Like so often, I’m sitting here in old town Bangkok, on the patio of Baan Dinso, an 88 year old colonial-style boutique hotel in my neighborhood, this time writing a blog entry about Yaowarat well at least that’s the initial idea before my writing flow has me drift away. So, what’s Yaowarat? Yaowarat is known to Thais as what we call “Chinatown”, so if you say Chinatown, many Bangkokians may ask:”What’s China Town?”
Yaowarat or Chinatown is known not only for being the largest Chinese community in Thailand (if not south-east Asia) but for all the goodies, food, buzz and cultural sights that one can enjoy as in most of the Chinatowns around the world. A fact that might be lesser known is that Bangkok’s Chinatown is the oldest Chinese community outside China and since it’s Chinese New Year today, what better day if not today to write about my favorite part of Bangkok and the Chinese in me?
Meet the dragon
Usually it would take a fire alarm, water sprinkler and thick smoke to get my brother out of his bed but this “morning” there was another way to shake him out of his sleep!! Setting off fire crackers in front of, next to and behind my apartment building (I’m glad that despite their fire-cracking-frenzy my neighbors spared the interior and the roof). It was a miracle that my brother didn’t scream: THE RUSSIANS ARE COMINGGG!!!
So that was the start signal to welcome “the year of the rabbit” and in Yaowarat the total firecracker inferno breaks loose, with the entire district decked out in red whilst dragons are dancing and parades are marching during two days of festival, religious worship, ancestry and family-time and thousands over thousands of Chinese, half-Chinese or quarter-Chinese stream into the 99 Chinese temples and shrines that you can find in Yaowarat or better say Samphanthawong (the name of the city district).
Yaowarat is the name of the main road that flows 1.5km through China Town like the body of a dragon and by that embracing the Feng Shui principle which apparently has brought great commercial success to the area since 1891 when the road was built. Well, actually the Chinese immigrants were already successful prior to that. Chinese have been here since the early Ayutthaya period around 12th to 13th centuries and they lived in a village call Baan Kok (here we got the root of the name Bangkok which was easier for western foreigners to pronounce) on the site where now the Grand Palace sits.
The real wave of immigration started in 1767 and with the founding of Bangkok as the capital in 1782 the Chinese were relocated to what is today’s Sampeng (a narrow market alleyway running parallel to Yaowarat) Hence Sampeng was the first main road of China town and thus the Chinese community began to sprawl from an area at least as old as the old historical center of Bangkok. With increasing trade between Siam and China as well as pressed hard by natural disaster and famine Chinese immigrant population reached roughly 30% of total city population by 1907 and controlling most of the trade. Many of the 1.3 million Chinese however settled along coastal towns such as Samut Sakhon and Samut Songkhram, intermarrying with locals and thus setting off a wave of “Luk Krueng Jin Thai” half Thai – half Chinese or at least a quarter or a third Chinese like myself, since my grandfather was a Chinese immigrant too. Whether he was Tai Chiaw, Cantonese, Hainanese, Hokian or Hakka or whether he came by boat or via land route will be something I have to find out but what all Chinese immigrants had in common was that not only were they Buddhists or Taoists but there was no “Hartz 4” awaiting them (the term for the generous German social security). They started their lives from scratch or, to use the Thai idiom from “one pillow and mattress” to now the dominant players in the Thai economy and for that matter in the economies of most Southeast Asian countries.
Now, I’m an immigrant as well, I’m not from China but from Germany but still besides German and Thai I also have Chinese ancestry. I did not fled famine everyone could tell right away from my shape and I did not arrive by steamship but I arrived by Emirates Flight EK 504 and I was driven by my passion for Thailand and the idea that my skills are of better use there. Instead of a pillow and mattress I had traveler’s checks and an MP3 player with me, yet l slept on a thin mattress and a pillow for the first 1.5 years with no more than a fan and a small table no AC or hot shower. My status is not tattooed on my wrist nor do I wear a token around it, I have no owner maybe only with the exception when I had a girlfriend and my status is definitely higher. I’ve brought my education with me and yet, the field in which I seek to realize my potential requires me to start from scratch and despite all boons and benefits of globalization, I’ve got to work hard if I want to stay here for good especially if you’re considering to have a family. So, work hard is no big deal for me, what else do I need? Spiritual support? Last year’s Year of the Tiger was a rollercoaster ride. It had the fierceness and force of a tiger with the country descending into chaos and with that my life as well. I’m not a Taoist, I’m a Buddhist and yet I’ll be going to the Chinese New Festival in Yaowarat, joining the full-,semi-,quarter Chinese in their blessings-seeking so to hopefully hop through a successful and fulfilling year of the rabbit with my “Chinese genes”, hard work and a bit of luck.
For further information on Yaowarat follow the bangkokvanguards blog or enjoy our picture sets and descriptions on Flickr or join me on Facebook for the latest from Bangkok.
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Btw. I’ve wondered why are many Chinese minorities so successful? Is it because of the “tiger mothers”? To see how Chinese mother prepare their kids read this article: Do you think it is better to raise kids that way?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html
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