thumb|Kanchanaburi Province Thai Chinese
The Thai Chinese are an overseas Chinese community who live in Thailand. Official statistics show that six million people in 1987, or about 14% of Thailand's population claim to be of Chinese ethnicity. Extensive intermarriages with the Thais, especially in the past has resulted in many people who claim Chinese ethnicity with Thai ancestry, or mixed. People of Chinese descent are concentrated in the coastal areas of Thailand, principally Bangkok. They are well-represented in all levels of Thai society and play a leading role in business and politics.

Slightly more than half of the ethnic Chinese population in Thailand trace their ancestry to the Chaozhou prefecture in northern Guangdong. 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.

Most ethnic Chinese in Thailand are proficient in the Thai language, and a large number are also conversant in Chinese with varying degrees of fluency. In general, ethnic Chinese use Thai as a working language, while Chinese is spoken at home and with relatives. Assimilated Thais of Chinese ancestry, on the other hand, have since used Thai in everyday life and are much less adept in Chinese. The Teochew dialect of Chinese is used as a commercial lingua franca among the Chinese business circles, principally in Bangkok.

The proficiency of the Thai language among the ethnic Chinese is attributed to the fact that Thai is a compulsory subject in all schools, while students from Chinese-medium schools are more proficient in Chinese than those from other schools in general. In recent years, many Chinese have also used Mandarin for communication among the Chinese in Thailand.

Religion

200px|right|thumb|Chinese temple in Bangkok
The 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 the 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 Muslim 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.

History

The history of Chinese immigration to Thailand dates back many centuries. Chinese traders in Thailand, mostly from Fujian and Guangdong, began arriving in Ayutthaya by at least the thirteenth century. According to the Chronicles of Ayutthaya, it was mentioned that 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 onwards, and Qianlong, the Emperor of Qing was alarmed by the Burmese military might. From 1766-1769, Qianlong sent his armies four times to subdue the Burmese, but all four invasions failed. Ayutthaya thus fell to the Burmese in 1767. The Chinese efforts diverted the attention of Burma's Siam army, General Taksin, who was the son of a Chinese immigrant, took advantage of the situation by organizing his force and attacking them. Taksin actively encouraged Chinese immigration and trade. Settlers principally from Chaozhou prefecture came in large numbers.

The Chinese population in Thailand jumped from 230,000 in 1825 to 792,000 by 1910. By 1932, approximately 12.2% of the population of Thailand was Chinese.

However, early Chinese immigration consisted almost entirely of Chinese men who married Thai women. Children of such intermarriages were aptly called Sino-Thai or known as Luk-jin (ลูกจีน) in Thai. This tradition of Chinese-Thai intermarriage declined when large numbers of Chinese women began to emigrate into Thailand in the early 20th century.
200px|right|thumb|Many Chinese in the past set up small enterprises so as to eke out a living as street vendors, a profession that was passed on until present day.
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 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 1800s, when Thailand was busy defending its independence from the colonial powers, Chinese bandits from Yunnan Province began raids into the country in the Haw wars (). Thai nationalist attitudes at all levels were accordingly colored by anti-Chinese sentiment. Members of the Chinese community had long dominated domestic commerce and had served as agents for the royal trade monopolies. With the rise of European economic influence, however, many Chinese shifted to the opium traffic and tax collecting, both of which were despised occupations. In addition, Chinese millers and rice traders were blamed for an economic recession that gripped Siam for nearly a decade after 1905. Accusations of bribery of 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.

By 1910, nearly 10 percent of Thailand's population was Chinese. Moreover, the new arrivals frequently came in families and resisted assimilation. Chinese nationalism, encouraged by Sun Yat-sen, the leader of the Chinese revolution, had also begun to develop, parallel with Thai nationalism. The Chinese community even supported a separate school system for its children.

Legislation by King Rama VI (1910-1925) that required the adoption of Thai surnames was largely directed at easing tensions with Chinese community by encouraging assimilation. Thai Chinese had to choose between forsaking their Chinese identity or being regarded as foreigners. Most opted to become Thai.

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. Ethnic Chinese families can be recognized by the shrines in their homes and shops, which are mostly located straight on the ground and painted in red, decorated with gold tinsel and small red lamps.

The Chinese in Thailand also suffered discrimination between the 1930s to 1950s under the military dictatorship of Prime Minister Plaek Pibulsonggram, (in spite of being part-Chinese himself). 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.

Nevertheless, the Chinese were still encouraged to become Thai citizens, and by 1970 it was estimated that more than 90 percent of the Chinese born in Thailand had done so. When diplomatic relations were established with China in the 1970s, resident Chinese not born in Thailand were offered the chance of becoming Thai citizens. The remaining permanent resident Chinese alien population was then estimated at less than 200,000.

Dialect groups

The vast majority of the Thai Chinese belong to various southern Chinese dialect groups. Of these, 56% are Teochew (also commonly spelled as Teochiu), 16% Hakka and 11% Hainanese. The Cantonese and Hokkien each constitute 7% of the Chinese population, and 3% belong to other Chinese dialect groups.

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

The Hokkiens constitute the largest dialect group among the Chinese in Songkhla and Phuket, while the Hakkas are mainly concentrated in Chiang Mai, Phuket, and Central Western provinces. The Hakka own many private banks in Thailand, notably Kasikorn Bank.

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 Guangdong (Teochew, Cantonese, Hainan, Hakka groups) and Fujian (Hokkien, Hakka). Among the ethnic Chinese, assimilation and adoption of Thai culture tends to take place among the Chinese who have a significant amount of Thai ancestry.

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

Substantial numbers of Chinese people of (mainly) Yunnanese descent can be found in villages around Chiang Rai Province. These are descendants of Kuomintang soldiers who fought against the Chinese Communist soldiers in the 1940s, before fleeing to the northern regions and settling among the local people. The Chinese Muslim community, also known as Haw or Hui settled in parts of northern Thailand during the years of the Panthay Rebellion, who eventually formed a distinct community in Chiangmai by the late 1890s.

Surnames

Thai Chinese can often be recognized by having a surname containing the original Chinese name or its translation. In former prime minister Banharn Silpa-Archa's name, Archa (horse) is the translation of the Chinese surname Ma (馬). Another example is Sondhi Limthongkul林, where Lim is the Hainanese pronunciation of the Chinese surname Lin (林). Many Thai Chinese adopted long surnames to mimic the royal names formerly given to high officials by the kings. Ethnic Thais tend to have shorter surnames, though many have now changed them to longer ones. Thai Chinese generally adopted Thai surnames to avoid persecution by assimilating into society. When choosing a surname, they would often combine auspicious Thai words with their original Chinese surname.

See also

• Overseas Chinese

• Yaowarat Road