The Chinese Community in Chiang Mai

                                                                by Jim Goodman

gate to Chiang Mai's Chinatown

       Ethnic Chinese constitute the largest minority of Thailand’s population.  Though Chinese had always lived in Thailand as merchants in Ayutthaya, they began seriously migrating in the early 19^th century, after the establishment of the Chakri Dynasty.   At first, they moved mainly into the capital Bangkok and the cities on the east coast.  Chiang Mai may have had a few resident shopkeepers at that time but large-scale Chinese immigration to the northern city only got underway from about 1870, when the semi-autonomous state of Lanna was becoming more fully integrated with Siam.

Chinese shop in Kad Luang

       The first Chinese community was in Watgate, on the east bank of the Ping River, outside the city proper.  They later took up residence on the other side of the Ping River in what is today Warorot Market, or Kad Luang (Big Market in the Northern Thai dialect), as well as the lower part of Tha Pae Road.  It was a small and slow influx in the beginning, of pioneers from Southeast China originally, setting up shop-houses and angling to establish themselves as merchants.  A population count in 1884 put their numbers at around 2000.

       Most of them originated from Bangkok and spoke the Guangdong, Hokka and Teochow dialects of southeast China.  Others were Hui from Yunnan, Muslim Chinese who spike a Chinese dialect close to Mandarin.  They had fled the fierce reprisals of Qing Dynasty troops at the end of the Muslim Revolt (or Panthay Rebellion) in 1872.  Hui refugees from Yunnan settled downriver from Warorot, around what is now the upper end of the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar on Changklang Road.  They built a mosque on the first lane, renamed Halal Street today, which was long ago replaced by a modern building more in the Middle Eastern style.  Local Thais referred to them as Jin Haw.

Chinese gold shop in Warorot Market

       Over the next few decades, as Siam began reaching out to integrate economically and politically all parts of the country, one result was a movement of more Chinese to the north.  By 1919 Chiang Mai had 3600 Chinese residents.  The initial wave of Jin Haw had subsided, but non-Muslim Yunnanese were trickling in, eventually establishing a neighborhood around today’s Anusarn Market, a few blocks down from Halal Street.

       The bulk of the immigrants, however, came up from Bangkok.  They were an overflow of successful immigration to the capital, who moved north to cities like Tak, Lampang and Chiang Mai where there was less competition in their particular trade, profession or business.  As a newcomer community, one that relied on commerce rather than land for its maintenance, its success depended on the close bonds it knitted within itself.

Chinese temple near Muang Mai Market

       Chinese could plunge confidently into the adventure of relocation because they could count on the solidarity and assistance of already established, resident Chinese communities.  Moreover, they could also benefit from the extension of credit by their contacts back in Bangkok.  The attitude of the time (and conditions then) was that Chinese should help other Chinese to succeed.  It was good for the community.

       Based around Warorot Market, Chinese ensconced themselves as the principal merchants of the city.  They controlled the retail trade, money lending and the commercial river traffic.  At the dawn of the 20^th century Chiang Mai-Bangkok river commerce consisted of one thousand sampans annually, carrying two and a half tons of cargo.

Pung Tao Gong Chinese temple

       Chiang Mai exported animal hides and horns, lac dye, lard and teak logs.  From Bangkok it imported clothing, fabric, thread, matches, kerosene, soap and iron tools.  The balance of trade was always unfavorable to Chiang Mai.  The journey could take three weeks, though some only went as far as Nakhon Sawan and met cargo boats there coming up from Bangkok.

       Another occupation the Chinese got into in the late 19^th century was tax collector.   They could do this because the local autonomous government had a lot of powerful nobles who were responsible for tax collection in their spheres of influence.  Wealthy Chinese businessmen simply bribed the nobles to get the tax collection concessions.  In a particularly notorious case, a Chinese businessman named Teng Sophanodon, from the Kim Seng Lee Company, constructed a Bangkok palace for Lanna’s King Inthawichayanon, in return for the right to collect taxes on pigs, cattle, opium, tobacco, betel nuts and leaves and coconuts.

stone lion at Pung Tao Gong

making s lantern at Pung Tao Gong

       Sometimes the Lanna nobles agreed to the tax collection concession after accepting the bribe, but then changed their minds when a competitor offered a bigger bribe.  This led to lawsuits, aroused the attention of Bangkok and led to Rama V’s reforms of the whole tax collection system in Lanna, at the same time further reducing Lanna’s autonomous authority.  In 1899, resistance to the new system spawned a revolt in which animosity was particularly directed at Chinese tax collectors.  Subsequently, government tax collectors took over the job.

Warorot temple at New Year

       The nature of Chiang Mai commerce changed again in 1921 with the inauguration of the railroad link to Bangkok.  A highway followed a few years later.  Trains and trucks could now carry greater amounts of cargo much faster than boats and at a cheaper rate.  Chinese in Chiang Mai began consolidating control of all the import-export trade.  With greater contacts across the country and access to credit, the Chinese were able to displace the Shan, Burmese and Indian competition, who had no such advantages, and from 1932 began buying out their rivals.

       Foreign manufactured goods, primarily from Great Britain, but also from Germany and Japan, began flowing north.  With a dramatic expansion of rice farms throughout the north, rice became Chiang Mai’s principal export south.  Chinese traders were involved in every step of the production process.  They purchased the rice brought in by caravans from distant places.  They set up rice mills in and around the city.  They tendered high-interest loans to farmers and confiscated their lands if the farmer could not repay the loan.  They constructed irrigation canals and dikes and controlled the rice shipped to other parts of the country.

New Year--a time for serious selfie-examination

making noodles on Wichayanon Road

       Their rising prosperity encouraged other Chinese immigrants, who knew they would be accepted and assisted by the Chiang Mai Chinese community, as well as draw credit support from their connections in Bangkok.  When the Warorot area became congested, the Chinese community expanded north, past the Nakhon Ping Bridge to the Muang Mai market area, today mainly a food market, open all night.

Chinese specialities on Chang Moi Road

       While it was a very tight community, it did not remain a purely Chinese one.  The majority of the immigrants were male, so there was a shortage of ethnic Chinese brides.  Many of them took Thai wives, though in this highly patriarchal society their children identified as Chinese, even in later decades when they used the Thai language domestically more than one of the Chinese dialects.  The men of the Jin Haw community, augmented by ex-caravan members, sometimes married women of the Muslim Malay and Bengali communities, from colonial Malaysia and Burma, who began arriving in Chiang Mai in the early 20^th century.

       Now in the 21^st century the Chinese no longer control the Chiang Mai economy as extensively as they did in the past.  Yet they are still the most important players, expanding into real estate and banking in recent decades.  The Warorot and Muang Mai neighborhoods are still dominated by Thai-Chinese and the markets there are quite active, even with the modern competition of shopping malls and supermarkets. 

scribe writing messages to gods and ancestors

a well-known symbol of China

       A big, red wooden gate on Chiang Moi Road, about a block west of the Ping River, marks the entrance to Chiang Mai’s Chinatown, otherwise known as Warorot or Kad Luang.  Typical Chinese-style, curly-headed stone lions, like the kind commonly mounted in front of bank buildings, stand at the base on each side of the gate.   All kinds of shops and sidewalk stalls exist in this area, both inside and outside the covered markets, selling all kinds of products, including those traditionally marketed by Chinese merchants, like temple and festival decorations, herbal medicines and the numerous gold jewelry shops.

       On Kuangmane Road, the first lane to the right down Chang Moi Road after passing through the gate, stands the most venerable Chinese temple, a rather simple structure with yellow walls and tiled roofs, upturned at the corners in the typical Chinese style.  In more recent decades, Chinese residents have built two more temples in the Muang Mai area and quite a fancy one on the riverside road past the flower market.

stage performance on Kuangmane Road

singer in classical Chinese costume

       Called Pung Tao Gong, this is the moat outstanding Chinese temple in the Kad Luang area, with most of its buildings added in the 21^st century;  the gate, a two-tiered pavilion within and a seven-tiered pagoda with a ceramic vase on top.  Dragons flank the tops of the entry gate and pavilion, writhe around a tall pole in the courtyard and the pillars of the entrance gate and flank the way to the altar inside the main temple building.  The deities within are mostly Taoist ones but a small shrine to the right houses a Thai Buddha statue as well as a Chinese bodhisattva image.

       Besides new temples in Warorot and other sites, the other main development in the Chinese community this century has been an increasing ethnic awareness, resulting in a much more enthusiastic celebration of traditional Chinese holidays, Lunar New Year in particular.  Kad Luang holds three days of celebrations.  The streets are closed off to vehicular traffic and stalls go up all the way down Chang Moi road and on WIchayanon Road between the two covered markets of Warorot and Tonlamyai.

Chinese opera performance, 2014

       Red lanterns saturate the whole area, suspended above the streets, strung on poles, hanging in front of the temples and flanking food stalls in the streets.  Tables and chairs, set up in the middle of the street, provide convenient places to dine on the meals, drinks and snacks offered in the rows of stalls on either side.  A couple tables on Chang Moi Road are reserved for a checkers tournament.

       Besides the special foods, stalls also market clothing, lanterns, jewelry, handicrafts and dolls.  The red color also dominates the people’s clothing, from the red t-shirts worn by dragon dance teams and shop workers to the high-collared, side-fastened, red and gold Chinese dresses, with split sides, donned by the women.  There’s lots of selfie action these days by folks dressed in their festival best.

       Beyond shopping and eating, entertainment also draws people to Kad Luang.  Until a new coffee shop replaced it, a stage opposite Pung Tao Gong featured classical Chinese opera performances at night.  These have disappeared from the program, but in some years a small stage goes up at the end of Kuangmane Road to hold afternoon shows of classical dances and songs.  Temporary bamboo gates are also erected on this lane for the occasion.

Chinese opera character

pole-dancing, dragon-style

       At the corner of Chang Mai and Wichayanon Roads, during the festival a red stage becomes the venue for a beauty contest, with the competitors dressed in classical silk dresses and elaborate headdresses in the Qing Dynasty style.  Singers and dancers also perform here, but the show ends rather early the night before New Year as attention shifts to the dragon dances whirling around in the plaza in front of the stage.

       A dozen or so team members prop up each of the two dragons as they cavort in the street accompanied by two lions, one red, one yellow.  After this the lions perform separately and in the final act one of the dragons climbs a pole and spouts fireworks and flames from its mouth when it reaches the top.

lion dancer inside Warorot Market

       On New Year’s afternoon a dragon and the two lions emerge from a lane near the Kad Luang Gate and head for the market.  Their purpose is to collect donations from the shop and stall keepers, so they don’t perform any dance.  However, they enter the Warorot covered market and make a route through most of its lanes and even the dining area downstairs.  When they pause, people place money in the dragon’s mouth or tie banknotes to one of the strings making up its beard.  In return, the dragon master severs beard strings to give the donor as a souvenir.  The procession lasts two hours and makes numerous stops, especially at the gold shops.

       At night song and dance performances take place again on the stage.  One or two acrobatic acts or kungfu demonstrations might add variety to the stage entertainment, which is augmented in the evening by a burst of fireworks illuminating the sky behind the stage. 

       The day after New Year is more subdued.  The street stalls are still up and busy and some shows are on stage again after dark.  But many shops in the lanes close for the day for their proprietors and employees to spend time with their families.  New Year activities—renewing kinship ties, venerating gods and ancestors and putting their ethnic identity on display with decorations, dances and temple action—come to a close.  The rest of the year the Chinese community reverts to its principal pre-occupations of business and making money.

the dragon collecting donations inside Warorot Market

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Tuồng Theater: the Vietnamese Version of Chinese Opera

                                                               by Jim Goodman

tuồng actor, Hanoi theater

       In the thousand years before the 19^th century French conquest, Vietnamese culture developed three separate theatrical traditions.  Chèo, the oldest, originated in the villages and featured dramas mixed with social commentary.  Chèo drama won royal patronage as early as the 10^th century, when the capital was in Hoa Lư, and was just as popular at Court as in the countryside.  Its popularity and patronage continued through the Lỹ and Trần Dynasties.  The unique water-puppet tradition, also from the Red River Delta environment, developed soon after, with the first recorded performance in the 11^th century.

       Unlike the other two traditions, tuồng, the third, was not an indigenous creation, but a local version of Chinese opera.  This is not surprising, considering the heavy influence Chinese culture had on Vietnam, due both to China’s long occupation and administration of northern Vietnam and its proximity as a big prestigious neighbor.  The Vietnamese gradually adopted many aspects of Chinese culture, particularly Confucian norms in society and government, but for centuries remained content with their own forms of entertainment.  The incorporation of a local kind of Chinese opera was not something gradually accepted, like the usual cultural influences, but the result of an incident of war.  

tuồng drama, Hanoi theater

       In 1285 the state of Đai Việt fought against the second of three Mongol invasions that century.  The Vietnamese had defeated the Mongols in 1258, would eventually expel them again this year and then annihilate them on the third Mongol attempt in 1288.  Though they are called the Mongol Wars, not all the invading forces were Mongol.  Most officers were, and probably the cavalry, but the ranks included hundreds of thousands of Chinese conscripted for the campaigns. 

       Among the Chinese foot soldiers captured in 1285 was Li Yuanji.  His interrogators discovered that back in Beijing he was a famous opera star.  They presented him to the Trần Court, whose officials persuaded him to stay and introduce the genre.  (Even in times of war the Vietnamese were not adverse to Chinese cultural influence; only to its political control.)  Under the new name of Lý Nguyên Cát, he trained the Court’s actors in the principles of Chinese opera, which became known as tuồng theater in Vietnam. 

tuồng warrior

       It was very different from chẻo.  For one thing, it was sung all the way through, whereas chèo then was a spoken drama.  From then on chèo dramas included both spoken and sung dialog, though the singing, based on rural folk melodies, differed from the style used in tuồng.  The stage settings for both were spare, but the costumes and make-up for tuồng were more elaborate and colorful.  The other major distinction between the two forms was tuồng’s narrative emphasis on heroics, loyalty to the throne and the primacy of Confucian precepts.  This genre offered no prospect for social satire, as chèo thrived on, but upheld the existing social order. 

       Therefore it became very popular with the ruling elite.  Though the Trần Dynasty patronized both forms throughout the 14^th century, its successor the Lê Dynasty took a different attitude. In 1437 the strict Confucian King Lê Thánh Tông closed the royal theater and banned chèo as well as tuồng.  He relegated actors to the lowest rungs of the hierarchical order and forbade them and their offspring from entering the universities and trying to qualify for the mandarin class.  Popular entertainment had no place in the new Lê order.  Actors and playwrights were pariahs.

female protagonist in a Hanoi theater skit

       Chèo survived in the villages, but tuồng’s revival only came about with the 17^th century division of the country into a Trịnh Lord’s regime in the north and a Nguyễn Lords regime in the south.  Tuồng theater became a favorite at both courts and later, in the Nguyễn Dynasty, was the special favorite at the court in Huế.  Mandarins in the service of the southern regime, and even some of the Nguyễn lords and ladies themselves, wrote tuồng plays for the court’s theater. 

       One of the most enduringly popular of the plays from this period came from the writing brush of Đào Duy Từ, a minister and military strategist in the early 17^th century.  He was himself the son of actors and was caught trying to sit for the civil examinations under an assumed name.  With nowhere to exploit his talents he later fled to the Nguyễn Lords’ realm and became chief advisor to Nhuyễn Phúc Nguyên, the second Nguyễn Lord, who had no qualms about his ‘low status’ background.  In addition to his military talents, he also wrote plays.  His most famous work was called Sơn Hậu (Behind the Mountain), set in the ancient state of Qi in China’s Zhou Dynasty.  It tells the story of an attempt by General Tạ Thiên Lăng to usurp the throne after the King of Qi dies and leaves only an infant heir.  Loyalists led by Khương Linh Tá rescue the prince and spirit him away to the loyalist base behind the mountain.

festival performance at Đô Temple, Bắc Ninh

       One of the usurper’s co-conspirators, General Tá Ôn Đình, pursues the prince’s party, but Khương Linh Tá intervenes, while the rest of the party make their getaway.  Tá Ôn Đình beheads Khương Linh Tá.  But the latter picks up his head and runs off.  His soul becomes a light to lead the loyalists through a dark forest to their base, where they rouse their followers to attack the usurper in the citadel.  Khương Linh Tá’s spirit reappears in the battle and kills General Tá Ôn Đình.  Loyalists capture Tạ Thiên Lăng and the play ends with the child prince on the throne, the royal lineage preserved, the villains foiled, loyalty to the throne triumphant.

tuồng actors in a festival procession

       A similar theme of self-sacrifice as the supreme act of loyalty to the throne dominates the tuồng drama Võ Hùng Vương, named for the rebel leader in the play.  It is also otherwise known as Ngoại tổ dâng đầu (Grandfather Presents his Head).  In this story Võ Hùng Vương captures the prince he intends to displace, but the latter feigns madness, which confuses the conspirators.  Then one of the nastiest among them suggests a deal.  If Viên Hòa Ngạn, the prince’s grandfather, presents his head to the rebels, the prince can go free.  Viên Hòa Ngạn agrees.  But suspecting a double-cross he arranges for the loyalists to set up an ambush on the route the prince would take once he is free.

       The old man then calmly cuts off his own head and hands it to the rebels.  They duly set the prince at liberty, assemble a force to recapture him, but run into the loyalist ambush.  The latter escort the prince to their base, where he gathers his army, defeats Võ Hùng Vương’s forces and takes his legitimate place on the throne.

       Such themes resonated well with a court that had to establish its legitimacy by inculcating loyalty among its retainers, servants and subjects.  After the collapse of the Tây Sơn regime and the establishment of Nguyễn supremacy throughout the country, tuồng once again became the court favorite at Huế.  Emperors Minh Mạng and Tự Đức were both enthusiastic patrons.  They wanted to promote tuông as the “national art” and took an active interest in the actual staging of the plays.  Tự Đức himself was the “art director” of the most elaborate tuồng productions ever—Vạb bảo trình tường, with 108 acts, and Quần phương hiến thụy, with 100.

the elaborate staging of tuồng drama in Huế

       These productions were notable for featuring Vietnamese heroes from indigenous history, instead of Chinese literary classics, while presented in the tuồng style.  Besides the upper strata of Vietnamese society, tuồng’s appeal extended to the commoners as well.  As a spectacle it had no rival other than the most elaborate religious processions.  They probably didn’t understand the lyrics, which were in the literary Sino-Vietnamese language, but were susceptible to the singing’s emotive power and anyway knew the stories. They could also appreciate the purely visual delights of the almost acrobatic martial arts scenes as resplendently garbed warriors leapt and twirled about the stage.

       Make-up in tuồng is always employed symbolically.  Noble, venerable and sympathetic characters wear pale make-up, their eyes slant upwards and they move with measured gestures.  Warriors paint their faces black, white and vermillion, wear long, dark, bristly beards and fierce expressions.  The bad guys—traitors and villains—have pasty faces, scanty beards and a shifty look.  In costumes, royalty and aristocrats wear gorgeous silks, the women decorating their hair with jewels and ornate headdresses.  The warriors wear multi-colored robes and elaborate headdresses and the generals are identified with flags attached to the back.  Villains wear simpler outfits, with little or no decoration.

female lead in the Huế Citadel show

male leads in the Huế tuồng drama

      When the Nguyển Dynasty fell into decline in the late 19^th century, tuồng theater began modifying its style and its message, lest it be identified with a discredited system.   As part of its new look another form of the opera appeared, called tuồng đồ, where satire of the powerful and the venal directed the stories rather than heroics.  As the second half of the century progressed it became obvious that something was lacking in the neo-Confucian order of the realm, since it was not standing up very well against the colonial threat.

Hồ Nguyệt Cô

      The first classical tuồng drama to break with convention and challenge the system came in the late 19^th century with Đào Tấn’s Hoàng Phi Hổ Crossing the Border. Like a typical tuồng play, it is a tale of political intrigue in ancient China, with the common theme of loyalty to the sovereign directing the conflicts in the story, told with all the usual pomp of elaborate make-up and splendid costumes.

       But instead of the customary message that loyalty to the ruler is the noblest of virtues, the play challenges that very idea.  The story is set in China’s Warring States era.  King Trụ, to whom Hoàng Phi Hổ has been loyal, is anything but a good Confucian ruler.  He is cruel, avaricious and lusty and even kills Hoàng’s wife.  After wandering disconsolate and stopping in a temple, he meets her spirit, who narrates the circumstances of her death.  His lingering sense of loyalty suddenly evaporates. “Loyalty to the king be damned!” he cries.

       Hoang decides to betray King Trụ to the enemy and then surrender.  Then he passes through the border gate, where his own father is the guard, and persuades him to renounce his loyalty and attack King Trụ as well.  Such sentiments were pretty revolutionary for the times, when the Nguyễn regime still had nominal authority in the land.  But Đào Tấn wrote the play to argue that blind loyalty can stand in the way of progress.

the transformation of Hồ Nguyệt Cô 

       Another turn in this period came with a work by Đào Nhữ Tuyên (Đào Tấn’s son), taken from an old Chinese story, called Hồ Nguyệt Cô Transformed into a Fox.  The heroine is a beautiful woman who was born a fox, but after years of religious training allowed to become human, married a general but fell in love with an enemy officer named Tiết Giao. She throws herself at him and spills her big secret—she is only human so long as she keeps a certain gem in her mouth.  After they have become lovers Tiết Giao pretends to be sick and claims that only her gem can save his life.  She spits it out.  He swallows it and runs off, leaving her to face her fate—slowly changing from a human being back into a fox.

       The climax of the show is this transformation, with Hồ’s pitiful laments commenting on the changes overcoming her, the itch on her skin as the fur grows back, the sight of her nails becoming claws, and the sound of her voice dissolving into the howl of a fox. Ttuồng actresses made their reputations on how imaginatively they played that scene.  With a good rendition the audience will see Hồ Nguyệt Cô as a tragic character, the victim of credulity and unrestrained sexual desire.

tuồng performer at Đền Đô

make-up and headdress of a tuồng character

       No royal courts subsidize tuồng theater anymore and with each passing generation in these modern times, fewer people feel inclined to undergo the rigorous training required for tuồng performances.   The potential audience has shrunken, too, with the proliferation of alternative entertainment offerings.  But it has not disappeared.  In Hanoi, the National Tuồng Theater, next to the Hàng Da market, stages skits from famous tuồng dramas, including Hồ Nguyệt Cô’s transformation.  The theater inside the Huế Citadel hosts daily shows of tuồng opera scenes as well as other types of Nguyễn Dynasty entertainment.

       Tourists are the main audience for these shows, but tuồng drama is still occasionally part of village festival programs, such as Đền Đô in Bắc Ninh.  Actors in costume march in the morning procession and perform on an outdoor stage all afternoon.  For that portion of the Vietnamese population still fascinated by its ancient culture, tuồng remains relevant.  It’s had a long and fruitful run.

tuồng drama performance at the Đên Đô festival

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