The Chinese in Bangkok: A Commercial-Oriented Minority

Abstract

THE Chinese minority in Bangkok, Thailand,2 furnishes an illustration of immigrant adjustment in a social context which has thus far received little attention in the literature on assimilation. We refer specifically to societies characterized traditionally by a two-fold division of the population into peasantry and ruling officialdom, with virtually no indigenous development of trade and commerce beyond dealings in local agricultural produce and locally-made specialties. Under the impact of penetration by industrialized nations and the resulting modernization, there develops in these societies new and increasing opportunities for commercial expansion, principally in the realm of retail trade. There is a need for commercial go-betweens to funnel imported consumption goods through wholesale and retail outlets to the mass of the population. An immigrant group may take advantage of these new commercial opportunities far more readily than the indigenous people whose social goals continue to be realized within the framework of the traditional class structure. Such immigrant groups may thereby work themselves into privileged economic and social positions and successfully resist assimilation. Situations of this type are found in underdeveloped countries of South America, the West Indies, the Near East, and the Far East. The Chinese in Bangkok present an outstanding example of this kind of immigrant