The Overseas Chinese

in British-Ruled Penang

The identity of Phuket’s Baba Chinese has its roots in Penang. Early Chinese immigrants to Penang formed relationships with local women, giving birth to a unique, locally born Chinese community— the men known as Babas and the women as Nyonyas.

While Phuket had a substantial Chinese population in the 17th century, involved in mining and metallurgy, the Burmese invasion of 1767 devastated the population. By 1824, only 5,000 people, mostly Siamese, remained. That year, Siam was pressured to sign a treaty granting the British full access to Phuket’s tin trade, leading Chinese entrepreneurs from Penang to settle in Phuket and exploit the tin resources. Global demand for tin surged in the 1840s with the invention of tinplating, creating a tin rush to Phuket. The 1855 Bowring Treaty further opened up trade with Siam by guaranteeing extraterritorial rights to British subjects.

In her acclaimed work, “Family and State: The Formation of a Sino-Thai Tin-Mining Dynasty,” Jennifer Cushman describes how the influential Khaw family operated as capitalist-bureaucrats. Acting as brokers for the Siamese King and administrators for the western maritime council of southern Thailand, they amassed wealth and built a financial empire, with their business headquarters situated in Penang.

Khaw Soo Cheang, the patriarch of the family and father of Khaw Sim Bee, was a tin miner and farmer in Ranong, strategically located on the Thai-Burmese border. He and his sons eventually became governors of Ranong, being ennobled with the family name “Na Ranong.” The Khaw family was instrumental in Prince Damrong’s initiative to modernize the Thai administration. They attracted capital from the Straits Settlements and envisioned developing cities, administrative systems, and the judiciary based on the British colonial model in many southern Thai provinces.

In 1890, Khaw Sim Bee was appointed governor of Trang. His impressive transformation of Trang caught the eye of Bangkok, and he was made Royal Commissioner of Monthon Phuket in 1900, overseeing 7 provinces and earning the title “Phraya Rassadanupradis Mahasirapakdee”– literally “the perpetual builder.”

With little support from Bangkok, Khaw was tasked with developing Phuket into a major port on the southwest coast and a modern city that could instill confidence in Western and Chinese investors. He did so by granting concessions to the Tongkah Harbour Dredging company, in exchange for funds to improve roads, dredge canals, and construct new government offices.

Khaw Sim Bee also introduced rubber cultivation, which became a major export for the southern provinces after 1907.

Khaw Sim Bee consciously modeled Phuket after Penang, developing the city along similar lines. He implemented urban planning with shophouses and pavements lining the streets. He established Phuket’s first modern police station, a bank, a hospital, a courthouse, and a school. He modernized the police force and improved law enforcement in this frontier and mining town.

By 1909, when the Crown Prince (later King Rama VI) visited, it was noted that besides Bangkok, there was no other city in Siam as developed as Phuket. Phuket boasted new infrastructure, including a Chinese theater, an ice factory, a brewery, rickshaws and horse-drawn carriages, and even four motorcars.

The commercial streets were teeming with Chinese residents. The cityscape was characterized by two-story shophouses, while stately villas dotted the outskirts of the city.

Khaw Sim Bee was assassinated in 1913, his untimely death sealing his legacy in the memories of Phuket Chinese. He is remembered as the father of modern Phuket, his persona transforming into the mythical “Phraya Rassada” figure whose story is retold across generations.

Khaw Sim Bee

and the Making of Modern Phuket

The movement to revitalize Phuket’s old town has generated a wealth of Thai-language publications celebrating its distinctive “Sino-Portuguese” architecture and rich Baba heritage.

These publications, primarily aimed at a Thai and Sino-Thai audience, often highlight Khaw Sim Bee as the visionary founder of the old town. His official portrait, depicting a distinguished gentleman adorned with royal decorations, is frequently used. Historical accounts by Prince Damrong, which celebrate Khaw Sim Bee as a “Great Man” of Thailand, further solidify his place in Thai history for readers. A Thai guidebook succinctly sums him up as “an exemplary administrator who brought prosperity to Phuket.”

Khaw Sim Bee is lauded as a Renaissance man, a model figure for Phuket’s people in this era of globalization and tourism. As Chaiyos Prindabrab, editor of the “Phuket Bulletin,” eloquently states: “Although an overseas Chinese, Khaw Sim Bee managed to please the King of Siam, the foreigners, and his own people. He successfully brought in power from Bangkok, attracted capital and technology from foreigners, and harnessed the industriousness of the Chinese – combining the best of Thai, European, and Chinese cultures to lay the groundwork for a thriving Phuket.” Chaiyos praises Khaw Sim Bee, asserting that “without a local hero, a city cannot awaken.”

Phuket, Penang, and Bangkok

Shifting Ties and Enduring Connections

The year Khaw Sim Bee died, 1913, coincided with a pivotal moment for Thailand’s Chinese community – the government’s mandate for them to adopt Thai surnames. Previously, many local-born Babas registered as Chinese to circumvent Siamese conscription and service in the local police.

Phuket’s tin mines were dominated by Hokkien Chinese, with the wealthiest among them granted concessions and often financing local infrastructure like temples and schools. During this period, Phuket’s elite was largely composed of Hokkien Chinese, many sharing the surname Tan. The 1933 constitutional reforms further solidified their social standing.

Unlike their counterparts in Bangkok, Phuket’s Hokkien elite did not actively pursue intermarriage with the Siamese nobility or readily adopt the nuances of Thai high culture. Instead, they built opulent villas around Phuket, embracing a Westernized lifestyle reminiscent of their counterparts in Penang. Their children were raised with a distinctly modern outlook. As Pranee Sakulpipatana observes, “In Thai novels, the protagonist is either a noble Thai or a rich heir of a flashy tin-mining tycoon.”

This modern outlook stemmed from Phuket’s strong ties with Penang, a legacy of their geographic proximity. Even traveling to the Siamese capital, Bangkok, was considered arduous, with poorly maintained roads and the threat of bandits. Just fifty years ago, Phuket residents often opted to journey by steamer to Penang before boarding a train to Bangkok. Penang was Phuket’s window to the world.

Phuket’s Chinese community actively nurtured their cultural connection with Penang through intermarriage with families there and by sending their children to renowned Penang institutions like St. Xavier’s Institution, Convent Light Street, and Chung Ling High School. Businessmen frequently traveled between the two cities, while their wives indulged in shopping sprees at Penang’s upscale establishments, such as the iconic Whiteaways department store.

Phuket’s tin and rubber were shipped to Penang for re-export, while machinery, spare parts, and manufactured goods flowed back. This symbiotic relationship thrived until 1969 when Penang lost its free port status, ultimately leading to a shift in Phuket’s economic focus towards Bangkok. However, the enduring legacy of this connection is evident in the Ngan Thawee family’s business empire, which continues to span both Penang and Phuket.

During and after World War II, Teochew Chinese merchants from mainland Thailand expanded their commercial networks southward. The Siamese government’s stance on Chinese-language education often reflected its shifting policies towards the community. Hua Boon, a Chinese school founded in 1911, was the forerunner to today’s Hua Boon Thai School, the oldest Chinese school in Thailand. Utilizing Hokkien as the medium of instruction, the school taught both Mandarin and Thai. Forced to close in 1942, it reopened a month later as Chong Hwa, incorporating two other local Chinese schools – Seong Teik and Yok Eng.

By 1953, amid Cold War paranoia surrounding communism, the school was compelled to change its name to “Thai Hua School,” signifying allegiance to Thailand.

With Chinese immigration to Thailand halted in 1949, the demand for labor in the tin mines was increasingly met by migrants from Isan, Thailand’s impoverished northeast. It is estimated that before the Isan influx, Phuket’s population was 70% Chinese, with 10% born in China. By the 1950s, two-fifths of the miners were Hokkien speakers, but the proportion of ethnic Thais was steadily increasing.