The Nation (Thailand)
June 14, 2011 Tuesday
What is the connection between Hong Kong, Rangoon, Singapore, Penang,
Surabaya, Calcutta and Shell Oil? Answer: the Armenian connection.
In fact, there are Armenian Streets in Singapore, Penang, New Delhi,
Kolkata, Chennai (formerly Madras) and Dhaka. An odd fact of history
is that three Armenian churches have been built on No.2, Armenian
Street in Calcutta, Dhaka and Madras. Is that a coincidence?
My thought for today was inspired by my good friend Bernard Chan’s
reference to Hong Kong street names, particularly Chater Road. Having
worked in Chater House, I had not realised that Sir Catchick Paul
Chater was born of Armenian parents in Calcutta in 1846 and became a
successful businessman in Hong Kong, having co-founded Hongkong Land
with the Keswicks, and also a steward at the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
Armenians are one of the largest diasporas in the world in relative
terms, with 11 million Armenians compared with 3 million in Armenia.
Armenians in the Far East came via India, mostly as merchants, the
most famous being Thomas Cana, arriving in Kerala in 780 AD. The
earliest reference to an Armenian in the Far East is the gravestone of
Jacob Shameer in Malacca, born in New Julfa, Isfahan, Persia who died
on January 3, 1746. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Armenians were
already important traders of Indian goods for the Russian and Italian
markets. Based from their foothold of Surat in India, they began the
China trade, noting in 1783 that they lost lots of money in a ship
from China because of the Anglo-French war. In 1797 there is a letter
describing Armenians trading from Madras to Penang, but sailing to
Malacca, where they were attacked by three French frigates and lost
all their possessions. But they lived to trade another day.
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 second Christian church in
Singapore. Anyone who travelled in the Far East may have stayed in the
chain of hotels that the Armenian Sarkies brothers (Martin, Arshak,
Aviet and Tigran) founded in key commercial cities ` the Eastern and
Oriental in Penang (1885), the Strand in Rangoon (1896), the Raffles
in Singapore (1899) and the Majapahit in Surabaya (1910). At one time,
the Sarkies family also owned the Adelphi in Singapore.
In addition to the church and Raffles, the Armenian contribution to
Singapore included the founding of the Straits Times by Catchick Moses
in 1845 and the orchid Vanda Miss Joaquim, named after Agnes Joaquim,
which is today the national flower of Singapore.
Royal Dutch Shell, now the second largest energy company in the world,
was created in 1907 from the merger of the Royal Dutch Petroleum
Company (1890) and the British Shell Transport and Trading Company,
founded by the Samuel brothers in 1897. From its earliest days, the
history of oil was dominated by global giants. Shell was formed in the
face of competition from the rise of the Rockefeller owned Standard
Oil, which was broken up in 1911 and its suc cessors becoming today’s
ExxonMobil, Chevron, Amoco and ConocoPhillips. Royal Dutch Shell made
the first oil discovery in East Sumatra, where production began in
1885.
Few people realize that it was the Armenian oil trader Calouste Sarkis
Gulbenkian (1869-1955) who arranged the merger between the two
companies. During his time, he was one of the wealthiest men in the
world, starting in the Russian oil industry and being among the first
to explore oil in Iraq, then part of the Ottoman empire, through the
Turkish Petroleum Company. Even though he was reputedly offered sole
ownership of the Iraqi oil concession, he believed in partnership with
European companies that had the ability and capacity to develop the
oil fields. He was famous for being “Mr Five Percent”, retaining five
percent of all his deals, which included the Shell merger.
Most people remember him for the Museum Gulbenkian in Lisbon, which
houses his wonderful art collection. The museum is a treasure house of
choice pieces from Mesopotamia, eastern Islam and a stunning
collection of Lalique crystal. Fans of modern Lalique should go to
Lisbon just to see what was possible when the artist Rene Lalique
(1860-1945) was at the height of his creative powers. There is a whole
room in the Gulbenkian dedicated to his glass and jewellery pieces.
When you realize that such a small community of migrants from a small
country in West Asia have made such a footprint in the rest of Asia,
you begin to understand the importance and opportunities of
globalisation.
Globalisation is not about quantity, but the quality of
interconnection. Small communities of traders made possible the
trading of goods and services around the world, even in the days when
communication was difficult. Indeed, their foresight and ability to
see opportunities and to create partnerships in new fields is their
hallmark of success. These communities thrived on knowledge, research
and innovation.
The footprints of Armenian traders and investors, past and present,
suggest that talented people from small countries have a lot to offer
the rest of the world. It is no wonder that cities that welcomed and
allowed these communities to flourish became themselves the centres of
trade and commerce in Asia, especially Hong Kong and Singapore.
Andrew Sheng is the author of “From Asian to Global Financial Crisis”.
From: A. Papazian