ModernWorld~class: Migration of Chinese people to Thailand

Migration of Chinese people to Thailand

In Thailand, there are many people that actually are not Thai people who are still currently live in Thailand. Americans, Japanese, foreigners, but most of them are from China. We can see that some gold shop or even in the street or in the main shopping mall, there are Chinese people walking around. Many people who are not known of the Thai history may not know why so many Chinese came live in Thailand. Back then in the centuries, China has been trading with Thailand. Most of them are from Fujian and Guangdong. Both of them are in the south east of China which is near the ocean and makes trade and traveling a lot better. In the ancient time, not only that Thailand has been trading with China but also with Vietnam, Portugal, Spain, the Philippines, and Japanese as well.

China has been trading by first arrived at Ayutthaya in the thirteenth century. Most of them migrated to Thailand by using boats or ships. Some of them even got on the ship without paying the money. They came into Thailand with nothing, only their hardworking body. Some people might wonder why did they come even they have nothing? They also have reasons why they want to live in Thailand instead of China.

From what I’ve got from my research, in that time there was a corrupted of Qing Dynasty and the overpopulation problem or massive population increase in China. Taxes were highly increased, and jobs in China were harder to find. So most men were forced to leave their hometown to find works in order to feed themselves or feed their families. In 1825, Chinese populations in Thailand were 230,000. Then by 1932, Chinese population in Thailand dramatically increased like double to 792,000. That counts as 12.2%, the percentage of Chinese per total Thai population.

However, their population got decreased in the mean time. Between 1930s to 1950s, they were suffering discrimination under the military dictatorship Plaek Pibulsonggram. However, there are still Chinese people left today. In 1970s, they estimated that more than 90% of Chinese gain birth in Thailand also. They think that less than 200,000 people are the remains of Chinese people.

Many Chinese has come to Thailand to find jobs. Some of them succeed, and some of them not. Back then in the ancient time where it was the first time they came to Thailand. They have nothing, no money, or food, or even good clothes. It’s clearly shows us that they had been suffering from paying taxes or money problems in their countries, as I did mentioned in the paragraphs above.

They all start from those positions, the lowest one. As we know, Chinese lived in the hard and suffered environment which them or their habits to be a hardworking people. They started from physically working such as moving the crops that Thai people traded with China or any other countries, help with many things physically in the factory, but the main thing they do at first were using forces to carry something. They tried hard to gain more money, and finally become the owner of the job itself in the meantime. So many and more Chinese will come to Thailand in that time because many of them came here and find successful jobs.