Thai Chinese

This article is about the ethnic minority in Thailand. For for the other Chinese ethnic subminority community in Thailand, see Chin Haw.

Thai of Chinese origin
华裔泰国人 or 華裔泰國人
ไทยเชื้อสายจีน

Visitors at Wat Mangkon Kamalawat, one of the most prominent Chinese Buddhist temples in Thailand
Total population
9,349,900 (est) 14 percent of the Thai population (2012) up to 26,000,000 Thais of at least partial Chinese descent (around 40 percent of the Thai population) (2012)
Regions with significant populations
Thailand Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai, Hat Yai, Songkhla
Languages
Thai, Southern Thai historically Southern Min (Teochew and Hokkien), Hainanese, Hakka and Cantonese
Religion
Predominantly Theravada Buddhism minorities Mahayana Buddhism, Chinese folk religion and Sunni Islam
Related ethnic groups
Thais Peranakan • Southern Chinese Overseas Chinese

Thai Chinese
Traditional Chinese	泰國華僑
Simplified Chinese	泰国华侨
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Tàiguó Huáqiáo Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Taaigwok Wàkìu
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	泰國華人
Simplified Chinese	泰国华人
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Tàiguó Huárén Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Taaigwok Wàyàn

Thai of Chinese origin, often called Thai Chinese, consist of Thai people of full or partial Chinese ancestry – particularly Han Chinese. Thailand is home to the largest overseas Chinese community in the world with a population of approximately nine million people, accounting for 14 percent of the Thai population as of 2012. It is also the oldest, most prominent, and best integrated overseas Chinese community. Slightly more than half of the ethnic Chinese population in Thailand trace their ancestry to eastern Guangdong Province. This is evidenced by the prevalence of the Minnan Chaozhou dialect among the Chinese in Thailand. A minority trace their ancestry to Hakka and Hainanese immigrants.

The Thai Chinese have been deeply ingrained into all elements of Thai society over the past 200 years. The present Thai royal family, the Chakri Dynasty, was founded by King Rama I who himself was partly Chinese. His predecessor, King Taksin of the Thonburi Dynasty, was the son of a Chinese immigrant from Guangdong Province and a Thai mother. With the highly successful integration of historic Chinese immigrant communities throughout Thailand, a significant number of Thai Chinese are the descendants of intermarriages between Chinese immigrants and native Thais. Many Thai Chinese have assimilated into Thai society and self-identify solely as Thai.

Thai Chinese are a well established middle class ethnic group and are well represented in all levels of Thai society. Thai Chinese also play a leading role in Thailand's business sector and dominate the Thai economy today. In addition, Thai Chinese have a strong presence in Thailand's political scene with most of Thailand's former Prime Ministers and the majority of parliament having at least some Chinese ancestry.

Demographics

Thailand has the largest overseas Chinese community in the world. Fourteen percent of Thailand's population is considered ethnic Chinese. One Thai academic of Chinese origin claims the share of those having at least partly Chinese ancestry is estimated at about 40 percent, but without an accurate census or nationwide DNA testing, there is no credible evidence to support this theory.

Identity

For assimilated second- and third-generation Thai Chinese and even some first-generation immigrants, it has remained principally a personal choice whether or not a Thai person of Chinese descent chooses to identify himself as ethnic Chinese. Nonetheless, nearly all Thai Chinese sole self-identify as Thai, due to their close integration and successful assimilation into Thai society.

History

Han Chinese traders, mostly from Fujian and Guangdong, began arriving in Ayutthaya by at least the 13th century. According to the Chronicles of Ayutthaya, King Ekathotsarot (r. 1605–1610) had been "concerned solely with ways of enriching his treasury," and was "greatly inclined toward strangers and foreign nations," especially Portugal, Spain, the Philippines, China, and Japan.

Ayutthaya was under almost constant Burmese threat from the 16th century onward, and the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty was alarmed by Burmese military might. From 1766-1769, the Qianlong Emperor sent his armies four times to subdue the Burmese, but the Sino-Burmese Wars ended in complete failure, and Ayutthaya fell in the Burmese–Siamese War (1765–1767). However, the Chinese efforts did divert the attention of Burma's Siam army. General Taksin, himself the son of a Chinese immigrant, took advantage of this to organize his force and attack the Burmese invaders. When he became king, Taksin actively encouraged Chinese immigration and trade. Settlers mainly from Chaozhou prefecture came to Siam in large numbers. Immigration continued over the following years, and the Chinese population in Thailand jumped from 230,000 in 1825 to 792,000 by 1910. By 1932, approximately 12.2 percent of the population of Thailand was Chinese.

The early Chinese immigration consisted almost entirely of men who did not bring women. Therefore, it became common for male Chinese immigrants to marry local Thai women. The children of such relationships were called Sino-Thai or luk-jin (ลูกจีน) in Thai. These Chinese-Thai intermarriages declined somewhat in the early 20th century, when significant numbers of Chinese women also began immigrating to Thailand.

The corruption of the Qing Dynasty and the massive population increase in China, along with very high taxes, caused many men to leave China for Thailand in search of work. If successful, they sent money back to their families in China. Many Chinese immigrants prospered under the "tax farming" system, whereby private individuals were sold the right to collect taxes at a price below the value of the tax revenues.

In the late 19th century, when Thailand was struggling to defend its independence from the colonial powers, Chinese bandits from Yunnan Province began making raids into the country in the Haw Wars (Thai: ปราบกบฏฮ่อ). Thai nationalist attitudes at all levels were thus colored by anti-Chinese sentiment. Members of the Chinese community had long dominated domestic commerce and had served as agents for royal trade monopolies. With the rise of European economic influence, however, many Chinese shifted to opium trafficking and tax collecting, both of which were despised occupations.

From 1882 to 1917, nearly 13,000 to 34,000 Chinese entered the country per year from southern China which was vulnerable to floods and drought, mostly settling in Bangkok and along the coast of the Gulf of Siam. They predominated in occupations requiring arduous labor, skills, or entrepreneurship. They worked as blacksmiths, railroad laborers, and rickshaw pullers. While most Thais were engaged in rice production, the Chinese brought new farming ideas and new methods to supply labor on its rubber plantations, both domestically and internationally. However, republican ideas brought by the Chinese were considered seditious by the Thai government. For example, a translation of Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People was banned under the Communism Act of 1933. The government had regulated Chinese schools even before compulsory education was established in the country, starting with the Private Schools Act of 1918. This act required all foreign teachers to pass a Thai language test, and for principals of all schools to implement standards set by the Thai Ministry of Education.

Legislation by King Rama VI (1910–1925) that required the adoption of Thai surnames was largely directed at the Chinese community as a number of ethnic Chinese families left Burma between 1930 and 1950 and settled in the Ratchaburi and Kanchanaburi Provinces of western Thailand. A few of the ethnic Chinese families in that area had already emigrated from Burma in the 19th century.

The Chinese in Thailand also suffered discrimination between the 1930s to 1950s under the military dictatorship of Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram (in spite of having part-Chinese ancestry himself), which allied itself with the Empire of Japan. The Primary Education Act of 1932 made the Thai language the compulsory medium of education, but as a result of protests from Thai Chinese, by 1939, students were allowed two hours per week of Mandarin instruction. State corporations took over commodities such as rice, tobacco, and petroleum, and Chinese businesses found themselves subject to a range of new taxes and controls. By 1970, more than 90 percent of the Chinese born in Thailand had abandoned Chinese citizenship and were granted Thai citizenship instead. In 1975, diplomatic relations were established with China.

Culture

Intermarriage with the Thais has resulted in many people who claim Thai ethnicity with Chinese ancestry, or mixed. People of Chinese descent are concentrated in the coastal areas of Thailand, principally Bangkok and Paknampho( Nakhonsawan ). Considerable segments of Thailand's economic, political, and academic elite are of Chinese descent.

Language

Due to their assimilation during the Red Scare period in the 1970s, nearly all ethnic Chinese in Thailand speak Thai exclusively. Only elderly Chinese immigrants still speak their native varieties of Chinese. In the modern Thai language there are many signs of Chinese influence. In the 2000 census, 231,350 identified as speakers of a variant of Chinese (Teochew, Hokkien, Hainanese, Cantonese, or Hakka). The Teochew dialect of Chinese has served as the language of Bangkok's influential Chinese merchants' circles since the foundation of the city in the 18th century. Today, businesses in Yaowarat Road and Charoen Krung Road in Bangkok's Samphanthawong District which constitute the city's "Chinatown" still feature bilingual signs in Chinese and Thai. A number of Chinese words have found their way into the Thai language, especially names of dishes and foodstuff, as well as basic numbers (such as those from "three" to "ten") and terms related to gambling. Chin Haw Chinese speak Southwestern Mandarin.

Many Thai Chinese families have their children learn Mandarin Chinese to reaffirm their ethnic Chinese identity as Mandarin has been increasingly the primary language of business for Overseas Chinese business communities. After decades of the Thai government suppressing their Chinese heritage, many Thai Chinese are sending their children to newly established Chinese language schools in hopes to take advantage of business opportunities in Mainland China. The rise of China's global economic prominence has prompted many Thai Chinese business families to see Mandarin as a beneficial asset in partaking in economic links and conducting business between Thailand and Mainland China.

Trade and industry

Main articles: Bamboo network and Economy of Thailand

Thai Chinese in the past set up small enterprises such as street vending to eke out a living, a humble profession passed on to the present day.

Like much of Southeast Asia, Thai Chinese dominate Thai commerce at every level of society. Entrepreneurial savvy Chinese have literally taken over Thailand's entire economy. Ethnic Chinese wield tremendous economic clout over their indigenous Thai majority counterparts and play a critical role in maintaining the country's economic vitality and prosperity. In Thailand, the economic power of the Chinese is far greater than that of their proportion in the population in addition to the Chinese being socioeconomically successful for hundreds of years than the indigenous host Thai population. With their powerful economic prominence, the Chinese virtually make up the country's entire wealthy elite. The development policy spearheaded by the Thai government has provided many business opportunities for the ethnic Chinese. A distinct Sino-Thai business community has emerged as the dominant economic group, controlling virtually all the major business sectors across the country. The modern Thai business sector is highly dependent on ethnic Chinese companies who control virtually all the country's banks and large conglomerates and their support is enhanced by the large presence of lawmakers and politicians whom are of at least part-Chinese themselves. The Thai Chinese, a disproportionate wealthy, market-dominant minority not only form a distinct ethnic community, they also form, by and large, an economically advantaged social class: the commercial middle and upper class” in contrast to the poorer indigenous Thai majority working and underclass.

British East India Company agent John Crawfurd used detailed company records kept on Prince of Wales's Island (present-day Penang) from 1815 to 1824 to report specifically on the economic aptitude of the 8,595 Chinese there as compared to others. He used the data to estimate the Chinese — about five-sixths of whom were unmarried men in the prime of life — "as equivalent to an ordinary population of above 37,000, and...to a numerical Malay population of more than 80,000!". He surmised this and other differences noted as providing, "a very just estimate of the comparative state of civilization among nations, or, which is the same thing, of the respective merits of their different social institutions." In 1879, the Chinese controlled all of the steam-powered rice mills, most of which were sold by the British. Most of the leading businessmen in Thailand were of Chinese extraction and accounted for a significant portion of the Thai upper class. Thai Chinese moneylenders wield considerable economic power over the poorer indigenous ethnic Thai peasants as accusations of bribery of government officials, wars between the Chinese secret societies, and use of violent tactics to collect taxes served to foster Thai resentment against the Chinese at a time when the community was expanding rapidly due to immigration. Chinese were also accused of producing poverty for the Thai peasant, charging astronomically high interest rates, when in reality, the Thai banking business was highly competitive. In addition, Chinese millers and rice traders were blamed for an economic recession that gripped Siam for nearly a decade after 1905. Large waves of Han Chinese immigration occurred in the nineteenth and early in the twentieth century, peaking in the 1920s from southern China who were eager to make mooney and return to their families. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Chinese would lose their control of foreign trade to the European colonial powers and began to act as compradores for Western trading houses. Ethnic Chinese also entered extraction intensive industries such as tin mining, teak-cutting, sawmilling, rice-miling, as well as the transportation sector through building ports and railways.

Bangkok continues to be Thailand's major financial district and business networking hub for Thai Chinese businessmen.

Mid-20th century Thailand was isolationist with its economy mired in state-owned enterprises. Over the next several decades, internationalization and capitalist market-oriented policies led to the dramatic emergence of a massive export-oriented, large-scale manufacturing sector, which in turn catapulted Thailand into joining the Tiger Cub Economies. Virtually all the industrial manufacturing and import-export shipping firms establishments including the auto manufacturing behemoth Siam Motors are Chinese controlled. In the years between World War I and World War II, Thailand's major exports, rice, tin, rubber, and timber were under Chinese control. Despite their small numbers as compared to the native Thai population, the Chinese have controlled virtually every line of business, ranging from small retail trade to large industries. Comprising merely ten per cent of the population, ethnic Chinese dominate over four-fifths of the country's vital rice, tin, rubber, and timber exports, and virtually the entire wholesale and retail trade. By 1924, ethnic Chinese controlled three of the nine sawmills in Bangkok. Market gardening, sugar production, and fish exporting was dominated by the Chinese. Despite British influence in the Thai economy in the 1890s, Chinese controlled 62 percent of import-export business and operated as agents for the British as well as their own. Virtually all of the new manufacturing establishments were Chinese controlled. Despite failed Thai affirmative action-based policies in the 1930s to economically empower the impoverished indigenous Thai majority, 70 percent of retailing outlets and 80 to 90 percent of rice mills were controlled by ethnic Chinese. A survey of Thailand's roughly seventy most powerful business groups found that all but three were owned by Thai Chinese. Although Bangkok has its own Chinatown, Chinese influence is much more pervasive and subtle throughout the city. The Chinese control more than 80 percent of companies listed on the Thai stock exchange. Kukrit Pramoj, the aristocratic former prime minister and distant relative of the royal family, once said that most Thais had a Chinese relative "hanging somewhere on their family tree." By the 1930s, the Thai Chinese minority dominated construction, industrial manufacturing, publishing, shipping, finance, commerce, and every industry in the country, minor, and major. Minor industries included food vending, salt, tobacco, port, and bird's nest concessions. Major industries included shipping, rice milling, tin manufacturing, rubber, teak, and petroleum. Furthermore, all the residential and commercial land in Central Siam were owned by Thai Chinese. 50 ethnic Chinese families controlled the country's entire business sectors equivalent to 81 to 90 percent of the overall market capitalization of the Thai economy with the remainder being either state owned and by a Thai Indian business family. Highly publicized profiles of wealthy Chinese entrepreneurs attracted great public interest and were used to illustrate the community's strong economic clout. More than 80 percent of the top 40 richest people in Thailand are Thai of full or partial Chinese descent. Thai Chinese entrepreneurs are influential in the real estate, agriculture, banking, and finance, and wholesale trading industries. Of the five billionaires in Thailand in the late-20th century, all were all ethnic Chinese or of partial Chinese descent. On 17 March 2012, Chaleo Yoovidhya, of humble Chinese origin, died while listed on Forbes list of billionaires as 205th in the world and 3rd in the nation, with an estimated net worth of US$5 billion.

From an economic standpoint, Thai Chinese are seen as a fraction of the wealth they have created and added to the host country's economy, and representing what the Chinese have spent on themselves and their families. In the late 1950s, ethnic Chinese comprised 70 percent of Bangkok's business owners and senior business managers and 90 percent of the shares in Thai corporations are said to be held by Thais of Chinese extraction. 90 percent of Thailand's industrial and commercial capital are also held by ethnic Chinese. Ninety percent of all investments in the industry and commercial sector and at least 50 percent of all investments in the banking and finance sectors is controlled by ethnic Chinese. Economic advantages would also persist as Thai Chinese controlled 80 to 90 percent of the rice mills, the largest enterprises in the nation. In 1890, despite British shipping domination in Bangkok, Chinese conducted 62 percent of the shipping sector, operating for agents for Western shipping firms as well as their own. They also dominated the rubber industry, market gardening, sugar production, and fish exporting sectors. In Bangkok, Thai Chinese dominate the entertainment and media industries, being the pioneers of Thailand's early publishing houses, newspapers, and film studios.

Thailand’s lack of an indigenous Thai commercial culture in the private sector is dominated entirely by Thai Chinese themselves. Of the 25 leading entrepreneurs in the Thai business sector, 23 are ethnic Chinese or of partial Chinese origin. Thai Chinese also comprise 96 percent of Thailand's 70 most powerful business groups with the remainder being the Thai Military Bank, the Crown Property Bureau, and a Thai-Indian business group. Family firms are extremely common in the Thai business sector as they are passed down from one generation to the next. Ninety percent of Thailand's manufacturing sector and 50 percent of Thailand's service sector is controlled by ethnic Chinese. According to a Financial Statistics of the 500 Largest Public Companies in Asia Controlled by Overseas Chinese in 1994 chart released by Singaporean sociologist Dr. Henry Yeung of the National University of Singapore, 39 companies were concentrated in Thailand with a market capitalization of US$35 billion and total assets of US$94 billion. In Thailand, ethnic Chinese control the nations four largest private banks, of which Bangkok Bank is the largest and most profitable private bank in addition to the Thai royal household being dependent on Chinese private equity capital and business expertise from these banks to fund and create more modern businesses. Thai Chinese also dominate the Thai telecommunications sector with well-known names such as the Shinawatra telecommunications group, Telcoms Asia, Jasmine, Ucom, and Samar. Thai Chinese businesses are part of the larger bamboo network, a network of overseas Chinese businesses operating in the markets of Southeast Asia that share common family, ethnic, language, and cultural ties. Following the 1997 Asian financial crisis, structural reforms imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Indonesia and Thailand led to the loss of many monopolistic positions long held by the ethnic Chinese business elite. Despite the financial and economic crisis, Thai Chinese are estimated to own 65 percent of the total banking assets, 60 percent of the national trade, 90 percent of all local investments in the commercial sector, 90 percent of all local investments in the manufacturing sector, and 50 percent of all local investments in the banking and financial services sector.

The Thai Chinese conglomerate CP Group is now one of the largest overseas investors in Mainland China today.

With the rise of China as a global economic power, Thai-Chinese businesses are now the largest investors in Mainland China among all overseas Chinese communities worldwide. The influx of Thai Chinese capital into Mainland China has led to a resurgence of Chinese cultural pride among the Thai Chinese community while concurrently pursuing new business opportunities while bringing their influx of foreign capital to create new jobs and economic niches on the Mainland. Many Thai Chinese have sent their children to newly established Chinese language schools, visiting China in record numbers, investing in China, and assuming Chinese surnames. An example is the Charoen Pokphand (CP Group), a Thai conglomerate claiming $9 billion in assets with US$25 billion in annual sales founded by the Thai-Chinese Chearavanont family is one of the most powerful conglomerate companies in the world today. It is currently the single largest foreign investor in China with over $1 billion USD invested with hundreds of businesses from agricultural food products, aquaculture, retail, leisure, industrial manufacturing and employing more than 150,000 people in China. It is known in China under well-known household names such as the "Chia Tai Group" and "Zheng Da Ji Tuan". CP Group also owns and operates Tesco Lotus, one of the largest foreign hypermarket operators with 74 stores and seven distribution centers throughout 30 cities across China. One of CP Group's flagship businesses in China is a US$400 million Super Brand Mall, the largest mall in Shanghai's exclusive Pudong business district. Reignwood Pine Valley, CP also controls Telecoms Asia, a joint venture with British Telecom since making its foray in the Thai telecommunications industry. China's most exclusive golf and country clubs, were established and owned by a Thai-Chinese business tycoon, Chanchai Rouyrungruen (operator of Red Bull drink business in China). It is cited as the most popular golf course in Asia. In 2008, Chanchai became the first owner of a business jet in Mainland China. Anand's Saha-Union, Thailand's leading industrial group, have so far invested over US$1.5 billion in China, and is operating more than 11 power plants in three of China's provinces. With over other 30 businesses in China, the company employs approximately 7,000 Chinese workers. Central Group, Thailand's largest operator of shopping centers (and owner of Italy's leading department store, La Rinascente) with US$3.5 billion in annual sales founded by a Thai-Chinese Chirathivat family, have recently opened three new large scale department stores in China.

As ethnic Chinese economic might grew, the indigenous Thai hill tribes and aborigines were gradually driven out into poorer land on the hills, on the rural outskirts of major Thai cities or into the mountains. The increased economic clout wielded by Thai Chinese has triggered distrust, resentment and Anti-Chinese sentiment among the poorer indigenous Thai majority, many whom engage in rural agrarian rice peasantry in a stark socioeconomic contrast to their modern, wealthier, and cosmopolitan middle class Chinese counterparts, who mainly engage in business, the skilled trades, or white collar professional occupations. During the early 20th-century, the Thai nationalist King Vajiravudh, also known as Rama VI wrote in his pamphlet The Jews of the East regarding his view of the Thai Chinese. Rama VI commented that the Thai Chinese were a "problem" for Thailand and compared the Thai Chinese to the Jews as a group of outsider aliens who are loyal to their own ethnic group than that of their own host country. He conjuring up a scapegoating image of successful Chinese businessmen gaining their success at the expense of indigenous Thais resulting many Thai politicians to have tempted to blame Thai Chinese businessmen for Thailand's economic difficulties. King Vajiravudh's pamphlet was immensely influential among elite Thais and quickly spread to ordinary Thais, who were then filled with suspicion and hostility towards the Chinese minority. The wealth disparity and abject poverty among the native ethnic Thai majority has resulted hostility blaming their extreme socioeconomic ills on the Chinese, especially Chinese moneylenders as "bloodsucking" exploitative debilitating shylocks. Beginning in the late 1930s and recommencing in the 1950s, the Thai government majority have dealt with this wealth disparity by pursuing a systematic and ruthless campaign of forced assimilation achieved through property confiscation, forced expropriation, coercive social policies, and draconian policies of anti-Chinese cultural suppression essentially destroying any trace of ethnic Han Chinese consciousness and identity. Thai Chinese became targets of state discrimination that gave affirmative action privileges to the indigenous Thai majority peoples first while imposing reverse discrimination against the Chinese minority to gain a supposed equal economic footing.

Religion

A Chinese temple in Bangkok

First-generation Chinese immigrants were followers of Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism. Theravada Buddhism has since become the religion of many ethnic Chinese in Thailand, especially among assimilated Chinese. Very often, many Chinese in Thailand combine practices of Chinese folk religion with Theravada Buddhism. Major Chinese festivals such as Chinese New Year, Mid-Autumn Festival and Qingming are widely celebrated, especially in Bangkok, Phuket, and other parts of Thailand where there are large Chinese populations.

The Chinese in Phuket are noted for their nine-day vegetarian festival between September and October. During the festive season, devotees will abstain from meat and mortification of the flesh by Chinese mediums are also commonly seen, and the rites and rituals seen are devoted to the veneration of Tua Pek Kong. Such idiosyncratic traditions were developed during the 19th century in Phuket by the local Chinese with influences from Thai culture.

In the north, there are some Chinese people who practice Islam. They belong to a group of Chinese people, known as Chin Ho. Most of the Chinese Muslims are descended from Hui people who live in Yunnan, China. There are currently seven Chinese mosques in Chiang Mai, one of them is Baan Haw Mosque, a well known mosque in the north.

Dialect groups

The vast majority of Thai Chinese belong to various southern Chinese dialect groups. Of these, 56 percent are Teochew (also commonly spelled as Teochiu), 16 percent Hakka and 11 percent Hainanese. The Cantonese and Hokkien each constitute seven percent of the Chinese population, and three percent belong to other Chinese dialect groups. A large number of Thai Chinese are the descendants of intermarriages between Chinese immigrants and Thais, while there are others who are of predominantly or solely of Chinese descent. People who are of mainly Chinese descent are descendants of immigrants who relocated to Thailand as well as other parts of Nanyang (the Chinese term for Southeast Asia used at the time) in the early to mid-20th century due to famine and civil war in the southern Chinese provinces of Hainan (Hainanese), Guangdong (Teochew, Cantonese and Hakka groups) and Fujian (Hokkien, Henghua, Hockchew and Hakka groups).

Teochew

The Teochews mainly settled near the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok. Many of them worked in government, while others were involved in trade. During the reign of King Taksin, some influential Teochew traders were granted certain privileges. These prominent traders were called "royal Chinese" (Jin-luang or จีนหลวง in Thai).

Hokkien, Hokchew and Peranakan

In the southern Thai provinces, notably the Chinese community in Phuket Province, the assimilated group is known as Peranakans or Phuket Baba. These people share a similar culture and identity with the Peranakan Chinese in neighboring Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia.

The Hokchew is minor community in Phuket. Ethnic Chinese in the Malay-dominated provinces in the south used Malay, rather than Thai as their lingua franca, and occasionally intermarry with the local Malays.

Hakka

Hakkas are mainly concentrated in Chiang Mai, Phuket, and central western provinces. The Hakka own many private banks in Thailand, notably Kasikorn Bank.

Linguistic concentrations

• Teochew
• Hokkien
• Cantonese
• Hakka
• Hainanese
• Hokchew

Surnames

Almost all Sino-Thais, especially those who came to Thailand before the 1920s, possess a Thai surname, as was required by King Rama VI in order for them to become Thai citizens. The few who retain native Chinese surnames are either recent immigrants or resident aliens.

Sino-Thai surnames are often distinct from those of the general population, with generally longer names mimicking those of high officials and upper-class Thais and with elements of these longer names retaining their original Chinese surname in translation or transliteration. For example, former Prime Minister Banharn Silpa-Archa's unusual Archa element is a translation into Thai of his family's former name Ma (trad. 馬, simp. 马, lit. "horse"). Similarly, the Lim in Sondhi Limthongkul's name is the Hainanese pronunciation of the name Lin (林). Or it may have been done for them. For an example, see the background of the Vejjajiva Palace name. Note that the latter-day Royal Thai General System of Transcription would transcribe it as "Wetchachiwa" and that the Sanskrit-derived name refers to "medical profession."

For immigrants who came between the 1920s and 1950s, it was common to simply prefix Sae- (from Chinese: 姓, "surname") to a transliteration of their name to form the new surname; Wanlop Saechio's last name thus derived from the Chinese 周 and Chanin Sae-ear's last name mean 杨. Sae is also used by Hmong people in Thailand.

Many Thai Chinese people who immigrated after the 1950s use their Chinese surname, without Sae-.

Prime Ministers of (partial) Chinese origin

• 
  Kon Hutasingha
• 
  Phot Phahonyothin
• 
  Plaek Phibunsongkhram
• 
  Thawan Thamrongnawasawat
• 
  Pote Sarasin
• 
  Thanin Kraivichien
• 
  Chatichai Choonhavan
• 
  Anand Panyarachun
• 
  Chuan Leekpai
• 
  Banharn Silpa-archa
• 
  Thaksin Shinawatra
• 
  Samak Sundaravej
• 
  Abhisit Vejjajiva
• 
  Yingluck Shinawatra

See also

• China–Thailand relations

Further reading

• Disaphol Chansiri (2008). "The Chinese Émigrés of Thailand in the Twentieth Century". Cambria PressTemplate:Inconsistent citations {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link)
• Supang Chantavanich (1997). Leo Suryadinata (ed.). From Siamese-Chinese to Chinese-Thai: Political Conditions and Identity Shifts among the Chinese in Thailand. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. pp. 232–259. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
• G. William Skinner (2008). "Chinese Society in Thailand: An Analytical History". Lightning SourceTemplate:Inconsistent citations {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link)
• Tong Chee Kiong; Chan Kwok Bun (eds.) (2001). Alternate Identities: The Chinese of Contemporary Thailand. Times Academic Press. ISBN 981-210-142-XTemplate:Inconsistent citations {{cite book}}: |author2= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link)
• Skinner, G. William. Chinese Society in Thailand, an Analytic History. Ithaca (Cornell University Press), 1957.
• Skinner, G. William. Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community in Thailand. Ithaca (Cornell University Press), 1958.
• Sng, Jeffery; Bisalputra, Pimpraphai (2015). A History of the Thai-Chinese. Editions Didier Millet. ISBN 978-981-4385-77-0.

External links

• Thai-Chinese chamber of commerce
• Thai Chinese.net
• Template:Th icon Thai Chinese.net

Associations

• The Chinese Association in Thailand (Chong Hua)
• Teochew Association of Thailand
• Hakka Association of Thailand
• Template:Th icon Thai Hainan Trade association of Thailand
• Fujian Association of Thailand

Miscellaneous

• Thai Chinese BBS
• Assessment for Chinese in Thailand
• Anti-Chinese Labor riot of 1924, & bottom of page, how Thai Army suppressed 1889 riot between Chinese triads Tang Kong Xi (Teochew) and Siew Li Kue (Fujian)
• Why do Thais have long surnames?