I enjoyed a family trip to Bangkok last month. It was just a weekend getaway but it was good to see my parents and my brother's family, all of whom had flown to the Thai capital from Singapore. I also had lunch with Sakol, an old friend from university who lives in the Thonburi area, across the Chao Phraya River, west of downtown Bangkok.
A relatively quiet suburb today, Thonburi was briefly the capital of Siam (modern-day Thailand), from 1767 to 1782, during the reign of King Taksin. One of a handful of Thai kings with the post-nominal "the Great", Taksin was, in fact, part-Chinese. His mother, Nok-iang, was Siamese, but his father, Zheng Da (later Zheng Yong), was a native of the Chaozhou region in northeast Guangdong province. The Teochews (known as Chiuchows in Hong Kong) of this region would form the majority ethnic group among Chinese-Thais. Teochews are also found elsewhere in Southeast Asia and in Hong Kong, with the most famous Chaozhou son being, of course, Li Ka-shing.
King Taksin the Great fought back the invading Burmese and unified the Thai state, and his policies ensured political stability and facilitated economic growth. He sent envoys to the Qianlong Emperor of China and, in 1772, China recognised him as the king of Siam. In his final years, however, Taksin's mental state grew increasingly unstable and he was finally put to death by his erstwhile comrade General Chao Phraya Chakri, himself part-Chinese, who founded the present Chakri dynasty.