Beijing offers to repair Kochi’s Chinese fishing nets

London has the Big Ben. New York has the Statue of Liberty. Paris has Eiffel Tower. And, Kochi has its Chinese Fishing Nets. The iconic net, which serves as the symbol of the coastal city of Kochi, will soon get a makeover. With a little help from the Chinese.

A Chinese embassy team that is currently visiting Kochi has offered to help restore the aged fishing contraptions that dot the shoreline of Kochi to their original glory. The Chinese team is here to prepare the ground for the proposed visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Kochi as part of his India tour in September.

The team was fascinated by the Chinese nets, the most photographed tourist attraction in Kerala and which link Kochi to China’s past. The officials told the Kochi municipal corporation that they would be more than willing to offer financial and technological help to restore the nets. The city officials are excited, but say they will need the Central Government’s go-ahead.

The nets are believed to have been introduced to Kochi more than 500 years ago by the Chinese explorer Zhang He. But there is an alternative history too—that they were imported by the Portuguese, who ruled Kochi in the 16{+t}{+h} and 17{+t}{+h} centuries, from Macau, which was at the time a Portuguese colony.

There is yet another version that says Chinese traders sent by the Mongolian conqueror Kubla Khan had shipped in the nets. Called Cheena Vala in Malayalam, they are actually shore-operated lift nets. They stand on ten-metre-tall wooden poles.

Age-old mechanical contraptions lift the nets which are outstretched over the waters with a cantilever. Huge boulders are suspended from large ropes as counter weights. When the net containing fish is raised from the water, the suspended boulders are lowered to the ground one by one.

Until a few decades back, there had been scores of Chinese nets dotting the edges of backwaters in the Kochi region. But now, fewer than 20 exist. Some have fallen into disuse because of the high cost of operation and maintenance. There are hardly ten nets at the shoreline at Fort Kochi, a former British enclave, which is now a tourist zone. Though the quaint Chinese nets are a living monument to a fishing heritage, no steps have been taken for their preservation.

A fortnight ago, a top Chinese diplomat had visited Kochi. This was said to be to consider including Kochi in President Jinping’s itinerary. The visit of the embassy team this week is said to be a confirmation that he would visit Kochi during his September visit.

COMMENT NOW