Assimilation of Chinese into Thai society has resulted both from the relative absence of barriers to intermarriage and sharing Buddhism as a common religion and from government policy, which since 1948 has restricted Chinese-language instruction in formerly Chinese-medium educational institutions. An estimated 80 percent of Chinese Thai spoke Thai at home in the 1990s. The percentage is probably a lot higher now. [Source: Jean DeBernardi,“Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 5: East/Southeast Asia:” edited by Paul Hockings, 1993]
Because of severe restrictions on Chinese immigration that were put into effect in the early 1950s, the great majority of Thailand’s Chinese in the late 1980s had been born in Thailand. Not only did most Chinese speak Thai, many also acquired Thai names (in addition to their Chinese ones) and were Mahayana Buddhists (one of the major schools of Buddhism, active in China, Japan, Korea, and Nepal). Although many Thai resented the significant role the Chinese played in commerce and envied their wealth, the Thai also admired Chinese industriousness and business acumen, a pattern common elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
Except for a minority, the Chinese not only were Thai nationals but also had, in some respects at least, assimilated into Thai society; many spoke Thai as well as they spoke Chinese. Most of the descendants of pretwentieth-century immigrants and those people of mixed Chinese-Thai ancestry (the so-called Sino-Thai) were so fully integrated into Thai society that they were not included in the Chinese population estimates. “Sino-Thai” maintained distinctively Chinese cultural practices while adopting the Thai language and Thai names.
Assimilation has been easier for Chinese in Thailand—where the people speak a language somewhat related to Chinese, practice Buddhism and there are many Chinese influences in the culture—than elsewhere in Southeast Asia. In Thailand, many Chinese have taken Thai names. Assimilation has been a continuing process. Chinese were encouraged to become Thai citizens, and in 1970 it was estimated that more than 90 percent of the Chinese born in Thailand had done so. When diplomatic relations were established with China in the 1970s, resident Chinese not born in Thailand had the option of becoming Thai citizens; the remaining permanent Chinese alien population was estimated at fewer than 200,000.
In the 1980s, when China began to emerged as an economic power, being Thai Chinese became kind of fashionable. Thai Chinese were instrumental in forming close relations with China. There was a re-emergence of Chinese pride and more open expressions of Chineseness. Television dramas began touching on relations between Thais and Chinese. Men of Chinese decent became prime ministers and Miss Thailand began looking more like Chinese than Thai.
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