Chin Haw's Mosque in Chiang Rai -16-4-2006-

The Chin Haw or Chin Ho (; th, จีนฮ่อ, ), also known locally as Yunnanese ( zh, 雲南人, th, คนยูนนาน), are Chinese people who migrated to Thailand via

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

or Laos. Most of them were originally from

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...

, a southern province of China. They speak Southwestern Mandarin.

Migration

Generally, the Chin Haw can be divided into three groups according to the time of their migration. #In the nineteenth century, the

Qing army The Qing dynasty (1636–1912) was established by conquest and maintained by armed force. The founding emperors personally organized and led the armies, and the continued cultural and political legitimacy of the dynasty depended on the ability to ...

sent troops to suppress the rebellion in

, known as the

Panthay Rebellion The Panthay Rebellion (1856–1873), also known as the Du Wenxiu Rebellion (Tu Wen-hsiu Rebellion), was a rebellion of the Muslim Hui people and other (Muslim as well as non-Muslim) ethnic groups against the Manchu-led Qing dynasty in southwe ...

, which caused up to 1,000,000 lives lost - both civilians and soldiers. During this time, many people fled to the

Shan state Shan State ( my, ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်, ; shn, မိူင်းတႆး, italics=no) also known by the endonyms Shanland, Muang Tai, and Tailong, is a state of Myanmar. Shan State borders China (Yunnan) to the north, Laos ( ...

in Burma, then to northern

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

. #The

Panthay Panthays () form a group of Chinese Muslims in Burma. Some people refer to Panthays as the oldest group of Muslims in Burma. The exact proportion of the Chinese Muslim group in the local Chinese population remains unknown due to a lack of data. H ...

Chinese merchants who traded between

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

and Lan Na from their base in the

Wa States The Wa States was the name formerly given to the Wa Land, the natural and historical region inhabited mainly by the Wa people, an ethnic group speaking an Austroasiatic language. The region is located to the northeast of the Shan States of ...

. Some of them settled down along this trade route. #After the Chinese revolution in 1949, the 93rd Corps, which supported the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

party, fled to Burma and to northern Thailand.

Religion

The majority are

Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctiv ...

and follow Chinese folk religion or Buddhism. Approximately one-third are Muslim, also known as Hui people or Hui Muslim.

Activities

The Chin Haw have traditionally been itinerant in their lifestyle, conducting long-distance caravan trade throughout the Thai-Burma-Laos frontier, southeast China, and northern Vietnam. They have engaged in the heroin trade. Ma Hseuh-fu, from Yunnan province, was one of the most prominent Chin Haw heroin drug lords, his other professions included trading in tea and a hotelier. The Muslim Chin Haw are the same ethnic group as the

in Burma who are also descendants of Hui Muslims from Yunnan province, China.

References

{{Asia-ethno-group-stub Ethnic groups in Thailand

Migration

Religion

Activities

See also

References