sharing.

[@cheukkwan]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@denisfornus2812]

Greetings from Indonesia

[@beejj6190]

That school is BEAUTIFUL to see. Chinese, Indian and African with any Chinese heritage and they are there. Brought tears to my eyes. x

[@cheukkwan]

Love the word "beautiful"

[@johnlai2011]

Especially the Chinese temple you visited, I love to search for my ancestor.

[@user-vw9nx6jr9e]

I was born I Madagascar of Mananara Nord went to tamatave that Chinese school in 1958 I am Métis and 1960 my father took me and my tow sisters age 11 years old my older sister and me 9 years old and my little sister 6 years old to Macao Stay with my uncle for 12 yeas study Chinese and English I speak fluent Cantonese and e English and no good in Malagasy and French I am now in the USA Kentucky I am 72 year old now all the place you mentioned in the U Tube I have been too because I did go back to visit 3 times during last 12 years but since the pandemic for last 3 to 4 years i can’t go back to visit I still have Brother and sisters live in Mananara Nord please try to contact me I usual visit Hong Kong ,Macau , Main land China quet often

[@cheukkwan]

we are exactly the same age! Try to read my book Have You Eaten Yet? it has more and better description of Madagascar!

[@tkjho6178]

This video was filmed in 2005. I remember watching a similar Chinese restaurant series on OMNI TV in Toronto at about the same time. The producer or director was named SHEK. Anybody has recollections of it?

[@jasonbe2828]

Thank you very much for this documentary. This video is worth gold.

[@gabriellechung356]

Thank you for these fantastic videos. Just found your channel. Your videos demonstrate the Chinese have settled throughput the world and have assimilated into the local cultures. Fascinating!

[@cheukkwan]

Great to hear!

[@akarmoussaittizi3012]

That was an amazing documentary .When I was in Madagascar coming from Mauritius ,I was pleasantly surprised to discover the traces of Chinese culture in Madagascar.Being a creole nyself with European ,African Inidan and Chinese ancestors and also coming from an island where the Chinese new year is a public holiday Chinese culture is to me part of my heritage as well as Indian or Birtish or French.I plan to go back to Madagascar this year and I will make sure thank to you to visit Brickaville.Thank you for your words of wisdom.

[@cheukkwan]

I am glad you enjoy it. Have you read by book "Have You Eaten Yet?" my opening intro talks about me eating Mauritian food in the outskirts of Antananarivo.

[@akarmoussaittizi3012]

@@cheukkwan No I haven''t but I gonna get it for this new year ,I would be glad to read this.I am seriously thinking of introducing Mauritian Chinese and Mauritian Indian Cuisine in Ukraine.Have you ever tried Mauritian Chinese cuisine from the China Town of Port Louis?In Mauritius you find Mauritian Chinese ver cusine everywhere but those from China Town Port Louis are unique and specially their pastries and sweets.As a child I remember spending a week for the new Lunar year at the sea side with my Mauritian Chinese neighbours .I have never seen so much food in my life.I have travelled a lot and never have I seen people putting so much food on the table.I remember that the Popo would say that it would be a dishonor if food would lack during a family gathering.The motto was Eat till you die while playing majong🤣🤣.

[@johnlai2011]

I would love to visit Tamatave if you can give me some direction.

[@jerrybesson]

Fond memories of Li Sai, hailing from Canton and living in Mampikony District, Mahajanga province. My own memory takes me back to Mampikony and its surroundings more than 60 years ago. Li Sai had fled Canton in 1938, not from the Japanese Imperial Army but from the ruthless recruiters-abdusctors of Chiang Kai-shek's National Revolutionary Army. After a stint in the galley aboard a ship of the French Line, Li had married in Madagascar and his children had Christian names. The owner of a grocery-bakery-bar-restaurant, Li Sai was a treasure in his own right in the eyes of the French community he was catering to. Every Thursday was market day in Mampikony (pronounced "Mampikoon"). Their produces sold, local farmers used to congregate at noon to Li Sai's and partake of Li Sai's own French baguette dipped in a freshly opened can of "Achars" enjoyed together with sips from glasses filled to the brim with red wine, a taste acquired from their years of service in the French army. The first settlers sailed from Sulawesi on outrigger vessels common to the seafaring Austronesian language family originating in non- Chinese Taiwan and spread all across the Indo-Pacific. They came first and displaced a people of negritos, the legendary Vazimba now long extinct. Muslims traders from Socotra came later and did not settle although a tribe of the East coast of Madagascar adopted the Quran and the Arabic script. The first Chinese appeared with the indentured Chinese labor (華工) hired once Madagascar had become French possession in 1895. It is to Madagascar's honor that its Chinese guests adjusted without a hitch. I wish non-Chinese Taiwan's own Chinese guests had learned from the humble and kind Cantonese of Madagascar. This young Marco, is not second generation, more like third or even fourth. I understand the nostalgia for the China of their roots, but what are these folks whining about? Chiang Kai-shek is responsible for 18 million dead Chinese. Mao? 50 million massacred through the famine of the Great Leap Forward and the excesses of the Culturural Revolution.!! Lucky to have lived safely in "mora-mora", laid-back Madagascar far from god-forsaken China. Thanks to Cheuk Kwan's intimate reportage on the Cantonese community of the cherished "Big Island", a place its Chinese diaspora can call home, safely removed from upheavals-prone China.

[@cheukkwan]

thanks so much for sharing your knowledge. Yes Madagascar is one of the most diversified countries in terms of species, people, and climate. You should write a book!

[@jeromebesson]

@@cheukkwan If you were lucky enough to be born in Antananarivo and to have spent your boyhood in the boonies of Madagascar, wherever life will take you, you will carry the mud of Madagascar on the sole of your feet. I sowed my oats on Taiwan and spent the happiest years of my adulthood in Japan. As a result, I am fascinated by the area of the seafaring peoples of the Austronesian Language Family that expended across the Indo-Pacific from its cradle in Taiwan. A stone is pronounced "vato" (vat ') both among the Tribes of Taiwan and in Malagasy. Again, my gratitude for helping me revisit fond memories. I shared you work of FB.

[@johnlai2011]

Hi Mr. Kwan! When was this video film. My mother's grandfather from Shunde moved to Tamatave for business in the 50s and died there. By any chance that I could find any records about early Chinese people who decreased there?

[@cheukkwan]

Hi John, I went to Tamatave in 2001. The temple is in the Congragation Chinoise (Chinese Association) compound. I am not sure if they have the record there. Tamatave is the second largest city in Madagascar, on the Indian Ocean. The best way is to fly from the capital Antananarivo, it's about a 90 min flight. Where do you live?

[@johnlai2011]

@@cheukkwan Hi Mr. Kwan, it was very nice to meet you. I was really looking forward to your reply. I can tell the video was shot many years ago, as I can see from the quality. I am currently living in Toronto, but I do return to HK very often. When you visit the family of the groceries store, it was in one of the documentary episodes in HK a long time ago. I notice you can speak Cantonese so am I. I believe one of my ancestors (my mother's mother's father) went there; he died there when Madagascar was still a French Colony. He used to visit my grandmother when she was 5 years old, but somehow he was killed and never returned home. Anyway, it was a sad sad story. I really would like to visit there to find any trace of my ancestor's story. I knew the temple was run by the Chinese Association there.

[@cheukkwan]

Yes. the series was called Stories from Afar and it was shown at ATV in the early nineties. I am a Hongkonger, so watched the show and realized that there were people who settled in Madagascar. But I didn't expect to meet the grocery store owner and his wife (Mr. and Mrs. Lai), and when I walked into the store, I realized that he was the same person I saw on the ATV show. You should try to read my book Have You Eaten Yet? I described in more detail my encounter.

[@johnlai2011]

@@cheukkwan Hi Mr. Kwan! Sorry for the late reply. Yes, I know you had written a book called "Have you Eaten Yet", I search it online and it had copies in Toronto's libraries including the East Asia Library at University of Toronto where I used to read Asia books. I see you encountered "Ah Wong" from page 1, I will read through it when I have time. Your background truly amazed me as you have been to many places, with many nationalities. I can tell that you are one proud Chinese, so am I. Well, Chinese were everywhere corner around the globe, wherever opportunities were there, you'll see footpath of Chinese people, who were very hard working people and could survive harshest environment. China used to be a very hostile land where drought and feminine occurs quite frequently. Also, when the nationalist were in power, warlords and corruption were everywhere, that's why men had a tendency to go somewhere to look for a better life in the 30s or 40s. Your video about Chinese cuisine around many exotic places were also very very interesting. Your book mentioned why you were inspired to do so. You must be a very unique person. Yes, I noticed that you went to many places that was shown in the Madagascar episode of Afar from ATV and that's how I found out where my grandmother's father went. Anyway, long story short, back in my college days while I was attending Acadia University in Nova Scotia, my friend lend me some VCDs with the Afar episodes about Madagascar Chinese around year 2000 and that's when I found out where my grandmother's father went. This is a personal story of my family. I remembered my grandmother visited Toronto around 1998 or something. She mentioned about a mysterious place where his father went namely, "馬加士埠" . She said her father went to that place for business or working, it was probably in France, his father often return home to visit her and loved her dearly. The last time she saw her father was about 5 years old when his father departed for Madagascar and never returned again ever since. She mentioned one day her mother got the news, probably by mail, saying his father was murdered there. She became a fatherless little girl afterward. My grandmother missed her father dearly and wonder if we know anything about a place name '馬加士埠'. It must be a trauma for grandmother for her losing her father as she still remembers her father vividly even she was in her 70s. It was kind of sad that she still kept asking around, no one could answer her questions including 8 of her own children. After watching that afar episode from ATV myself, I immediately recollect what my grandmother said about the place, the clues from the episode were the followings:- 1. Madagascar(馬達加斯加) sounds like 馬加士埠 2. My grandmother said her father went to France, in fact, Madagascar used to be a French Colony. I guess my grandmother didn't know about it. 3. The afar episode also mentioned many Chinese in Tamatave were from Shunde, China, mostly with "陳" and "岑" last name, I then called my mother trying to find out my great grandfather's name, indeed his last name is "岑". It was pretty much how I confirmed where my great grandfather went. I later informed my grandmother about it, she was very happy about knowing where her father went. Too bad that she was old and weak at that moment, I would have brought her there to find her father's footpath there. It was sad that she passed away in 2005 August on my birthday. Nowadays, I still go online to look for information about that place and that's how I found your video. Besides, I am truly amazed how a small Chinese community was formed in a very far away land, it is unique in many ways. It amazed me how many Chinese went there as the land was quite desolated there in the early days. Imagine how long it takes for them to commute there by boat in the back then, at least 20 days at least may be. I guess it was more prosper when it was a French colony. I still want to go myself, but wondering if it is safe to travel there by myself. By the way, my name is John, it was very nice to meet you. Where are you now? HK or Singapore? Do you have a personal email or contact where I could reach you.

[@cheukkwan]

@@johnlai2011 Hi John I live in Toronto. my e-mail is [e-mail]. Write me and we will connect