Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and at the start of the twentieth century, for the railways. At the same time the population
of Bangkok was growing quickly, much of it by Chinese immigration. Yet one more reas-
on for building roads was that the Privy Purse Bureau, the largest landowner in Bangkok,
was beginning to appreciate that roads meant houses, and that houses meant revenue.
Yaowarat Road was started in 1892, running parallel to Charoen Krung, and Ratchawong
Road was built in the same year to link the two. The older buildings on Ratchawong Road
and Songwat Road, which runs along the riverbank, date from this time. And very hand-
some many of them are, too. Take a look at the building on the corner of the two roads:
it has been sadly neglected, but its delicately arched windows and projecting upper storey
with filigree woodwork are classic for this period.
A little further along Ratchawong Road is an archway marking the entrance to a nar-
row little thoroughfare, the wording in Thai and Chinese only. Dr Sun Yat-sen came to
Siam for the first time in 1903, entering the Chinese community through the secret soci-
eties, introduced by Zheng Zhi-yong, who owned the largest sweepstake business in the
country. Sun was looking for support to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and was travelling
through Southeast Asia attempting to raise funds, but at that time Zheng was supporting
the Chinese emperor, and Sun had little success amongst the Chinese in Bangkok. Chinese
secret societies, collectively known in Siam as Hongmen, had started to form in the early
days of Bangkok and were influenced by the Chinese fraternal organisation known as Ti-
andihui, which had originated earlier during the Qing period. By the time Sun arrived
in Bangkok the Hongmen had become a number of distinct groups, essentially separated
by the main dialects of Teochew, Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka and Hainanese, but with
further complex groupings beyond that. The main purpose of the secret societies was to
help and support their members and give them protection in what was a harsh world, but
they were also closely associated with vice, extortion and violence. There was often in-
tense rivalry amongst them: in 1889 gang war had erupted in Yaowarat and the army was
called in to restore order. Sun understood the complexities, and he studied the situation
patiently, coming to Siam on three more occasions, once in 1906 and twice in 1908. He
gained the support of Xiao Fo-cheng, a Chinatown publisher who had been born in the
Straits Settlements and whose British citizenship afforded him protection from the Sia-
mese authorities, and Xiao played an important role by publishing newspapers that ar-
gued the case for revolution in China.
