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“Page 33: Each of these associations is a distinct unit, each one pursues its own goals, but taken in their totality these associations direct the life of the community. These associations control business competition, regulate prices, mediate disputes, provide a system of social security, and act as intermediaries between the individual and the Thai government.”

Quote by Richard J. Coughlin

Book:Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand
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Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand

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Richard J. Coughlin

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“Page 35: There is one outstanding difference between these [Chinese associations in Thailand] and those found in the villages of South China. In China, family and kin groups were predominant, and in fact other groups tended to be relatively unimportant. Just the reverse is true in Bangkok. Here, family and kin groups are numerous but exert small influence on the direction of community affairs. The real locus of power lies with business groups and the regional or dialect associations, both of which are formed on non-kin lines.”

Ethnic ConflictOverseas Chinese
Book:Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand
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“Page 44: A Chinese immigrant arriving in Bangkok is assured of ready assistance from his dialect group, and this help is offered without question by people who speak his own language and know his needs. Through them, he is put in contact with relatives or persons from his own village in China. They see that he is housed and given work. Later the association stands always ready to give help when needed—to offer advice on sending remittances to China, to provide interpreters when dealing with officials, and to intercede when the immigrant runs afoul of the government’s red tape. Like the prototype institutions of China, the dialect association provides educational and medical facilities—more elaborate in fact than anything available in the rude villages of South China, and a continuing system of protective services in times of crisis or misfortune. In Thailand the individual Chinese who needs a loan, a job, or help of any kind will ordinarily appeal to his relatives first as he would in China. When these are unable to help, he can usually get assistance from his dialect association. While the type of problem brought to the attention of the dialect association may differ from problems faced in China, the fact remains that the association stands ready to help the individual Chinese in precisely the same manner and with the same spirit as he would expect from his clan group in China. Furthermore, just as everyone with the same surname and family origin was considered a member of the clan in China and therefore entitled to assistance from other members, so in Thailand all persons of a certain dialect groups are considered ipso facto members of the dialect association and thereby entitled to its full assistance.”

Ethnic ConflictOverseas Chinese
Book:Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand
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“Page 62: As an outgrowth of their mutual aid services, Chinese associations help to unify the Chinese population in the pursuit of common objectives; they stimulate ethnocentric sentiments among the Chinese. The Chinese minority in Thailand, like all complex societies, shows a great range of economic affluence, from persons of wealth down to those with very little and with little hope of getting much more. If the minority is to maintain its unity over a period of time, two things seem necessary: to devise a way to ‘spread the wealth’, so that economic differences are not continually intensified; and to encourage on the part of those with wealth an active interest in groups lower on the economic scale than they. … Significantly, one finds very little ‘class’ antagonism as such among Thailand’s Chinese, and despite the strong influence of communism among workers, no discernible resentment of the man of wealth or position.”

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Book:Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand
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“Page 48-49: In 1952, the government ordered the dissolution of the Central Labour Union, on the ground that the CLU was dominated by Chinese and run by Communists, and therefore could not adequately represent the interests of Thai labour. As noted above, the Central Labour Union was suspected of being dominated by Communists, but the latter did not show any unwillingness to co-operate fully with Chinese business interests.”

Ethnic ConflictOverseas Chinese
Book:Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand
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“Page 49-50: … more than 30 different trade guilds (kung-hui) flourish among Chinese merchants and professional men in Bangkok … Their importance lies in the assistance they render in the economic adjustment of the Chinese immigrants and in the continuing services of an economic nature they perform for members—circulating trade information, advising on economic trends and policies, hindering the development of unwanted competition. … Membership in these trade guilds is entirely Chinese, either immigrants or their immediate descendants. To become a member of a trade guild, one has first to be engaged in a particular type of business or profession; and secondly, one must be approved by the leaders of that particular guild. Both these provisions work to exclude Thai. An individual cannot ordinarily become a goldsmith, or vegetable merchant, or printer, or take up any of the other occupations represented by these guilds without first learning the trade. This apprenticeship system is controlled by Chinese organizations, open normally to other Chinese whatever their dialect group affiliation, but closed to outsiders, i.e., the Thai …”

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Book:Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand
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“Page 71-72: Many Chinese business men adopt Thai personal and family names, particularly when dealings with the government are anticipated—an application for an export permit, say, signed with a Chinese name may be rejected out of hand, or inordinately delayed, while the same application with a Thai name will receive better treatment. The new surnames adopted ordinarily incorporate the Chinese family name, thus ‘Chang’ becomes ‘Changtrakul’, and ‘Hoon’ becomes ‘Hoonthrarasmi’, but this fact is no handicap to their use for all official purposes. The changes cited above that occur in names seldom reach as far as the home. Thai personal and family names by which individuals may be officially known are not used within the family group or even among close Chinese friends.”

Ethnic ConflictOverseas Chinese
Book:Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand
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“Page 77-76: Marriage with non-Chinese, and this usually means with Thai persons, is openly discouraged. In the past, however, there is reason to believe that intermarriage was fairly common, and many public figures, including every Thai monarch since the middle of the 19th century, were partly Chinese. …in urban centres like Bangkok, where the Chinese are concentrated, research by the author shows that intermarriage is a phenomenon of the past. … the trend toward a numerical equality between the sexes in the Chinese community helps to explain the decrease in intermarriage.”

Ethnic ConflictOverseas Chinese
Book:Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand
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“Page 81: The prejudices that exist are social and cultural [not racial], and of these there is no lack in either group. The Thai consider the Chinese uncouth because they are often loud and raucous in public, because they are noisy eaters, and have other food habits which the Thai deem very undesirable. They regard the Chinese as a dirty people who don’t bathe often, who neglect their personal appearance and befoul the areas in which they reside. To them, the Chinese are grasping, excessively materialistic, interested only in making money.”

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Book:Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand
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“Page 83: The Chinese hold equally strong prejudices about the Thai. With them, however, derogatory opinions are rarely expressed publicly, either in newspapers or by Chinese leaders. The typical Chinese meets any unpleasantness with a smile or a resigned shrug. Yet by associating with the Chinese one soon realizes the depth of their contempt and bitterness. The Thai are characterized as indolent if not outright lazy, untrustworthy, and slippery in business dealings. A Chinese merchant will rather employ an Indian as a watchman or chauffeur than hire a Thai. Almost universal is the belief among the Chinese immigrant group that Thai women are morally loose and therefore undesirable as wives. This is certainly an instance of a double standard for the signs of blatant promiscuity on the part of Chinese males are everywhere apparent. Scores of houses of prostitution are located in the Chinese districts of Bangkok, and virtually every Chinese hotel in the country doubles as a call house.”

Ethnic ConflictOverseas Chinese
Book:Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand
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