Jeffery Sng.
The contribution to modern Thailand by Chinese immigrants of the last century is being celebrated in an exhibition that takes stock of the Sino-Siamese heritage, reports Jeffery Sng.
Wanglee family house
A timely exhibition on an oft-neglected period in our history opens on Wednesday at Central Chidlom. Exhibits at Sino-Siamese Heritage will include 19th-century Chinese ceramics, family photos, paintings, furniture, handicrafts, Chinese junk artifacts and other curiosities brought by early Chinese settlers to Siam. One of the highlights of this seven-day exhibition are priceless maps of old Siam from the collection of William Heinecke.
The inspiration for Sino-Siamese Heritage came from an earlier plan by Khunying Chamnongsri Rutnin to hold a cocktail party for the launch of her Duj Nava Klang Maha Samut ("Like a Boat in Mid-ocean"). The book traces the origins of a Sino-Siamese family, latterly known as the Wanglees, to trading expeditions between Siam and China in the mid-18th century. It is a revised and much expanded version of a funeral book (nangsue ngaan-sop) Chamnongsri prepared for private circulation following the death in an air crash in 1994 of her first cousin, Suwit Wanglee.
The history of the Wanglees in Siam began in the mid-1800s, when Suwit's ancestor made his first sea voyage to the Kingdom. Like many other successful Sino-Siamese emigrants, this man managed to build up a diversified business empire with interests in banking, insurance, trading, manufacturing and real estate. But the recent Asian economic crisis is the threatening to undo the vast commercial empires of embattled Sino-Siamese families, who are now being forced to seek foreign capital and public funds in order to recapitalise their battered business.
Prof Ammar Siamwalla once remarked before a gathering of Cornell and Stanford alumni that the last Asian economic crisis of the millennium might see the passing of a dynamic Sino-Siamese entrepreneurial clads which traditionally took risks to invest and create wealth. And his prediction would seem to be coming true. For, as we approach the close of the century, we are witnessing the apparent decline of an overseas Chinese-driven Thai capitalism which appears to be retreating before the forces of globalisation and run-away financial markets. (And let us, at thus juncture, spare a thought for these self-made entrepreneurs. For who will replace them, and with what consequences, is less clear.)
The story of these resourceful, hardworking emigrants, as told by this exhibition, is truly fascinating.
"Many of the early Sino-Siamese traders were quasi-officials. In the early 1800s the rice trade was a royal monopoly and only those who obtained royal concessions could engage in it," said social critic Sulak Sivaraksa (whose Chinese family name was Seow Su-lak).
"The Bisalputra family was given a concession to trade in rice on behalf of King Mongkut (Rama IV) who bestowed upon my family the title Phraya Bisal Supaphon," said Thanit Bisalputra. "My ancestors shipped rice to China and brought back Chinese ceramic ware to sell in Siam."
Many other prominent Chinese were given official titles during the reigns of Rama III and Rama IV. Sulak's maternal ancestors, the Goh family, migrated to Siam in the Third Reign III and became prominent in the reign of Rama IV. The most distinguished member of his family, Goh Mah Hua, was the first ethnic Chinese to buy a European rice mill.
"After the Sino-Siamese acquired the technology of rice milling, they ran the Europeans out of the business altogether which henceforth was dominated by the Chinese," said Sulak. Goh Mah Hua, a major player, exported rice to China and brought back gold to Siam. His descendants are still prominent in Bangkok's gold business today.
Chamnongsri's ancestors came to Siam much later than Sulak's and Thanit's. "My great-great-grandfather, Tan Suang Ee, made his first trip to Siam sometime in the mid-1800s," she said. "Apparently, he made many voyages to Siam but never settled here (he died in China). The first Wnaglee to set up permanent residence in Siam was his son, Tan Shou-huang, who arrived here in 1871, three years after Rama V succeeded to the throne.
"But it was not his decision; it was his father who decided that he should stay here," pointed out Chamnongsri, adding that Tan Suang Ee's other son was sent to live in Singapore. "At that time the Wanglees ran trading posts in Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Saigon."
Her forefathers lived in a very different era to those of Thanit and Sulak. The Bowring Treaty of 1850 had opened up the rice trade to commoners and Europeans. Thus the first Wnaglee came to Siam as a merchant and was able to engage freely in this lucrative business without the need to seek a royal sponsor.
In his Chinese Society in Thailand, GW Skinner points out that late-19th century Siam was a time of spectacular upward social mobility where rags-to-riches stories were more common among the Sino-Siamese than among European immigrants in America during the same period.
Tan Shou-huang
In her book, Chamnongsri describes her great- grandfather Tan Shou-huang as a wise, well-educated and polished man in contrast to his father, Tan Suang Ee, who was a rough, uneducated farmer and labourer. "Although, later in life he (Tan Suange Ee) came to own a shipping fleet it is unclear whether he first came to Thailand as a coolie or as a ship-owner."
Chamnongsri says that Tan Shouhuang made the voyage to Siam in a Chinese junk. But perhaps she is being romantic; her theory is disputed by other members of her family. For by 1870 the picturesque Chinese junk had already been rendered obsolete by the much bigger and faster four-rigged European sailing ships. And steamships were already making an appearance in China's seas by that time. But she sticks to her guns: "He did not embark from the larger port of Swatow but from Changlin, a smaller but very active commercial port which was celebrated for its junks."
Wanglee family house
"The Chinese-style Wanglee family house was built with roof tiles imported from China on the Thon Buri bank of the Chao Phya across from where Chinatown is located today. It was built by Tan Shou-huang although the title deeds are in the name of his son, Tan Lip Boey," said Chamnongsri. This apparent anomaly is explained by the fact that title deeds, as an instrument of property ownership, were only introduced here after Tan Shou-huang's death.
At the time Bangkok did not have a proper port (Klong Toey wasn't built until 1930) so merchants had to construct or rent jetties along the river for their ships. The Wanglees rented Huay Chun Long, a jetty owned by the Bisalputras who operated a large shipping fleet including a modern steamship. Huay Chun Long was conveniently located next to the Wanglee home so when the fortunes of the Bisalputras declined, the Wanglees took over the land.
"When I was still a boy I remember my family transferring the title deeds to the Wanglees," said Thanit Bisalputra.
The old Wanglee house is no longer lived in (it is only opened these days when the clan gathers to worship at the ancestral shire) but Chamnongsri still has many vivid memories of the childhood she spent there.
"I remember walking to our temple behind the old house. It had beautiful murals. Many of the family retainers lived in wooden houses on both sides of the broad square paved with roughly hewn granite slabs which led from the river up to our house.
"In 1995 I had the opportunity to visit the family's property in China when I was researching Suwit Wanglee's funeral book. The Wanglee houses in Choi Koi, near Changlin, were in a sad state of disrepair. The biggest one - the house of Tan Lip Thong - is so big that you could spend all day opening its many windows and still not be finished. It is a breathtakingly ambitious and beautiful piece of work. Everything was done by hand; each wooden step is a wood craving in itself. Even the roof tiles are ornate - they were hand - painted in Shanghai."
For all the stupendous work and human sacrifice that went into building it, Tan Lip Thong, the house was never occupied.
The project, started by his widow, took 10 years to complete. She was on the point of moving in when the Japanese occupied Nanking and the family had to flee. Today the house is used as a factory.
Chamnongsri's return to her ancestral village in China evoked a family tradition, discontinued only after World War II. Although Tan Shou-huang and his descendants settled in Siam, the connection with the Chinese fatherland was always maintained. But it was a male connection.
"It was a tradition to send the sons back to be educated in China," Chamningsri said, "after which they would be married off before returning to take their place in the family set-up in Siam. Subsequently, they could take Siamese wives. The Chinese wife never visited Siam and the Siamese wife was not allowed to travel to China."
Following the Chinese Revolution of 1911, women began to accompany their men to Siam, "The abolition of foot binding after 1911 had something to do with it," said Sulak.
On direct result of this was that fewer Chinese men took Siamese wives. And the growing influence of the Chinese wife was reflected in the displacement of Siamese cultural practices, like death rites. Up to then, the Sino-Siamese tended to cremate their dead, henceforth they would bury them - hence the proliferation of 'hong suiz ' or Chinese graveyards in Siam.
The participation of Chinese women coincided with the largest wave of Chinese migration to Siam between 1918 and 1930. Famine, war and social dislocation in China were the forces driving them to migrate. There was also a significantly higher proporting of peasants and labourers compared to the migratory pattern of the preceding century. "Whereas, the successful Sino-Siamese of the 19th century became tax farmers, titled aristocrats or named families, few of the Chinese migrants of this period became really prominent," said Sulak
Until the Fifth Reign there had been a reciprocal affinity between Siamese royalty and Chinese emigrants. The 19th-century Sino-Siamese identified with the aristocracy who in turn lavished titles and honours upon prominent members of that community. Under this benevolent protection the Chinese prospered commercially and enriched the cultural life of the Kingdom.
"The Chinese Pavilion presented to King Rama V for his summer palace at Bang Pa-in represents the highest cultural legacy of the Chinese community in Siam." said Sulak.
Chinese literature has also enriched Siamese culture life.
"The Chinese epic novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms (San Guo Yanyi) became part of Siamese heritage after its translation into Thai by a prominent Sino-Siamese poet, Chao Phraya Phra Klang Hon, who was also a statesman and minister of finance," said Sulak, adding, "Incidentally, all finance ministers during the reigns of Rama I, Rama II and Rama III were Chinese."
The ascension of King Rama VI to the throne, coupled with a growing Chinese consciousness following the 1911 revolution, marked the end of the honeymoon between the Chinese and the Siamese royalty.
An anti-Chinese backlash began. This lasted right through the first regime of Prime Minister Plaek Phibulsongkhram (1938-1944).
Then came the 1949 Communist revolution in China which put an end to all further Chinese migration to Siam, as well as effectively severing the connection between the Sino-Siamese ceased to regard themselves as Chinese nationals and began reconciling themselves to being Thai. Thailand was to become the country with the most assimilated entrepreneurial Chinese community in Southeast Asia.
However, the pendulum of Sino-Thai relations, in its most recent swing, is again tilting towards China with the signing on Friday of the Plan of Action for the 21st Century by Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan and his Chinese counterpart Tang Jiaxuan. Reminiscent era when the countries in China's sphere of influence paid tribute to her, the end of the millennium may find China attempting to reclaim her lost sphere of influence in Southeast Asia under the shadow of the devaluation of the yuan.
From: Sunday Focus, The Nation,February 7, 1999
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