Chinese Settlers and Their Role in

Modern Thailand

Amara Pongsapich Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

This paper attempts to analyse the status of the Chinese in Thailand, from sojourners or temporary migrants to middlemen or marginal Sino-Thai settlers, and finally, to participants in the present multinational capitalistic system. The relationship between the Chinese and the Thais gradually shifted from exclusion of the Chinese from the Thai social structure in the early Bangkok period to inclusion via the process of intermarriage and incorporation of the Chinese in the Thai school system and government offices which were traditionally predominated by Thais only. When mainland China was closed off from the rest of the world after World War II, the Chinese in Thailand were suspected of adhering to the communist ideology. But when China opened up the country to welcome the capitalistic economic system, the Thai government became confident that the Chinese in Thailand had abandoned the communist ideology and that there was no reason to doubt the Chinese loyalty to their host country.

Traditional Thai Buddhist values and ideology

The study of values is made difficult because of the lack of agreement on an appropriate methodology to study value systems, and the ambiguity of the concept itself. The concept of "values" is related to other concepts such as "world view" and "ideology". World view is the cognition and perception of the world surrounding a person, while values constitute the evaluative aspect, concerned with judging situational elements in terms of some value standard of the society. "Ideology" is the value standard of society which has been accepted at the superstructural level as the guiding principle to be adopted and followed. In a collection of papers entitled Traditional and Changing Thai World View which was issued by CUSRI in 1985, Buddhist beliefs and traditions are identified as being the basis for many Thai beliefs and practices. The collection discusses the impact of doctrinal Buddhist teaching, and of popular Buddhist beliefs and practices, on certain aspects of the Thai social order. Manifestations of the Thai world view are seen in areas such as social hierarchy, bun and bap (merit and demerit), bun khun (favour rendered establishing an obligation of gratitude), etc. Other papers of a more contemporary nature describe the contemporary world view and value system as reflected in folk songs, games, movies, and short stories. These, as well as papers reporting on more formal research, show that while the more

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traditional values, essential for maintaining the social order, are still stable, changes are occurring, more noticeably among the urban Thai. The man-to-man world view seems to be one of harmonious co-existence. It is combined with the pragmatism of adaptability and flexibility. Traditionally, Buddhism has been treated as the national religion or ideology of Thailand. In his article "Civic Religion and National Community in Thailand", Frank Reynolds draws on the concept of "civil religion" coined by Jean Jacques Rousseau in the eighteenth century and taken up again by Robert Bellah in his analysis of civil religion in America. Coleman defined civil religion as "a special case of the religious symbol system designed to perform a differentiated function which is the unique province of neither church nor state. It is a set of symbolic forms and acts which relate man as citizen and his society in world history to the ultimate conditions of his existence" (Reynolds, 1977). Based on Coleman's definition, Reynolds describes how Buddhist religious beliefs and symbols have been used by the state either to provide legitimacy for itself, or as a mechanism to deliver certain messages. Specific forms of religion associated with the life of the national community were in - evidence both during the monarchic period during King Taksin's reign in the early - Bangkok period, up until the reign of King Rama VI and after 1932, when Thailand adopted the democratic political system with the king as head of state. (Reynolds, 1977:275-276). Reynolds further states that in the past, the established form of Thai civic religion has proved to be a deeply rooted and highly resilient tradition that has both influenced and adapted to the various crises in the life of the national community. Today, the resources and vitality of this tradition are being integrated into the life of the national community and are being tested in a variety of ways. The nation's success in these areas will depend on the dedication and creativity of those who are responsible for nurturing and adapting the symbols, activities, and institutions that constitute the specifically religious dimension of Thai national life. Many scholars who studied the function of Buddhism in Thailand have proposed that Thai society and the Thai social order should be seen as having a religious base. Hanks (1962, 1975), for example, believes that "the essence of Thai world view is a cosmic hierarchy whose levels are defined in terms of "merit" (bun) and "demerit" (bap). He sees patron-clientage as the main relationship in Thai society manifested in many traditional relations. Akin Rabibhadana's work (1969,1975) brought the patron- client concept to full discussion. The concept was further reviewed by Jeremy Kemp (1980, 1982), Ammar Siamwala (1980), and by Akin Rabibhadana himself (1982). The patron-client relationship as a principle of social structure may have had Buddhist support in the past, but with the introduction of a new national development concept, although the relationship remained operational, it was without the implication of a Buddhist religious base. What one sees emerging at the superstructural state level is another national ideology which would function as a factor unifying people of the country. The role of the national development plan introduced by the government has been to present new developmental concepts, mostly capitalistic in nature. While the poor farmers still have difficulty interpreting and accepting the new ideology, the upper- and middle-class people have been able to make adjustments reasonably well. The hypothesis proposed here is that in Thailand, at this point in time, the new capitalistic