Bangkok’s Chinatown, a treat for the intrepid

A series on Chinese immigration is part of this wall display at the Tri Mit Temple museum in Sampheng.By Peter JanssenWhen Bangkok’s Blue Line subway route is opened in 2016, the capital’s Chinatown district will get something it has lacked for the past 200 years — easy accessibility.“The main complaint we get from tourists is the traffic,” said Nuamsri Suksai, marketing manager of the Shanghai Mansion Hotel, a boutique hotel that opened on Yaowarat Road, the heart of Chinatown, six years ago.“If the subway opened a station around here, I think it would be much better for us,” she said. The hotel’s main guest markets now are British, French, Australian and American tourists.The Chinese, of whom some 2.7mn visited Thailand last year, are not so keen on Chinatown, known locally as Sampheng.“Perhaps it is too much like home for them,” Nuamsri said.They may not know what they are missing.Bangkok’s Chinatown is unique among overseas Chinese urban communities in that its origins precede the settlement of the indigenous population — the Siamese, or Thais — in the area.King Rama I, the first of the Chakri dynasty, decided to move his capital from Thonburi, on the western side of the Chao Phraya River, to the opposite bank in 1782, officially founding Bangkok.In doing so, he displaced a few thousand Chinese immigrants who had settled in what was thereafter called the Rattankosin area, now famed for tourist sites such as the Grand Palace and temple of the Emerald Buddha. The Chinese were resettled in Sampheng, just southeast of the palace walls.Bangkok had been a trading settlement for the Chinese community since the Ayutthaya period (1350-1767).When the city of Ayutthaya fell to the Burmese, the Thais fled southwards. At Thonburi, King Taksin (who reigned between 1767-1782) rallied his forces and eventually chased the Burmese away.Thailand’s two post-Ayutthaya kingdoms, Taksin’s Thonburi and the Chakri dynasty’s Bangkok, were closely tied to the Chinese from their beginnings, especially to Taechiu-dialect Chinese from Fujian province on China’s southern coastline.King Taksin was himself of Taechiu descent.“The prominence of the Taechiu started in the Thonburi period, because the Taechiu constituted Taksin’s navy,” said Supang Chantavanich, director of the Asian Research Centre for Migration at Chulalongkorn University. “They were good boat builders because they were seafarers,” she said. “The Taechiu were called the Chin Luang, or Royal Chinese, under Taksin’s reign.”The Taechiu were the main Chinese dialect-group in Sampheng, but it also attracted Cantonese, Hokkien and Hakka Chinese.Lots came. According to migration entry figures, some 3,518,600 Chinese arrived in Bangkok between 1882 and 1955.Bangkok also drew Burmese, Cambodians, Indians, Malays and Mon, many of them captives from foreign conquests. “At that time there were no restrictions on migration, because Siam was so underpopulated,” Suphang said. “Bangkok was already a kind of immigrant community.”Chinatown, situated near the royal palace, evolved from being the main port district to the business hub for the new capital.Puangpen Bonjuetkij, manager of Ia Sae Coffee Shop, says, “Our original customers were Chinese merchants who came to buy fresh produce at the Old Market. After they had made their purchases they would come have a coffee at Ia Sae.” The business, Bangkok’s first real coffee shop and now 86 years old, is a magnet for tourists seeking an authentic glimpse of that vanished world.  “Back then we opened at 4am. Now we open at 6am, because now there are a lot of fresh markets in Bangkok. The merchants now go elsewhere,” she said. There also now thousands of coffee shops, including Starbucks, of course.The business skills of the community created huge fortunes for the overseas Chinese, who were encouraged to take Thai nationality and surnames by a law passed in 1913.Most of Thailand’s most powerful business clans started in modest shops in Sampheng. At least eight of Thailand’s past prime ministers were of Chinese descent. As the capital spread eastwards, Sampheng’s importance as a business hub diminished. Not many wealthy Thai-Chinese live in Sampheng today.“Before there were only Chinese living here,” said Chaikit Tantikarn, deputy manager of the Tang Toh Kang Gold Shop founded by his great grandfather in 1875. “Now all the Chinese have moved out, but they keep their shops. It is too crowded to live here.”Luckily for the area’s historical preservation efforts, Thai-Chinese tend to keep their land in Chinatown. “The Chinese bought the land bit by bit, so there are many individual land owners, who own just a small plot,” said Yongtanit Pimonsathien, a consultant on preservation projects in the capital.“That’s why you can’t build a big shopping centre here. It’s very difficult to put a big plot of land together because the ownership pattern is very piecemeal,” he said.The lack of real estate development means that Bangkok’s Chinatown has retained many of its original buildings, temples and confusing alleyways, making it a bewildering challenge for most tourists. “Sampheng is hot and crowded, so you need to make yourself a good itinerary,” Suphang advised. — DPA1 Chaikit Tantikarn (centre), deputy manager of the Tang Toh Kang Gold Shop, which was founded by his great grandfather in 1875. “Before there were only Chinese living here,” he said. “Now all the Chinese have moved out, but they keep their shops.”