World on Fire by Amy Chua

Author:Amy Chua [Chua, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, History & Theory, Political Ideologies, Democracy, Globalization, Social Science, Race & Ethnic Relations, Ethnic Studies, General
ISBN: 9781407058429
Google: CNo9Owu6-C8C
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2010-02-23T21:16:41+00:00

Thailand: An Exceptional Case?

A few years ago a graduate student named Kanchana came to my office to see if I would be willing to supervise a paper she wanted to write on legal protections for cultural artifacts taken from Thailand, her native country. After an interesting discussion about possible approaches to her paper, I asked Kanchana a question that, in retrospect, would probably be grounds for a lawsuit under today’s standards of political correctness—I asked whether she was an ethnic Chinese.

Kanchana’s reply: “But the Thai are Chinese.” She then instantly retreated: “Well—part Chinese. I have Chinese blood. Everyone in Thailand does. Well … almost everyone does.”

Thailand is a fascinating case. On the one hand, it shares with the other Southeast Asian countries the phenomenon of a wildly disproportionately wealthy, market-dominant Chinese minority. The Chinese in Thailand today, although just 10 percent of the population, control virtually all of the country’s largest banks and conglomerates. All of Thailand’s billionaires are ethnic Chinese. On the other hand, as Kanchana’s comments suggest, unlike elsewhere in Southeast Asia, the Chinese have assimilated quite successfully into Thailand, and there is relatively little anti-Chinese animus. In Thailand today, many Thai Chinese speak only Thai and consider themselves as Thai as their indigenous counterparts. Intermarriage rates between the Chinese and the indigenous majority (many of whom, at least in Bangkok, have some Chinese ancestry already) are much higher than elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Perhaps most strikingly, the country’s top political leaders, including a recent prime minister, are often of Chinese descent, although they usually have Thai-sounding surnames and speak little or no Chinese.

Although interethnic socializing and intermarriage may seem perfectly normal to Westerners, it bears emphasizing how markedly Thailand differs in this regard from her Southeast Asian neighbors. In Indonesia and Malaysia, for example, rates of intermarriage between the Chinese and the indigenous majority are close to zero. The Chinese in these countries remain a conspicuously insular minority, living, working, and socializing entirely separately from the indigenous majorities.

Many have speculated about the reasons for the starkly different rates of intermarriage and assimilation. According to one professor of law from Singapore, the main reason is the “pork factor.” “Indonesians and Malaysians are mostly Muslims,” he explains, “and they don’t eat pork. The Chinese love pork; they eat it all the time. And for Chinese, eating is a huge part of their lives. Thus, social interactions are impossible.” This professor was being facetious, but he is clearly right that religion has played an important role: Thailand is not Muslim but largely Buddhist, a cultural affinity that has made assimilation much easier for the Thai Chinese, many of whom adhere to a syncretic combination of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism.

In any event, despite the persisting, glaring market dominance of the Thai Chinese, there appears to be little anti-Chinese sentiment in Thailand today. To be sure, some ambivalence toward the Thai Chinese remains. Kanchana, for example, made some slightly contradictory remarks in our conversation. “All the gold shops are owned by rich Chinese—I mean, pure Chinese,” she said at one point.

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