shirvanshah
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Post by shirvanshah on Jan 16, 2023 7:48:16 GMT
I'm not sure why Thai Chinese are more assimilated than Chinese Malaysians and Chinese Indonesians. I suspect it might be due to Thai people being partially culturally Tibetoburman, so they naturally might be culturally closer to Sinitics than say Malay Muslims, so Chinese people might find themselves assimilating easier. Let's not mix GEDmatch calculator ancestry components with cultural regions. Thailand is a Theravada Buddhist society which is a bit different from the Mahayana Buddhist Confucianist sphere, but still a non-Hindu Dharmic religion, unlike Abrahamic Maritime Southeast Asia. There's also an argument to be made that Christianity is more accomodating to Chinese culture due to not having the original dietary restrictions of Middle Eastern religions (tbh I have no idea how observant Asian Catholics in Asia are with fasting), and possibly some other things about Islam too I'm not knowledgeable enough here. At any rate there seems to be more anti-Islam and anti-Muslim sentiment in the Chinese-language online sphere than there is with Christianity/Christians or Judaism/Jews. uisashi's online perspective is definitely different from mine (the people I know in the US are less enclave-y and probably a bit less proficient in Chinese on average), but I can confirm the huge amount of soft power Japan and South Korea have among both ethnic Chinese and non-ethnic Chinese East/Southeast Asians in the US. I'm probably the least weeby member of my small high school circle of ethnic Chinese guys of different regional ancestries. Re: heritage language proficiency- there are essentially no situations in daily life where we actually need to be able to speak Mandarin/Cantonese/Fuzhounese/etc unless our parents or grandparents aren't proficient in English. People like me who are self-conscious about not being that fluent and wanting to watch Chinese movies and listen to Chinese songs online are not the norm. Fairly certain most of us (non-hapa) 2nd gens can passively understand whatever language was spoken at home, would be very surprised if it's less than 75-80% for people under 50..Yes in Siam/Thailand's case, I believe its has to do with the religion itself and the culture such as eating pork, alcohol which makes it much easier to for the Chinese to integrate and assimilate due to a lot of shared cultures. Also another reason that the Chinese assimilated much better in Thailand might be due to race. I noticed some Thais especially in the North and certain parts of Northeast can look like Vietnamese, Southern Chinese ethnic minorities or Far Southern Chinese due to high Tai-Kadai ancestry despite not having any recent Chinese ancestry. I wonder if some overlap between the two groups make it easier for the Chinese to blend in and assimilate. Now compared this to Malays and Indonesians who look much more stereotypically SE Asian. Interesting to learn that Japanese and Korean soft power is very popular and influential among Asians in the USA. Me too, I'm not really into Japanese or Korean culture either. Just curious, do you speak Mandarin or any other language/dialect at home with your family? Wow that's interesting. Looks like you guys even in the younger generation still understand your heritage language much better than the Chinese descendants in Thailand do. In the 2000 census, 231,350 people identified themselves as speakers of a variant of Chinese (Teochew, Hokkien, Hainanese, Cantonese, or Hakka). So only 2% out of all 10 million Chinese Thais can still speak Sinitic dialects (this doesn't guarantee if they speak/understand Mandarin though, I noticed a lot of the Chinese in Thailand even if they are Chinese speakers, they only understand their ancestral tongues, but cannot speak/understand Mandarin). |
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shirvanshah
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Post by shirvanshah on Jan 16, 2023 7:51:12 GMT
Yeah I think most ABCs here go to Chinese school when they are younger and speak Chinese at home with their parents. I have not met any who cannot speak Mandarin. Also they have high rates of Weebism and animewatcher. Why do Asians like anime so much? Have probably mentioned this before but I've met quite a few heritage Cantonese speakers with pinyin names. I don't actually think most of us (Chinese Americans at least) went to Chinese language school on the weekends, it's definitely less common among Cantonese speakers at least (although I remember being in more advanced Mandarin classes with people who spoke Cantonese at home). Obviously adoptees aren't going to be able to speak any Chinese if they were raised by white people. I wouldn't say most of the people I know IRL are weebs but having seen some anime is definitely more mainstream among East/Southeast Asian Americans than other races. Pokemon, Naruto, Yu-Gi-Oh and Dragonball Z are a thing on subtle asian traits because they were part of the cartoons we all watched on TV during weekends. K-dramas are also more fairly popular but unlike with k-pop I have no idea who actually watches them.
I still disagree with MNOPS, I think all three of you can pass in Cantonese speaking areas although not as typical for the same reasons you look atypical for non-Yue speaking parts of South China. How about my paternal cousins (kids of my uncles and aunts) that I posted earlier: do they also pass in those regions you mentioned or are they a bit more "northern" than me? Don't have pics of my maternal relatives as they tend to be all old age now and they don't use social media. I think you are right. When I was traveling in Hanoi with my two American friends (one who is half Jewish half Pino, another who is half generic White American half Jewish), the Vietnamese were able to tell that I'm not one of them, except only one time where a staff at a restaurant speak to me in Vietnamese first, but later change to English when she noticed I don't understand the language. But I don't know is it because I was traveling with my friends which makes it easier to be recognized as foreigners, or was it because of my fashion sense and height that is different from the Viets as I was taller that literally everyone there lol. I think it's because you were traveling with obviously foreign friends, and because you're so tall lol. It isn't that common for East/Southeast Asian men to be over 180 cm among my RL circles. The only East/Southeast Asian men I regularly see who are that tall are all ethnic Chinese- regardless of where their families immigrated from. True but I was also traveling in Taiwan in the same trip with my the same friends and hardly anyone speak English to me except when for some occasions. They all speak Mandarin to me which I happen to know quite a bit although I'm possibly at A2 level or upper beginner at the very most. Are Taiwanese much taller than Viets that's why I was able to blend in? Also I have asked a few Viets in real life and online and they told me "you don't look Vietnamese", "you look too northern-shifted" or "you look Trung Quốc"(means China in Vietnamese language) although one told me I look more like an oversea Viet than local, so I don't know. Why are ethnic Chinese that tall compared to other East/SE Asian males? |
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uisashi
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Post by uisashi on Jan 16, 2023 10:37:53 GMT
Have probably mentioned this before but I've met quite a few heritage Cantonese speakers with pinyin names. I don't actually think most of us (Chinese Americans at least) went to Chinese language school on the weekends, it's definitely less common among Cantonese speakers at least (although I remember being in more advanced Mandarin classes with people who spoke Cantonese at home). Obviously adoptees aren't going to be able to speak any Chinese if they were raised by white people. I wouldn't say most of the people I know IRL are weebs but having seen some anime is definitely more mainstream among East/Southeast Asian Americans than other races. Pokemon, Naruto, Yu-Gi-Oh and Dragonball Z are a thing on subtle asian traits because they were part of the cartoons we all watched on TV during weekends. K-dramas are also more fairly popular but unlike with k-pop I have no idea who actually watches them.
I still disagree with MNOPS, I think all three of you can pass in Cantonese speaking areas although not as typical for the same reasons you look atypical for non-Yue speaking parts of South China. I think it's because you were traveling with obviously foreign friends, and because you're so tall lol. It isn't that common for East/Southeast Asian men to be over 180 cm among my RL circles. The only East/Southeast Asian men I regularly see who are that tall are all ethnic Chinese- regardless of where their families immigrated from. True but I was also traveling in Taiwan in the same trip with my friends and hardly anyone speak English to me except when for some occasions. They all speak Mandarin to me which I happen to know quite a bit although I'm maybe at A2 level at the very most. Are Taiwanese much taller than Viets that's why I was able to blend in? Also I have asked a few Viets in real life and online and they told me "you don't look Vietnamese", "you look too northern-shifted" or "you look Trung Quốc"(means China in Vietnamese language) although one told me I look more like an oversea Viet than local, so I don't know. Why are ethnic Chinese that tall compared to other East/SE Asian males? How tall are you? I don't think height is a big factor in predicting heritage irl. I think in college, the tallest Asian population seems to be ABCs or Chinese international students, where they are oftentimes over 180cm. |
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shirvanshah
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Post by shirvanshah on Jan 16, 2023 11:37:12 GMT
True but I was also traveling in Taiwan in the same trip with my friends and hardly anyone speak English to me except when for some occasions. They all speak Mandarin to me which I happen to know quite a bit although I'm maybe at A2 level at the very most. In fact, I often have to act as a translator/interpreter for my buddies even though my Chinese isn't that good tbh. Are Taiwanese much taller than Viets that's why I was able to blend in? Also I have asked a few Viets in real life and online and they told me "you don't look Vietnamese", "you look too northern-shifted" or "you look Trung Quốc"(means China in Vietnamese language) although one told me I look more like an oversea Viet than local, so I don't know. Why are ethnic Chinese that tall compared to other East/SE Asian males? How tall are you? I don't think height is a big factor in predicting heritage irl. I think in college, the tallest Asian population seems to be ABCs or Chinese international students, where they are oftentimes over 180cm. 183 cm if I remembered correctly. My younger brother is up to 186 cm. In contrast, my sister is only 165 methinks. My parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and relatives are all shorter than me and my bro. |
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uisashi
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Post by uisashi on Jan 16, 2023 12:27:06 GMT
How tall are you? I don't think height is a big factor in predicting heritage irl. I think in college, the tallest Asian population seems to be ABCs or Chinese international students, where they are oftentimes over 180cm. 183 cm if I remembered correctly. My younger brother is up to 186 cm. In contrast, my sister is only 165 methinks. My parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and relatives are all shorter than me and my bro. I think 183cm is quite tall here but it would not be the tallest, plenty of Chinese around that range. 186cm is rarer but still shows up at times. I am 187-188cm, which is where it starts getting uncommon. |
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uisashi
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Post by uisashi on Jan 16, 2023 12:59:07 GMT
To what extent are cross region marriages common in China?
Looking at my parents generation and older millenials who have kids in Australia, I think the majority are definitely mostly similarish region in pairing. Like Dongbei + Shandong is common, as are some other combination like Beijing + Hebei or e.g Shandong + Hebei. Sometimes you'll see Shandong + Hubei/Jiangsu/Zhejiang. But rarely will you see say Dongbei/Shandong/Hebei with Guangdong. My parents friends in Australia are something like 70% northern and the rest random central places and my younger brother's ABC friends are something like 50% northern on both sides and the rest central or a mix of north and central. It seems that Fujianese and Cantonese even in the West occupy different social spaces to the northern and the central Chinese?
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throway2
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Post by throway2 on Jan 16, 2023 13:34:25 GMT
Chinese tend to be taller than surrounding groups because Sinitic dispersal ancestry was originally from something like northwestern Han or northeastern Tibeto-Burmans (eg Amdo Tibetans) who seem to be genetically tall and long limbed. Limb length especially seems to decrease in China following admixture with Austronesian groups; Austronesians and maybe Hmong might have the shortest limbs. Tais and Austroasiatics might have longer limbs than Austronesians and Hmong
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mnopsc1b
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Post by mnopsc1b on Jan 16, 2023 13:53:12 GMT
I still disagree with MNOPS, I think all three of you can pass in Cantonese speaking areas although not as typical for the same reasons you look atypical for non-Yue speaking parts of South China. I still disagree with you. They definitely don't look Cantonese, but have a rather typical Fujianese/Taiwanese/Jiangxi robust Mittelsinid type of look. At most they could pass as a cosmopolitan Cantonese in Hong Kong or Shenzhen (which is probably the type that you're most familiar with), and that's about it. Cannot pass further west in the typical Canto regions. And you need to trust me on this because I'm much more familiar with non-metropolitan or mainland Canto types than you. And the reason they cannot pass is mostly due to their facial contour and eye region, which are rather atypical or rare among Canto speakers. Typical Canto speakers have this deep-set eye region and slender and compact face with lower-set cheekbones. |
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shirvanshah
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Post by shirvanshah on Jan 16, 2023 14:23:09 GMT
Very status obsessed. They worship wealth and light skinned. I believe that's the reason they chase after Japan and Korea. A lot also love Westerners and see them as superior. I also want to add that Hakka and Cantonese are also spoken mostly by the older generation of Chinese-Thais as well although the latter (Cantonese) aren't as numerous as the Hakka, Teochew, Hainanese and Hokkien. Thai people are partially culturally Tibeto-Burman in your opinion? Can you elaborate more on this? Also there are a lot of Chinese descendants in Thailand who look completely SE Asian as their Sinitic ancestry is very diluted now. I read somewhere that up to 40% of Thailand's population have partial Chinese ancestry somewhere in their bloodline. On the other hand, many Sino-Thais are not pure Chinese but have local blood as well. If I am gonna guess, its mainly due to the shared Buddhist religion, culture such as believe in spirits/animism (can be a bit similar to ancestor worship I guess) and foods such as pork and alcohol which makes the Chinese assimilate easier along with the soft power of Thai culture. Not only that, a lot of the assimilation comes during the regime Plaek Phibunsongkhram, who was the prime minister during 1930-1950s, where he closed many Chinese language schools in order to "Thaify" Chinese and any other minorities in Siam during that time as he was pro-West and pro-Japan while being anti-communism which includes being anti-China at that time. Yes, I think in the case of Chinese Malaysians/Indonesians, it is due to the Islamic religion and culture which makes it hard for them to integrate and assimilate. I heard Chinese Pinoys and Chinese Cambodians are also similar to Chinese Thais in terms of assimilation. I don't know if they still cling to Chinese-ness more than the Thai Chinese/Sino-Thais. That's what I thought as well since they are recent migrants. A lot of Chinese Americans/Canadians/Australians/NZ/British also can't speak Chinese right? Another example of an older generation assimilated Chinese descendant is the current first deputy minister and former minister of defence, Prawit Wongsuwan. He is 77 but very likely cannot speak Chinese at all despite being from the older generation. He is definitely very assimilated as he is part of the current military junta while most Chinese descendants in Thailand don't join the army (they tend to dominate business instead). This is what he looks like btw (I will just post the google image search link so you can get to see many pictures instead of one): www.google.com/search?q=prawit+wongsuwan&sxsrf=AJOqlzXnPaQTTSIgcvwMLKwg9SNLHOEUTQ:1673791370978&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj3l-Hg3sn8AhVyTmwGHcefC9cQ_AUoAnoECAEQBA&biw=1536&bih=714&dpr=1.25I've met a decent amount of Chinese Filipinos and I think genetically, they are bulk fully Chinese thought might behave less Chinese than Chinese Malaysians, who strike me as super Chinese? Yeah that would explain why Chinese Thais are the most assimilated. Estimates show that 9 million Chinese people are in Thailand but I'm gonna assume many of these are not fully Chinese Anglosphere raised Chinese are mostly able to speak and have some Chinese skills, although they might be weaker in writing. Did those Tsinoys/Chinese Pinos speak Mandarin or you communicate in English? Yes Chinese Malaysians are the most "Chinese" among SEA Chinese communities. After that, I'm not sure if it is the Singaporeans? I also read somewhere that many Chinese Burmese can also speak Chinese compared to other SEA communities. The big irony is that Phibunsongkhram himself is partially Chinese through his Cantonese speaking grandfather, but his family was totally assimilated and he was raised only in Siamese aka Central Thai culture. As a result, he was very nationalistic and pushed Thaification policies everywhere in Siam to turn everyone into "Thai" including ethnic Chinese. Yup, I would say a lot maybe even the majority are not fully Chinese but mixed. There are so many Chinese descendants here who look fully SE Asian probably due to their ancestry being diluted from many generations ago. Even among fully Chinese families, most also only speak Thai, can't speak/understand any Chinese except maybe their grandparents and practiced a water downed diluted version of Chinese customs. Reiterating my previous post, I think Chinese as a distinct minority might not existed anymore in Thailand by the next one or two generations as they all become only "Thai". Heck even in our passports and ID cards, almost everyone here has to put their ethnicity as "Thai" and "Buddhist" as religion even if you are Chinese or other ethnolinguistic groups such as Lao, Khmer, various hill tribes bordering Myanmar. Another example of a very assimilated older generation of Chinese descendant is M.R. Pridiyathorn Devakul, who is an economist, the former governor of the Bank of Thailand, former Deputy Prime Minister and former Minister of Finance. He also very likely cannot speak Chinese as he is very assimilated and is distantly related to the royal family per his title. M.R.= Mom Rajawongse= a title for descendant of the royalty. Here is his how he looks like btw: www.google.com/search?q=pridiyathorn+devakula+&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjsu8SepMz8AhUihNgFHWBqD8EQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=pridiyathorn+devakula+&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIECCMQJzIECAAQHlDXA1jXA2CxBWgAcAB4AIABSogBkAGSAQEymAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWfAAQE&sclient=img&ei=1lzFY-z4AqKI4t4P4NS9iAw&bih=714&biw=1536Kinda make sense, as you would cling more to your identity and culture as Anglosphere is very different from those of East Asian ones. Btw according the 2000 census, it estimated that 231,350 people identified themselves as speakers of a variant of Chinese (Teochew, Hokkien, Hainanese, Cantonese, or Hakka) in Thailand. So only 2% out of all 10 million Chinese Thais (I prefer this term more than Thai Chinese as I feel its mean ethnic Thais in China rather than Chinese diaspora in Thailand) can still speak their mother tongues. Although this doesn't mean that they can speak/understand Mandarin as a lot of older Chinese here who didn't go to Chinese schools can only speak their own dialects/languages but not Guoyu/Putonghua. |
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uisashi
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Post by uisashi on Jan 16, 2023 14:24:52 GMT
 Some man walking in street Guangzhou. He looks Cantonese to me, might also be a Guangxi migrant? Has relatively wide shoulders, long arms, narrow hips and face structure is very Austroasiatic. |
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uisashi
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Post by uisashi on Jan 16, 2023 14:38:20 GMT
I've met a decent amount of Chinese Filipinos and I think genetically, they are bulk fully Chinese thought might behave less Chinese than Chinese Malaysians, who strike me as super Chinese? Yeah that would explain why Chinese Thais are the most assimilated. Estimates show that 9 million Chinese people are in Thailand but I'm gonna assume many of these are not fully Chinese Anglosphere raised Chinese are mostly able to speak and have some Chinese skills, although they might be weaker in writing. Did those Tsinoys/Chinese Pinos speak Mandarin or you communicate in English? Yes Chinese Malaysians are the most "Chinese" among SEA Chinese communities. After that, I'm not sure if it is the Singaporeans? I also read somewhere that many Chinese Burmese can also speak Chinese compared to other SEA communities. The big irony is that Phibunsongkhram himself is partially Chinese through his Cantonese speaking grandfather, but his family was totally assimilated and he was raised only in Siamese aka Central Thai culture. As a result, he was very nationalistic and pushed Thaification policies everywhere in Siam to turn everyone into "Thai" including ethnic Chinese. Yup, I would say a lot maybe even the majority are not fully Chinese but mixed. There are so many Chinese descendants here who look fully SE Asian probably due to their ancestry being diluted from many generations ago. Even among fully Chinese families, most also only speak Thai, can't speak/understand any Chinese except maybe their grandparents and practiced a water downed diluted version of Chinese customs. Reiterating my previous post, I think Chinese as a distinct minority might not existed anymore in Thailand by the next one or two generations as they all become only "Thai". Heck even in our passports and ID cards, almost everyone here has to put their ethnicity as "Thai" and "Buddhist" as religion even if you are Chinese or other ethnolinguistic groups such as Lao, Khmer, various hill tribes bordering Myanmar. Another example of a very assimilated older generation of Chinese descendant is M.R. Pridiyathorn Devakul, who is an economist, the former governor of the Bank of Thailand, former Deputy Prime Minister and former Minister of Finance. He also very likely cannot speak Chinese as he is very assimilated and is distantly related to the royal family per his title. M.R.= Mom Rajawongse= a title for descendant of the royalty. Here is his how he looks like btw: www.google.com/search?q=pridiyathorn+devakula+&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjsu8SepMz8AhUihNgFHWBqD8EQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=pridiyathorn+devakula+&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIECCMQJzIECAAQHlDXA1jXA2CxBWgAcAB4AIABSogBkAGSAQEymAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWfAAQE&sclient=img&ei=1lzFY-z4AqKI4t4P4NS9iAw&bih=714&biw=1536Kinda make sense, as you would cling more to your identity and culture as Anglosphere is very different from those of East Asian ones. Btw according the 2000 census, it estimated that 231,350 people identified themselves as speakers of a variant of Chinese (Teochew, Hokkien, Hainanese, Cantonese, or Hakka) in Thailand. So only 2% out of all 10 million Chinese Thais (I prefer this term more than Thai Chinese as I feel its mean ethnic Thais in China rather than Chinese diaspora in Thailand) can still speak their mother tongues. Although this doesn't mean that they can speak/understand Mandarin as a lot of older Chinese here who didn't go to Chinese schools can only speak their own dialects/languages but not Guoyu/Putonghua. In my teenage years, I went on several China camps to China, orchestrated by my local Chinese school in Australia. These camps are basically summer/winter camps for Chinese diaspora teens to discover China, as funded by the CCP. Over there I met Chinese Americans, Malaysians, Filipinos and Chinese Burmese, along with other diaspora as well. Chinese Burmese and the Filipinos were the most mixed; it was something like 50% of them were fully Chinese and the other 50% mixed. Similar with the Burmese. Meanwhile, 90%+ of the Chinese Malaysians and Indonesians were fully Chinese and behaved very Chinese. The Malaysians were also very nice in contrast to the Chinese Australians and Chinese Americans, who would sometimes behave douchy. |
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mnopsc1b
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Post by mnopsc1b on Jan 16, 2023 14:38:31 GMT
View AttachmentSome man walking in street Guangzhou. He looks Cantonese to me, might also be a Guangxi migrant? Has relatively wide shoulders, long arms, narrow hips and face structure is very Austroasiatic. Could pass in Guangxi but not very typical, I think he's most likely a Guangzhou local or from another part of Guangdong, and could be from Fujian or Hunan as well. The thing is Guangzhou has become more and more cosmopolitan in recent decades, typical or distinct Canto types like Derek Kok, Feng Junyan, and Peng Weiguo are harder and harder to come across. Here's a photo of the Guangxi singer Wei Wei when she was young, if I don't tell you she's from GX you'd probably think she's Thai, Khmer, or Filipina. I think some of you have underestimated how southern-shifted some FSC can be. And I've heard that Wei Wei's father was from Shandong, but still I think her Guangxi genes are dominant and far outweighs her Shandong genes.  |
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shirvanshah
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Post by shirvanshah on Jan 16, 2023 14:54:26 GMT
View AttachmentSome man walking in street Guangzhou. He looks Cantonese to me, might also be a Guangxi migrant? Has relatively wide shoulders, long arms, narrow hips and face structure is very Austroasiatic. Could pass in Guangxi but not very typical, I think he's most likely a Guangzhou local or from another part of Guangdong, and could be from Fujian or Hunan as well. The thing is Guangzhou has become more and more cosmopolitan in recent decades, typical or distinct Canto types like Derek Kok, Feng Junyan, and Peng Weiguo are harder and harder to come across. Here's a photo of the Guangxi singer Wei Wei when she was young, if I don't tell you she's from GX you'd probably think she's Thai, Khmer, or Filipina. I think some of you have underestimated how southern-shifted some FSC can be. And I've heard that Wei Wei's father was from Shandong, but still I think her Guangxi genes are dominant and far outweighs her Shandong genes. Would Bolo Yeung have the typical Cantonese phenotype in your opinion? |
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shirvanshah
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Post by shirvanshah on Jan 16, 2023 15:14:01 GMT
Did those Tsinoys/Chinese Pinos speak Mandarin or you communicate in English? Yes Chinese Malaysians are the most "Chinese" among SEA Chinese communities. After that, I'm not sure if it is the Singaporeans? I also read somewhere that many Chinese Burmese can also speak Chinese compared to other SEA communities. The big irony is that Phibunsongkhram himself is partially Chinese through his Cantonese speaking grandfather, but his family was totally assimilated and he was raised only in Siamese aka Central Thai culture. As a result, he was very nationalistic and pushed Thaification policies everywhere in Siam to turn everyone into "Thai" including ethnic Chinese. Yup, I would say a lot maybe even the majority are not fully Chinese but mixed. There are so many Chinese descendants here who look fully SE Asian probably due to their ancestry being diluted from many generations ago. Even among fully Chinese families, most also only speak Thai, can't speak/understand any Chinese except maybe their grandparents and practiced a water downed diluted version of Chinese customs. Reiterating my previous post, I think Chinese as a distinct minority might not existed anymore in Thailand by the next one or two generations as they all become only "Thai". Heck even in our passports and ID cards, almost everyone here has to put their ethnicity as "Thai" and "Buddhist" as religion even if you are Chinese or other ethnolinguistic groups such as Lao, Khmer, various hill tribes bordering Myanmar. Another example of a very assimilated older generation of Chinese descendant is M.R. Pridiyathorn Devakul, who is an economist, the former governor of the Bank of Thailand, former Deputy Prime Minister and former Minister of Finance. He also very likely cannot speak Chinese as he is very assimilated and is distantly related to the royal family per his title. M.R.= Mom Rajawongse= a title for descendant of the royalty. Here is his how he looks like btw: www.google.com/search?q=pridiyathorn+devakula+&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjsu8SepMz8AhUihNgFHWBqD8EQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=pridiyathorn+devakula+&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIECCMQJzIECAAQHlDXA1jXA2CxBWgAcAB4AIABSogBkAGSAQEymAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWfAAQE&sclient=img&ei=1lzFY-z4AqKI4t4P4NS9iAw&bih=714&biw=1536Kinda make sense, as you would cling more to your identity and culture as Anglosphere is very different from those of East Asian ones. Btw according the 2000 census, it estimated that 231,350 people identified themselves as speakers of a variant of Chinese (Teochew, Hokkien, Hainanese, Cantonese, or Hakka) in Thailand. So only 2% out of all 10 million Chinese Thais (I prefer this term more than Thai Chinese as I feel its mean ethnic Thais in China rather than Chinese diaspora in Thailand) can still speak their mother tongues. Although this doesn't mean that they can speak/understand Mandarin as a lot of older Chinese here who didn't go to Chinese schools can only speak their own dialects/languages but not Guoyu/Putonghua. In my teenage years, I went on several China camps to China, orchestrated by my local Chinese school in Australia. These camps are basically summer/winter camps for Chinese diaspora teens to discover China, as funded by the CCP. Over there I met Chinese Americans, Malaysians, Filipinos and Chinese Burmese, along with other diaspora as well. Chinese Burmese and the Filipinos were the most mixed; it was something like 50% of them were fully Chinese and the other 50% mixed. Similar with the Burmese. Meanwhile, 90%+ of the Chinese Malaysians and Indonesians were fully Chinese and behaved very Chinese. The Malaysians were also very nice in contrast to the Chinese Australians and Chinese Americans, who would sometimes behave douchy. Interesting. Can most of these Chinese diaspora teens speak their mother tongue? Did you met any Sino-Thais? Do many of the mixed Chinese Burmese and Pinoys look rather SE Asian or fully Chinese? That's interesting considering how assimilated a lot of Chinese Indonesians are since most also can only speak Indonesian and maybe English if they are from upper classes and have Indonesian sounding names. In case, if you want to meet Mandarin speaking Chinese in Thailand, I would suggested you travelled to Northern region around the provinces of Chiang Rai, Mae Hong Son, Chiang Mai, Phayao and Lampang. There are communities of Yunnanese there called the "Chin Haw" who speak Southwest Mandarin as their mother tongue: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chin_Haw. They are descendants of Qing soldiers who was sent to suppress the Panthay rebellion in Myanmar, Chinese merchants from Yunnan, and Kuomintang soldiers who fled to Myanmar and Northern Thailand. One third of them are also Hui Muslims. However, they make a very small minority among ethnic Chinese in Thailand though, and are totally different group culturally from the Teochew, Hakka, Hokkien, Hainanese, Cantonese descendants in Bangkok and other parts of the country. Btw do you know if there are still study abroad in China free scholarships or programs for a year? (I'm more interested in mainland China than Taiwan as its much bigger and there is still a lot of places I haven't visited. I have been to Taiwan once almost all over the island). Do you need to attend Chinese language schools for that? I'm quite interested in going there for a few semesters or one year so I can practice and become better in my Chinese skills. I'm also not sure if I'm too old to still qualify since Im already 27. Also nowadays, thanks to the rise of China as a superpower, there is a resurgence of interest in learning Mandarin (unfortunately no other Chinese varieties) among Thais including the locals and the Chinese descendants for economic and business opportunities. However, they are a very small minority of the population overall as most Thais including the Chinese ones still prefer massively prefer the West, Japan and Korea. Moreover, a lot of the new Mandarin speakers are actually local Thais (without any Chinese blood) rather than ethnic Chinese mainly out of economic and touristic purposes rather than any cultural connections to Greater China. |
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Post by okarinaofsteiner on Jan 16, 2023 16:55:25 GMT
Let's not mix GEDmatch calculator ancestry components with cultural regions. Thailand is a Theravada Buddhist society which is a bit different from the Mahayana Buddhist Confucianist sphere, but still a non-Hindu Dharmic religion, unlike Abrahamic Maritime Southeast Asia. There's also an argument to be made that Christianity is more accomodating to Chinese culture due to not having the original dietary restrictions of Middle Eastern religions (tbh I have no idea how observant Asian Catholics in Asia are with fasting), and possibly some other things about Islam too I'm not knowledgeable enough here. At any rate there seems to be more anti-Islam and anti-Muslim sentiment in the Chinese-language online sphere than there is with Christianity/Christians or Judaism/Jews. uisashi's online perspective is definitely different from mine (the people I know in the US are less enclave-y and probably a bit less proficient in Chinese on average), but I can confirm the huge amount of soft power Japan and South Korea have among both ethnic Chinese and non-ethnic Chinese East/Southeast Asians in the US. I'm probably the least weeby member of my small high school circle of ethnic Chinese guys of different regional ancestries. Re: heritage language proficiency- there are essentially no situations in daily life where we actually need to be able to speak Mandarin/Cantonese/Fuzhounese/etc unless our parents or grandparents aren't proficient in English. People like me who are self-conscious about not being that fluent and wanting to watch Chinese movies and listen to Chinese songs online are not the norm. Fairly certain most of us (non-hapa) 2nd gens can passively understand whatever language was spoken at home, would be very surprised if it's less than 75-80% for people under 50..Yes in Siam/Thailand's case, I believe its has to do with the religion itself and the culture such as eating pork, alcohol which makes it much easier to for the Chinese to integrate and assimilate due to a lot of shared cultures. Also another reason that the Chinese assimilated much better in Thailand might be due to race. I noticed some Thais especially in the North and certain parts of Northeast can look like Vietnamese, Southern Chinese ethnic minorities or Far Southern Chinese due to high Tai-Kadai ancestry despite not having any recent Chinese ancestry. I wonder if some overlap between the two groups make it easier for the Chinese to blend in and assimilate. Now compared this to Malays and Indonesians who look much more stereotypically SE Asian. Interesting to learn that Japanese and Korean soft power is very popular and influential among Asians in the USA. Me too, I'm not really into Japanese or Korean culture either. Just curious, do you speak Mandarin or any other language/dialect at home with your family? I doubt Northern and Northeastern Thai ethnic minorities are as big of a factor as Mainland SE Asians in general having greater genetic and phenotype overlap with Han Chinese. Although religious culture is probably the biggest factor given differences between Malaysia/Indonesia and the Philippines. I am somewhat familiar with anime and hallyu (my username is a partial anime reference), but I’m not a big fan of Asian dramas in general and you wouldn’t catch me dead at a k-pop concert unless I was being paid to accompany someone. I guess my interest in Japanese and Korean culture is broader (not limited to pop culture) and less intense haha. Everything is relative. Yes but it’s a mix of Mandarin and English. |
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