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Chinese Integration Into The Thai Culture Essay

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Pad Thai, Pad See-Ew, Drunken Noodles. These are some of the dishes that are commonly found in Thai restaurants, locally and aboard. The dishes help promotes Thai nationalism and the identity of Thais all around the world. This general knowledge about Thai food, however, does not help distinguish the Thai ethnicity from other Asian ethnicities, such as Malaysian, Indonesian and Filipino. One explanation for difficult of distinction stems from the influence of Chinese Overseas on the cultural development of these nations. Starting from the seventeenth century, Chinese Overseas had migrated into these Southeast Asian countries and eventually took part in shaping the identities of Southeast Asian nationalities today. Unquestionably, the dynamics of the integration of the Chinese culture into Southeast Asian cultures vary among the different countries. In the case of Thailand, Chinese integration into the Thai culture reveals cultural assimilation that is reflected in the modern Thai food and the eating patterns of Thai people. Eating etiquette, ingredient selection and the division of Chinese food into street food and high-end restaurants mirrors the historical relationships between Thai local and Chinese Overseas.
The extensive history of Chinese immigration into Thailand foreshadows the cultural assimilation of Chinese culture into the Thai cuisine that is widely known today, but these outcomes do not correlate with the original intentions of early Chinese immigrants into
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