Allegiance Proven

The Surname Act was introduced during the reign of King Rama VI. Being born in Thailand, we had to act like Thais and not stand out.  …Changing to a Thai surname was seen as better for the children, making it easier for them to go to school and live without being singled out.

 – Dr. Kornphanat Tungkeunkunt

 

After Rama VI’s Family Name Act was passed in 1913, some elite Chinese members of the Sino-Siam Consolidation Club adopted Thai last names, while others retained part of their Chinese surname, adding a Thai word to it.

Many Chinese descendents changed their Chinese surnames to Thai, in order to be recognized as Thai. One of the trends was to transcribe their Chinese surname, then add some Thai Pali-Sanskrit derived words. (Rattanakantadilok & Tungkeunkunt, 2023). The authors gave the example of one of their surnames, Tungkeunkunt; in which Tung was originally their Chinese surname, but they modified it and added “keunkunt” afterwards to create a Thai surname.

 

While we were studying (in Thai school), we started to feel like, “why do we have a Chinese family name when others have Thai surnames?” 

– Achara Chaloem------

 

My own last name is in fact, created from this trend. According to my father, my grandfather, who was originally from Chaozhou, changed his surname to Thai surname in the early 1960s. He had the surname “Kor” (Gao in Mandarin Chinese dialect). So he kept “Ko”, and using trends involved transcribing Chinese surnames and adding Thai Pali-Sanskrit derived words. Hence, “Kosilp”.

My maternal grandmother Kee, on the other hand, has a Thai surname without any Chinese roots despite being a descendant of Chinese migrants. She explained in one of the interviews that because of the laws, norms, and their beliefs, her surname was created by a Thai Buddhist monk. My aunt Maew, who was the person that went to ask the monk for a surname, gave an additional comment that it is as well because having a Chinese surname was making them feel alienated from Thai people, as they are also Thai themselves. 

The monk advised us to change our surname. We had Chinese names, but later we changed to Thai names. – Grandmother Kee

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Offering his opinion at the time, Anusorn Limmanee, a professor in Political Science, Chulalongkorn University,commented that due to the coup King Vajiravudh faced in 1912 after his ascension, as well as threats from revolutionary changes and the rising challenge from the middle class, he developed a more conservative form of nationalism. Conveniently, the Chinese migrants were the main and easy target of his campaign.

After the Chinese army back in China was defeated in 1938-1939, followed by communist’s victory in 1949, many Chinese-Thai then started to decide that Thailand would be a better place to live, resulting in many Chinese in Thailand deciding to naturalize and tone down their nationalist ideology.

 

Inspired to tell this story by the documentary The Last Breath in Sam Yan. It showcases the Thai-Chinese Mazu shrine community and their 100-year-old shrine that CUPM (Chulalongkorn University Property Management) is going to abolish entirely. It has the points it wants to tell the audiences, and based on concrete evidence and facts, it solidifies their storytelling. It gives clear message to the audience: not only because it is a historical momento that is so rare you can never be find elsewhere; it also doesn’t matter if you believe in it or not, but there are people who do; and they matter — and they also deserve to their rights and to be respected.

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Names and family names are, for many people, the connections to their ancestors or where they came from. I, in fact, didn’t know anything about this naming history before at all – of course, it is never taught in a school. Though I myself had always wondered why I was made fun of for having a short surname back when I was very much younger; I didn’t know that my surname has direct ties with our Chinese surname nor that we, my family as well as others, had to abandon our roots to prove allegiance to live in this Thai society. 

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Because there are 5 people talking within this piece, I recorded them with different microphones to create a more colorful sound palette;  I used the internal Zoom microphones as well as the  Rode NT4, and a Shure SM57. I paced voices across the stereo spectrum using panning. 

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                                                        Workspace

 

 

 

                                                                                                                   summed group mixer

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An old Thai radio hymns and a record of chicken on a shellac disk found in the Archival museum (n.d.) were used as these narrators explained about the history of Thai names/surnames. They are automated to give spaces for the narrators; I also use side chains within EQ and compressor to further crave out spaces. 

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Fabfilter Pro-C with sidechain

 

During 1938-1944, Modern Thai songs were mass produced following Phibunsongkhram’s policies as the government wanted to implement nationalism and patriotism, and to hype up Thai culture in order to create a stronger nation. Over 110 songs were produced – a big portion of those are related to nationalism but not exclusively; as there are other themes such as civil duty, Thai cultures, rules, norms, proper Thai language, how to dress, and women duty. 

 

Thai nationalistic songs from the same museum were also used to amplify when Dr. Kornphanat explained about Thai nationalistic movements. The songs chosen are among the mass produced during those said periods.  

“During the era of Phibunsongkhram, there was a policy of name standardization….” 

I created bass pulses by mixing various wavetables in Arturia’s Pigments. The drones were created using the calm nature ambience I sampled from Amphawa and Bueng Kan, used both as is and modified using different delay and reverb synthesizers. Bell sounds collected from different temples were used as Grandmother Kee said that the monk told them to change to Thai surname. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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