‘CHINESE, WESTERN, THAI AND MALAY ALL MIXED, THAT IS OUR PHUKET CULTURE,’ HOTELIER SAYS

The owner of Hotel Verdigris in Phuket Old Town, Thailand, Pichakorn Phanichwong reflects on her 'mixed concept' heritage

Growing up in Phuket, Pichakorn Phanichwong did not think she had a different upbringing than anyone else.

Born and bred on the biggest island in Thailand, she felt she grew up in a typical Chinese Thai, or Phuket Baba, household.

"My grandmother would observe most of the major Chinese holidays," she says. "All of them involved a large meal that was arranged on our best tableware in front of the pictures of our ancestors, then we'd pray to bless the food and we'd have a large family gathering."

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What Pichakorn - who uses the name Peach online - describes seems like a household version of the blessing of offerings to ancestors and deities commonly observed in rural China. That comes as no surprise, as she is a Peranakan Chinese of Hokkien descent; merchants from southeast China began trading in Southeast Asia in the 6th century.

The term Peranakan is used primarily in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, where it refers to a native-born person of Chinese or mixed Chinese and Malay descent.

When Penang in present day Malaysia was established as a trading post by British naval officer Captain Francis Light in 1786, it attracted Hokkien merchants who were already in the region and looking for financial security and business opportunities.

Having settled in Penang, the Hokkien merchants established their respective clan associations, which served as a safety net outside their home country for fellow clansmen at times of sickness and unemployment and upon their death. These merchants later ventured to Phuket and to ports in Burma, now called Myanmar.

Stroll through the streets of Phuket Old Town and one can spot the striking resemblance of the shophouses to those in George Town, Penang.

"My grandmother told me that that used to be the river where the boats would come in," Pichakorn says as she points to a crossroads.

The river dried up long ago and is now a road that cuts across the main part of Old Town. We turn a corner into Soi Romanee, which used to be the red-light district for the travellers and traders.

"The last brothel closed down [during] Covid. It's a shame that it is another ice cream shop now," says the Old Town native as we pass by a pretty pink shop house that shows no sign of its shady history.

Thailand's centuries-long relationship with Chinese immigrants has often been a complex one. A study of modern Thai history reveals periods when discriminatory policies targeted Chinese people and their descendants.

These include the characterisation of them by King Vajiravudh (Rama VI) in 1914 as "Jews of the East" and the assimilation campaigns of the 1930s to 1950s, marked by property confiscations, coercive social policies and the suppression of Chinese culture.

Today, Thai-Chinese account for between 10 and 14 per cent of Thailand's population, and estimates suggest around 40 per cent of the population has some Chinese ancestry.

When Pichakorn went overseas to study at a university in Melbourne, Australia, she found she connected with other Peranakans from Malaysia.

"I speak Thai, but in Phuket we would have Peranakan words in our lexicon," she says. "For example, if I'm saying something like 'I'll wait for you upstairs', the sentence would be in Thai but the word stairs would be in Hokkien."

The overseas students also connected over the similarities in food, even though Pichakorn hails from Thailand and her friends were from Malaysia or Singapore.

One of their common dishes was moo hong, which is similar to the classic Nyonya dish of braised pork belly called sek bak. While moo hong shares common ingredients with sek bak such as pork belly, soy sauce, star anise and cinnamon, moo hong has additional Thai flavours such as garlic, coriander and lots of black pepper.

Phuket Baba cuisine is not limited to Nyonya dishes that also use local Thai ingredients; sometimes it works the other way too. The Baba version of the traditional Thai sour soup tom som has a lot more added ingredients.

"Tom som is a classic Thai sour soup that uses things like tamarind paste, shrimp paste and fish. The Phuket version adds more ingredients to balance out the sour and salty [flavours] such as pineapple and cashew nuts," Pichakorn says.

The Charm Dining Gallery, which specialises in Phuket Baba cuisine in the setting of a traditional shophouse, has a Michelin recommendation for its authenticity.

During its 200 years of settlement by the Peranakans, Phuket has developed its own festival.

The Phuket Vegetarian Festival's origins are believed to lie in an outbreak of malaria - or cholera, depending on who you ask - that caused a Chinese opera group to fall ill during the 19th century. Seeking divine intervention, one performer travelled to China to invite the Nine Emperor Gods (Jiu Huang Xingjun) to Phuket.

The group abided by strict purification practices, including abstaining from meat, alcohol, sex, quarrels, lies and killing. After their recovery the epidemic ended, and the festival became an annual tradition to honour the gods and celebrate survival.

Pichakorn has opened a small, 14-room boutique hotel in Phuket Old Town called Hotel Verdigris. She based the aesthetics of the hotel on Martina Rozells, the wife of Captain Light who established Penang as a British trading post.

"There isn't a lot of information about Martina Rozells, but she was half Thai and half Portuguese," she says.

"Her father was Chinese Thai and her mother was French Portuguese, which tells me a lot about the culture in Phuket Old Town, especially the architecture. Our windows and window frames are very reminiscent of Portuguese design.

"Phuket Baba culture isn't just about combining Chinese and Thai culture; what makes it different is that we also have influences from the West."

She adds: "We also have Indian and Malaysian influence. However, the Western elements are strong in our vocabulary. In Phuket dialect, we don't have a word for truck, we call it a lorry."

The same influences apply to traditional dress. "I don't wear a traditional Thai costume when the occasion arises, I wear a Peranakan dress that has Chinese, Western, Thai and Malay all mixed; that is our own Phuket culture."

Pichakorn does not have a particularly strong conviction about the need to conserve or preserve traditions.

"Martina Rozells' background, to me, is the true spirit of being Peranakan in Phuket; it's not just about being Chinese in Thailand, it also has a lot of other influences as well."

She worked with an interior designer to make sure that Chinese, Thai, Western and Malaysian touches were prominent in her hotel, from the lobby and the reading room to the suites.

"I feel that Phuket Peranakan was always a mixed concept from the beginning," she says. "My grandmother could wear a Western dress with a Chinese hairpiece. It's dynamic and I will keep to the spirit of what she did.

"It will definitely evolve, but as long as it is a mix of these cultures it won't go away."

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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.

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