making bowls again despite years of retirement
due to bad health and failing strength. Having
been in the business for 63 years, she can’t bear
to give up her Chinese heritage.
Since arriving on Thai shores in the 17th
century, Chinese immigrants have assimilated
with local Thai in a remarkably smooth
manner, resulting in years of intermarriages
between the two ethnicities. Yet the Chinese
aspect of this mixed cultural identity is
beginning to fade in the city’s capital:
Practices like baat-making and worship rituals
face extinction, thanks to infrastructural
redevelopment and a lack of successors to
continue the trade.
Like Ban Baat, another of Bangkok’s oldest
Chinese communities – Charoen Chai – may
soon go, as plans to develop the railway line
across the Chao Phraya river and Charoen
Krung Road wipes out the historic Chinatown
district, where the older generation of Thai
Chinese buy joss papers and other items for
traditional celebrations and rituals. During
the New Year, the area’s temples, like Wat
Mangkon Kamalawat and Wat Leng Noei Yi,
are filled with worshippers intent on dispelling
bad luck. And Charoen Chai specialises in
Chinese food: streets upon streets of bakeries,
dessert shops, and roadside stalls hawking
the popular Jubkang noodles – a favourite for
Chinese labourers in the olden days thanks to
the massive portions and tiny price.
But all this may become a thing of the past
once the railway plans for Bangkok begin in
the coming years, and landlords start raising
prices or making plans for redevelopment of
the land. Facing insufficient support from the
government, these communities and their
uniquely Thai-Chinese practices have already
begun to disappear from the places they’ve
resided in for centuries – and once they go,
there may be no return. agBaat-Making 101These ancient alms
bowls take up to three
days to make in a
traditional process
dictated by Buddhist
teachingsArtisans determine
the size of the bowl
by selecting the right
size of sheet metalThe edges are
serrated in order
to fit together,
like a jigsawThe pieces are lined
up, and then welded
togetherThe bowl is
hammered out
from the insideAfter polishing and
varnishing, the
baat is completeFor more about the photos in this article, see our
contributor’s review of the Sony α7R Mark III on page 1.9.6
MILLION
(14% of total)
ภาษาไทย
Thai
汉语
Chinese dialects
Buddhism
POPULATION
LANGUAGE
RELIGION
thai chinese:
the world’s
largest overseas
chinese community
12345SONY α7R MARK III, f/2.8, 1/12s, ISO 100SONY α7R MARK III, f/2.2, 1/1600s, ISO 800