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Buddhism, Belonging and Detachment—Some Paradoxes of Chinese Ethnicity in Thailand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Stephen F. Tobias
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It can be argued that full assimilation of Chinese immigrants into an alien society has proceeded longer and on a larger scale in Thailand than anywhere else. It was Chinese potters who built the first kilns at Sukhothai and Sawankhalok; Thai tradition says that King Ram Kamhaeng, who threw off Khmer domination and invented the Thai script, personally went to China to bring back five hundred artisans. And Chinese traders at Ayutthaya contributed decisively toward its becoming very large and very rich. Then, and later at Thonburi and Bangkok, Chinese skill and labor were crucial; successful immigrants were given great responsibilities and corresponding rewards as servants of the throne, and at all levels of the social scale were welcomed as husbands and sons-in-law. Though greatly altered by modern nationalisms on both sides, the mutual openness of Thai and Chinese has persisted, perhaps more strongly than contemporary observers have appreciated.

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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , February 1977 , pp. 303 - 326
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Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1977

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References

This essay, much revised from the original symposium paper, is an outgrowth of dissertation research in Thailand, 1968–70. My initial debts to teachers and friends are acknowledged in part in the dissertation, “Chinese Religion in a Thai Market Town” (Univ. of Chicago, 1973). Many of the issues raised here are treated there in more detail, though generally less clearly. It is impossible to acknowledge everyone I have learned from in the intervening years, but for specific help and stimulus to the revision I must thank Hiram Woodward, Jr. and Joshua Fishman. The research was conducted and the dissertation begun with the aid of a Foreign Area Fellowship; this revised essay was completed with the support of a Mellon Fellowship in Chinese Studies, following a year at the Institute for Advanced Study. For this extraordinarily generous continuing support I feel most grateful.

1 I rely heavily on Skinner, G. W., Chinese Society in Thailand: An Analytic History, Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1957Google Scholar, still the standard work in the field. Other major studies include Skinner's Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand, Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1958Google Scholar; Landon, Kenneth P., The Chinese in Thailand, New York: Institute for Pacific Relations, 1941Google Scholar; Coughlin, Richard, Double Identity: The Chinese in Modern Bangkok, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Univ. Press, 1960Google Scholar; and Punyodyana, Boonsanong, Chinese-Thai Differential Assimilation in Bangkok: An Exploratory Study, Ithaca: Cornell SE Asia Data Paper 79, 1971Google Scholar. Boonsanong's study is doubly notable as a systematic survey of attitudes and practices according to schedules designed and employed by Thai Chinese; on the first count alone it is unique. Works on Chinese in other countries are cited below. For an overview of the region, the standard is still Purcell, Victor, The Chinese in Southeast Asia, 2nd ed., rev., Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1965Google Scholar. See also Freedman, Maurice, “The Chinese in Southeast Asia, A Longer View,” in Tilman, Robert O. (ed.), Man, State, and Society in Southeast Asia, New York: Praeger, 1964Google Scholar.

2 Thai words have been transliterated according to the Haas system, except for those that have a conventional English spelling. Unless otherwise noted, all Chinese in the text is given in vernacular i.e., Teochiu), in my own rough translation; terms not in spoken context are in Mandarin (Wade-Giles).

3 Colonial Policy and Practice in the Far East, London: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1948Google Scholar.

4 Implications of colonial systems of racial stratification are neatly developed by Skinner, G. W. in “Chance and Persistence in Chinese Culture Overseas: A Comparison of Thailand and Java,” Journal of the South Seas Society, XVI (1960), pp. 86–100Google Scholar.

5 Some sociological works markedly influenced by Skinner's include Willmott, William, The Chinese in Cambodia, Vancouver: Univ. of British Columbia Press, 1967Google Scholar, and The Political Structure of the Chinese Community in Cambodia, London: Athlone, 1968Google Scholar; Willmott, Donald, The Chinese of Semarang, Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1960Google Scholar; Amyot, Jacques, The Manila Chinese, Manila: IPC/Ateneo, 1973 (offset ed.: Univ. of Chicago, 1960)Google Scholar; Wickberg, Edgar, The Chinese in Philippine Life, 1850–1898, New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1965Google Scholar.

6 Skinner, History, p. 382.

7 Ibid, pp. 360–65; Skinner, Leadership, passim; Riggs, Fred, Thailand: The Modernization of a Bu- reaucratic Polity, Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1957, chs. 5–7Google Scholar; also, steady reporting for more than two decades in the Far Eastern Economic Re- view.

8 I do not know of any systematic data on this point, but it is an impressionistic commonplace among faculty and students. The assimilating influence of Thai education has been specially studied by Alan Guskin, “Thai Education as a Factor in the Assimilation of Chinese in Bangkok,” Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Michigan, 1965; Boonsanong (n. 1 above), passim.

9 Skinner, History, pp. 129–30.

10 Rich data on the society, economy, and folklore of Ayutthaya city and environs are available in a product of team research led by Dr. Jacques Amyot of Chulalongkorn University: Raajngaan buang ton kaan wicaj Ajutthaya (“Preliminary report on research in Ayutthaya”; most papers are in Thai/with English summaries), Bangkok: Social Science Review, special CUSSRI number, July 1971. My preliminary report on the Chinese community, made with the able help of four students from Chula and Thammasat, is included.

11 One brief but fascinating recent report on ethnic relations in the South emphasizes the mediating functions of Chinese entrepreneurs and managers as between Thai officials and Malay peasants and laborers. The implication is that—almost as in a colonial society—a separate Chinese identity may pass from generation to generation because of the special advantages of the mediating niche; E. and Tugby, D., “Intercultural Mediation in South Thai land,” in Chapman, E. C. and Ho, Robert (eds.), Studies in Contemporary Thailand, Canberra: Research School of Pacific Studies, Human Geography 8 (1973), pp. 273–94Google Scholar.

12 On anthropology as a study of “cases” in this sense, I owe most to Clifford Geertz; see “Thick Description” in his book of essays The Inter-pretation of Cultures, New York: Basic Books, 1972Google Scholar.

13 One of the best discussions is found in Kung-ch'üan, Hsiao, Rural China: Imperial Control in the 19th Century, Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1960, pp. 275–81Google Scholar.

14 The old masters included William Graham Sumner, W. I. Thomas, Florian Znaniecki, and Robert Park. The new wave has no masters, but senior scholars appear in the new journal Ethnicity, and in an anthology of new papers, also called Ethnicity, Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1975Google Scholar, edited by Nathan Glazer and Daniel Moynihan. For a more componential approach see LeVine, Robert & Campbell, D. G. (eds.), Ethnocentrism, Theories of Conflict, Ethnic Attitudes and Group Behavior, New York: Wiley, 1971Google Scholar.

15 Barth, Fredrik (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, Boston: Little, Brown, 1969Google Scholar.

16 This formulation recalls David Schneider's “diffuse and enduring solidarity,” which first got me thinking about ethnicity as an academic subject. The locus classicus is his American Kinship: a Cultural Account, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968Google Scholar. Stimulation on the themes of responsibility and ritual in the Chinese context came from Fingarette, Herbert, Confucius: The Secular as Sacred, New York: Harper and Row, 1972Google Scholar.

17 de Glopper, Donald, “Doing Business in Lukang” in Willmott, William (ed.), Economic Organization in Chinese Society, Palo Alto: Stanford Univ. Press, 1972, pp. 297–326Google Scholar.

18 In a field difficult to survey because Chinese are counted in different ways for different purposes (and because, like others new to social science, they do not much like being counted), we might still hope for systematic data in this area. My own data are again impressionistic, and Boonsanong's do not include breakdowns by sex in the relevant sections.

19 The locus dassicus is Leach, E. R., “Structural Implications of Matrilateral Cross-cousin Marriage” in his Rethinking Anthropology, London: Athlone, 1961Google Scholar.

20 A controversy on this point appears in Wolf, A. P. (ed.), Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, Palo Alto: Stanford Univ. Press, 1974Google Scholar; see Wolfs introduction and Emily Ahern's paper, “Affines and the Rituals of Kinship,” pp. 279–308.

21 On Malaya, see Edmonds, Juliet, “Religion, Intermarriage and Assimilation: the Chinese in Malaysia,” Race. X, 1 (1968), pp. 57–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Java, Thé Giap, Siauw, “Group Conflict in a Plural Society,” Revue du Sudest Asiatique, I (1966), pp. 1—31Google Scholar.

22 For divergent uses of Islam in Java and Morocco, see Geertz, Clifford, Islam Observed, New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1968Google Scholar.

23 Amyot (n. 5 above), p. 82.

24 This problem faces all observers of religion in society. Those who deal with it in respect to Buddhism in Southeast Asia are fairly diverse in their approaches. For a position sympathetic to mine, see Tambiah, S. J., “Persistence and Transformation of Tradition in Southeast Asia, with Special Reference to Thailand,” in Eisenstadt, S. N. (ed.), Post-Traditional Societies, (sp.) Daedalus, CII, Winter 1973Google Scholar.

25 It is interesting that after many years of study we still feel obliged to repeat the same warnings in the same words. For an up-to-date citation of t h e perennial wisdom, see Wolf (n. 20 above), p. vii.

26 A brief account by a devout Buddhist scholar long resident in Bangkok is Blofeld, John, “Chinese Buddhism,” Visakha Puja, Bangkok: Thai Buddhist Association, 1971, pp. 47–57Google Scholar.

27 Welch, Holmes, The Practice of Chinese Buddhism, Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1967Google Scholar.

28 Galaska, Chester, “Continuity and Change in Dalat Phlu,” Ph.D. diss., Syracuse Univ., 1969, passim; Coughlin (n. 1 above), p. 105Google Scholar.

29 Here and to the end of this paragraph, compare Boonsanong (n. 1 above), ch. 4.

30 A particularly original and charismatic figure has been Buddhadasa Bhikku, much of whose writing has been translated; see Swearer, Donald K. ed.), Toward the Truth: Buddhadasa, Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971Google Scholar.

31 Ming writings about Cheng Ho are substantial, and the secondary literature is a minor industry. Fortunately, it is conveniently condensed in an essay by Kuei-sheng, Chang for the Ming Biographical Dictiomtry, ed. by Goodrich, L. C. and Chaoying, Fang, New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1976, pp. 194–200Google Scholar, with extensive bibliography. Unless otherwise cited, material about Cheng Ho is drawn from here.

San-pao Kung, as a Chinese-style worthy rather than a Thai-style Buddha, is also said to be worshiped in Singapore, Muar, Malacca, Sarawak, Semarang (named after him), and in Thailand at Nakhon Sri Thammarat. The same reporter adds that Pen-t'ou Kung, in the Philippines, is said to have sailed as a seaman with San-pao Kung's expeditions. See Stevens, Keith, “Three Chinese Deities,” Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, XII (1972), pp. 193–95Google Scholar. There is reason to think that San-pao Kung is also known in much of South China, but I have not yet looked for him there.

32 Skinner, History, p. 130.

33 Early Thai source materials and events are carefully discussed by Prince Damrong Rajanuphab, a major figure in the modern reorganization of Thai government and the leading Thai historical scholar of his time. Translated writings include “The Story of the Records of Siamese History” Journal of the Siam Society, XI, 2 (1915), pp. 1–21Google Scholar; “Siamese History prior to the Founding of Ayutthaya,” JSS, XIII, 2 (1919), pp. 1–66Google Scholar.

34 Anonymous, Pruwaad wad phanan choeng, Bangkok, 1937; 5th ed., 1962Google Scholar.

35 Prince Damrong (n. 33 above), p. 3. A similar evaluation but less precise notice is in the preface to a French translation, with chapters rearranged to fit the translator's idea of correct chronology. I have relied on this work as an aid to reading the original; Notton, Camille, Legendes sur le Siam et le Cambodge, Bangkok: Assumption Press, 1939Google Scholar. The story of King Honey-flow is translated at pp. 61–68.

36 Ibid., p. 64, cites the contemporary observer de la Loubere, Du Royaume de Siam, vol. I, p. 205. Compare Brian Foster on the presently surviving Mon population in the Central Plain; “Ethnicity and Commerce,” American Ethnologist, I (1974), pp. 437–48Google Scholar.

37 Translated in Notton (n. 35 above), pp. 13–17.

38 For Yüan and Ming relations with Siam, I relied, unless otherwise noted, on Gung-wu, Wang, “Early Ming Relations with Southeast Asia: A Background Essay” in Fairbank, J. K. (ed.), The Chinese World Order, Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1968, pp. 34–62Google Scholar.

39 Van Vliet, Jeremias, Description of the Kingdom of Siam, Ravenswaay, L. F. (tr.), JJS, VII, 1 (1910), pp. 6–8Google Scholar.

40 Notton (n. 35 above), pp. 3–12.

41 Prince Damrong (n. 33 above), p. 27; his identification of the text as part of the “T'ang Annals” is at p. 21.

42 Hsin T'ang Shu, ch. 222 (“Nan-chao liehchuan”), p. 6b. The substance of the chapter is presented in detail by Parker, E. H. in The China Review (Shanghai), XIX (1891), pp. 72–106Google Scholar; the passage cited is at the end of Parker's narrative.

43 Discussion by anthropologists on this topic is extensive. The seminal paper is Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., “The Mother's Brother in South Africa,” (1924), reprinted in his Structure and Function in Primitive Society, New York: Free Press, 1952Google Scholar. On joking relations as alliance see James Freedman, “Joking Relationships Reconsidered,” read at the American Ethnological Society meeting, 1972.

44 See especially American Kinship (n. 16 above), ch. 1; and “What is Kinship All About?” in Reining, Priscilia (ed.), Kinship Studies in the Morgan Centennial Year. Washington, D.C.: Anthropological Society of Washington, 1972CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Especially in Homo Hierarchical, Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1970Google Scholar, ch. 1.

46 “Thick Description” (n. 12 above).

47 Fitzgerald, Stephen, China and the Overseas Chinese, a Study of Peking's Changing Policies, 1949–1970. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1972Google Scholar.