New Chinese Emigrants To Thailand Since 1970s

The research on new Chinese emigrants has been a hot topic in the area of the research on overseas Chinese. As the number of new Chinese emigrants is much smaller than that of new emigrants to western countries, the research has been mainly focusing on those in countries, such as: America, Canada, Australia, Japan, German, France, England and Russia. In a way, both the resource and research on new emigrants in Southeast Asian countries are not enough. That is why the research is important. This paper describes and analyzes the status quo of new emigrants in Thailand including the number of the new emigrants, the reasons why they go to Thailand, how they go, what they do in Thailand, and what influence they have done to the society.There have been more than 100,000 new Chinese migrants in Thailand since 1970s. Most of them are from the east of Guangdong province called the area of ChaoShan. They are famers at home. Apart from some aged who go to Thailand for living and some students who go to University there, most of them do as venders and workers, some as doctors, others as prostitutes, theives or gangs to earn their livings or make money. In addition, some migrants are there with the aim of waiting for the chances to go to a third country with no documents.Thailand has been a main destination for many Chinese emigrants whose homeland is the area of Chaoshan of Guangdong province since 700 years ago. So there has been a so called migrantion network between Chaoshan and Thailand. That is why most new Chinese emigrants can enter Thailand with documents but live there for months even years without documents.There are several reasons for new Chinese emigrants choosing Thailand as their destination. The first one is there is a history of migration from china to Thailand as long as 700 years. The second one is the assistance of the migrantion network between Chaoshan and Thailand. The third one is that the cheap commodities of china can help Chinese emigrants do as venders and earn money in Thailand. Apart from all above, there are some other reasons, such as the improved aviation, the reduced fees, the relaxed controls from Thai government, and so on.New Chinese emigrants have done many influences to Thai society, both positive ones and negative ones.Chinese medicine and the learning of Chinese are more and more popular. The newspaper in Chinese there is changing in ways of the use of Chinese characters and the way they are arranged. Of course some new Chinese emigrants with the aim of entering a third country without documents or earning money by working as prostitutes, theives or gangs do much harm to thai people as well as chinese there. One problem that should not be neglected is that some new Chinese emigrants can not get along with old Chinese emigrants who have been in Thailand for many years, even generations. They may need more time to learn to accept each other.