Knowing More..... Chinese Fishing Net

Hey guys! This is the 3rd installment of knowing more on the karimeen inc. icons found on your T-shirts... today's icon is the Chinese Fishing Net:

Now, it seems quite obvious in the name,,,,this isn't an Indian product, let alone an idea from Kerala, so how does this feature among the icons of Kerala?

Well, the Chinese fishing net features as an interesting product... a foreign idea that slowly lost its identity in its land of origin, and found a new home.... a legacy carried on only by the adopters!

The history of how these nets came into Kerala is still debated.... some say a Chinese scholar named Zheng He introduced it, others say that Portuguese traders from Macau brought the technology to Kerala (a hint could be the Portuguese sounding names for the components of the net).... both sound pretty plausible since Kerala was once a very cosmopolitan trading zone, where cultures and religions intermingled. All we know is that these fishing nets in India are only found in Kerala, and specifically, around the region of Cochin and Kollam.

There are possible bits of evidence that the Portuguese traders brought Chinese workers to man the nets, which could also hint on why they were named so. The way in which they work, however, is a much simpler thing to explain!

These fishing nets a re basically shore nets and work by the shore, backwaters, or shallows. The whole thing works like a well balanced see saw... so well balanced that walking up the fishing net beam is enough for it to dip down into the water..... and pulling it up later on requires only human power. The movement is slow and steady... almost poetic, and a metaphor of the lifestyle on the shores of central Kerala.... slow-paced and relaxed! Let this video from Kerala Tourism's youtube channel show you how it's done!

Interestingly there are still places outside of Kerala that have Chinese fishing nets, like in Vietnam, Cambodia, Siam, in a region interestingly once called Cochin-China! However, none of these aforementioned places have managed to imbibe these simple yet elegant structures into the weave of their region's identity..... essentially, these big 14th century-tech contraptions have found a new and permanent home! From China to Cochin-China, and finally, Cochin!