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The Interstitial Subjectivities of the Yunnanese Chinese in Thailand1

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 9; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14442210802023632

1740-9314

Wen-Chin Chang,

Migration, Refugees, and Integration

Abstract In contrast with the high visibility of the ethnic Chinese in Thailand who originate from the coastal provinces of southeastern China, the migrant Yunnanese Chinese are a later group arriving in the country by land via Burma, mostly after the 1950s. Their migration history and process of resettlement are intertwined with complex political, economic and social factors. Feelings of anxiety, uncertainty and ambivalence regarding who they are are often expressed in the speech of different generations. Although many studies tend to determine a group's identity (identities), the inquiry into the indeterminate aspect of ethnicity in individual members is often overlooked. The present paper examines the interstitial subjectivities of this particular migrant group to disclose an ongoing negotiation of their inner self with the external social world across time and space in connection with their twofold affiliations with Han Chineseness and a Yunnanese overland trading ethos. Keywords: SubjectivityInterstitialLiminalityCentre and peripheryOverland Yunnanese Notes 1. I conducted intensive fieldwork among migrant Yunnanese in northern Thailand from November 1994 until August 1996. Subsequently, short-term fieldwork ranging from 1 to 3 months was undertaken in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004–2005, 2006 and 2007 in northern Thailand, as well as in upper Burma (totalling 12 months). I am indebted to the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments, and especially grateful to one reviewer for his help in language editing. In addition, I thank Sun Laichen for discussion of the term Hanren while I was revising the paper, Michael Herzfeld for advice on publication and to the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Harvard University, which is hosting me for the academic year 2007–2008. Any remaining errors are my responsibility. 2. The term ‘Yunnanese Chinese’ generally refers to the Han Chinese group in Yunnan but, in a broader sense, it also covers the Muslim group (see Hill Citation1998, pp. 106–7). In the present paper, the focus is on the Yunnanese Han who have migrated to Thailand; they are also called Yunnanese, following their self-reference as Yunnanren. In terms of migration route, the early Chinese migrants who came from the coastal provinces of southeastern China by sea to Thailand, and their descendants, are classified as ‘overseas’ Chinese in the present paper. This group includes the Teochiu (Chaozhou), Hakka, Hainanese, Hokkien (Fujianese) and Cantonese. Conversely, the Yunnanese came to Thailand by land and are referred to as ‘overland’ Yunnanese (Chang Citation2006a). Skinner's Chinese Society in Thailand: An Analytical History (1957) and Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand (Citation1958) are regarded as early classics for studies on the ‘overseas’ Chinese; later, this group is also referred to as ‘Sino-Thai’ or ‘ethnic Chinese’ by other authors (see Cushman Citation1989). 3. Other ethnographic studies include Mote (Citation1967), Suthep (Citation1977), Imanaga (Citation1990), Forbes and Henley (Citation1997), Wang (Citation2006), and Huang (Citation2007). Mote's article is the first publication dealing with contemporary Yunnanese migrants in Thailand based on a 1-week visit in two villages. Huang's recent work treats the issue of ethnic identity of the Yunnanese Chinese in a border village in northern Thailand by adopting a perspective of shifting identities in relation to external contexts. The rest of the studies are focused on Yunnanese Muslims. 4. There are exceptional cases where the Han are a minority to adjacent non-Han groups; for example, see Shih (Citation2003). 5. The number of Yunnanese refugees in Thailand in the 1950s was still small. Three Yunnanese villages were founded during this period with the help of KMT troops. Most Yunnanese refugees have arrived since the 1960s. Based on my field data and relevant records, there were at least 44 Yunnanese refugee villages in 1974. Among them, 29 can be classified as KMT villages (i.e. those under the protection and supervision of the KMT forces). A rough estimate of the population of the KMT Yunnanese in the mid-1970s was approximately 25,000 people and Yunnanese refugees as a whole numbered approximately 30,000. The continuous inflow of Yunnanese refugees from Burma has ensured a steady increase in the Yunnanese population in Thailand. According to 1994 data released by The Free China Relief Association, a semi-official organisation in Taiwan that established The Service Corps for Refugees in Northern Thailand in 1982, there were 77 villages inhabited by Yunnanese refugees. The total population in these villages was 89,018. The Han Chinese accounted for approximately 60 per cent (approximately 54,000); the rest was accounted for by other ethnic groups, mostly hill tribes. 6. Ban Mai Nongbua (Chaiprakan district, Chiang Mai province) was my major research site for intensive participant observation during my doctoral field research. For basic data regarding the 25 villages, see Chang (1999, pp. 102–4). 7. For classifying generations, see Chang (Citation2006a), where I integrate the factors of place and time in categorising the generations. 8. The term ‘to work through and work out’ is derived from Bhabha's writing on in-between culture (Citation1996, p. 59). 9. While referring to former officers, the Yunnanese still use the previous military ranks; for the rest, the Yunnanese address each other with affiliated terms based on the kinship principle. In the present paper, I adopt this custom to address my informants as I did during the course of my fieldwork. Dadie (), senior uncle, is an address for male adults who are older than one's father. 10. Dama , senior aunt, is an address for female adults whose husbands are older than one's father. 11. The textbooks were brought in from Taiwan; for an analysis of Chinese education in the Yunnanese villages and the people's relationships with Taiwan, see Chang (Citation2006a). 12. Generally speaking, the Yunnanese villages of the Chiang Mai and Mae Hongson provinces were under the domain of influence of the Third Army, whereas those of the Chiang Rai province were under the domain of influence of the Fifth Army. 13. Invitations to Yunnanese Taoist priests still prevail in ritual affairs. Some of the priests travel between the Shan state of Burma and northern Thailand. Their profession has become a transnational business. 14. Xiangbang is the most illustrative form of reciprocal exchanges among Yunnanese, especially at weddings and funerals. On such an occasion, villagers lay aside their work and go to the family undertaking the event to give whatever help is necessary. In effect, this serves as a significant impetus to Yunnanese communal life and is a prominent performative narrative revealing Yunnanese intragroup associations. 15. For more stories, see Chang (1999, p. 242–3). 16. The positive impact of the migrant Yunnanese on nearby ethnic groups in agriculture has also been noted by Mote (1967, p. 506) and Hanks and Hanks (Citation1987, p 137–8) in their earlier studies. 17. The self-reference of hanren in relation to ethnic minorities as non-Han is also a prevailing phenomenon among the Yunnanese Chinese in Burma. According to elderly informants, this differentiation in address has been passed on for generations, since the days in Yunnan. Whereas hanzu (the Han nationality) is a modern creation of the early twentieth century, hanren is an old term in Chinese history (see Jia Citation2003, pp. 169–84). I suspect that Hill's informants used zhongguoren rather than hanren while speaking to her because Hill is American. In the context of the Chinese language, it makes more sense for the people to express their ‘Chinese’ identity to Hill, a Westerner, when talking about their relations with the majority Thai and also the minority hill tribes. In addition, the field site where Hill conducted her research was basically in Chiang Mai (not the border areas), where the number of hill tribes was very small at the time of her research. Hence, the chances of urban Yunnanese remarking on tribal minorities were small. 18. Based on my own field research in northern Thailand, the Muslim population constitutes less than 10 per cent among the migrant Yunnanese. Informants (both Han and Muslims) consistently stress that the Han is the largest group in Thai–Burmese transborder trade. Thus, the finding contradicts many earlier Western travelogues and colonial surveys, which maintained that the Yunnanese Muslim traders were the major group (e.g. Sladen Citation1870; Anderson 1876/Citation1972; Colquhoun Citation1900). Several later academic studies followed this view (e.g. Yegar Citation1966; Suthep Citation1977; Forbe & Henley 1997). My interpretation is that the Muslims traders could have been more noticeable in some parts of the borderlands, especially during the time when the Muslim revolt took place (1856–1873 CE); the Muslim traders controlled a major part of the Yunnanese border trade (see Wang Citation1968; Huang Citation1976). However, the Han Chinese have been the primary trading group in history. Sun (Citation2000), investigating the issue of Chinese–southeast Asian overland interactions from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries by using historical sources in Chinese, Tai and Burmese, indicates the predominance of Yunnanese Han over Yunnanese Muslims in long-distance trade (p. 223). Giersch (Citation2006), working on the transformation of the Yunnan frontier between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, also presents similar findings. 19. The five villages with Yunnanese Muslims are Ban Yang (Fang district of Chiang Mai province), Huo Fei (Fang district of Chiang Mai province), Tathon (Mae Ai district of Chiang Mai province), Mae Salong (Mae Faluang district of Chiang Rai province), Ban Tham (Mae Sai district of Chiang Rai province) and Wawii (Mae Suae district of Chiang Rai province). The ratio of the number of Muslim families to that of Han families in these villages in 1995–6 was 70?:400 in Ban Yang; 20:130 in Huo Fei; 20:40 in Tathon; 25:730 in Mae Salong; 10:150 in Ban Tham; and 30:286 in Wawii. 20. Li Fuyi (Citation1976, p. 31–4), a Chinese scholar on Tai studies, says that the term ‘Ho’ was used by the Baiyi (a Tai-speaking people) to refer to the rulers of the Nanzhao Kingdom (738–902 CE) and their descendants in Yunnan. ‘Ho’ means ‘grand’ or ‘heaven’ in the Baiyi language. The capital of Nanzhao was referred to as ‘Tai-ho’ (grand town) and Nanzhao was called ‘Meng-ho’ (the grand kingdom). However, with the great influx of Han Chinese into Yunnan at the beginning of the fourteenth century and the concomitant process of Sinicisation, the term ‘Ho’ was used by the Tai people with reference to Yunnanese Chinese both in Yunnan and neighbouring countries. Giersch also mentions that Han Chinese are called Ho by the Tai in Yunnan (2006, pp. 14, 36, 84). 21. The Yunnanese Muslims in Thailand are referred to as Ho Islam or simply also as Ho by the Thai people. 22. The Chinese Independent Forces (CIF) is an official name given by the Thai authorities to the KMT. 23. This suspicious attitude was also directed towards tribal minorities. 24. The same treatment is found in the categorising system of the library of Chulalongkorn University. 25. For example, in 1982, a powerful military operation was launched in Ban Hin Taek (Mae Fa Luang district of Chiang Rai province), the headquarters of the infamous drug warlord Khun Sa. More than 200 people died in this operation. In 1984, another action was undertaken by a special Thai military unit, The Black Panthers, in Ban Piang Luang (Wiang Haeng district of Chiang Mai province). It lasted 18 days; more than 30 villagers were arrested and killed without trial. The Thai government's reaction to drug trafficking varied from time to time, depending on who was in power at any given moment and on the varying degrees of pressure exerted by the US Drug Enforcement Administration. There were also connections between high-ranking Thai officers and the KMT troops and other drug warlords; for a description of the complex interrelations, see McCoy (Citation1991). 26. The Teochiu are the most prominent group in terms of numbers and economic success among the ethnic Chinese in Thailand. The Yunnanese often refer to them as representative of all the ethnic Chinese who came by sea to Thailand.