Single Chinese Migrant Men in Siam, Late 24th – Early 25th Centuries (B.E.)

บทความวิชาการ

Abstract

This study aimed to examine Chinese migration to Siam from the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth century, focusing on the experiences of unmarried Chinese men as key actors in a predominantly male migration regime under the expansion of Siam’s commercial economy and labor system. It was argued that male bachelorhood was not merely a personal condition but was closely related to migration structures and labor arrangements that positioned Chinese men as mobile workers separated from family life and permanent settlement.

This study employed a micro-historical approach to understand the everyday lives of unmarried Chinese men through their labor and the social spaces of the Chinese community. It highlighted the precarity of migrant labor and the strategies used by Chinese migrants to cope with these structural conditions. Marriage to Siamese women was examined as a key turning point in the lives of these migrants, which was shaped by economic stability and the desire for permanent settlement in Siam, rather than being merely a process of cultural assimilation. The article argued that Chinese communities in Siam were built upon the labor and lived experiences of numerous unmarried Chinese men, whose roles had often been overlooked in previous migration studies. Focusing on the lives of single Chinese men thus offered new perspectives for a more comprehensive understanding of masculinity, migration, and community formation in Siamese society.