Walking the back street of Chinatown looking for old houses.

Some time ago I wondered what it would be like to just walking the back street of Chinatown. Sometimes getting lost and walking around without a clear destination could be quite entertaining and relaxing at the same time. So, after getting off the bus, I just followed my nose which led to to an elderly family selling traditional Chinese snacks.

These are made from rice flour with different vegetable fillings so they are suitable for vegetarians. The long queue made me promise myself that I would be back there again.

I turned into a narrow side road at the junction leading towards Chinatown. The day was very hot so it was walking rather slowly. I was glad that I chose the right fork (hard fork is not viable in Chinatown as space is very limited. Hahaha). I discovered several old buildings and a very old Chinese shrine.

The two rows of these houses were built during the reign of King Rama V, over a hundred years ago when the King started to organise the city planning. The King’s trip to Europe influenced his vision about the need for planning and development of Bangkok. Several of our wide roads were influenced by the Champ Elysee in Paris while most Palaces including bridges were designed by Italian designers. We still have the old Portuguese and neocolonial buildings dotted around Bangkok too.

The Italian influence could be easily seen on this old building which is now the Chinese cultural center. This center has an open court in the middle of the two wings of connecting buildings. These are over a hundred years old buildings probably built by foreign investors who set up companies to trade on agricultural produce, teak lumbers, tin and minerals, and probably ivory too.

I was glad to see some old houses still kept the original teak wood doors and windows. These would fetch a lot of money in the antique markets. In the old days, local people would easily exchange their wooden door for modern aluminum door; they took wooden doors fur granted as there used to be so plenty and very cheap. Tourists who would like a cycling tour of Chinatown could join the touring company in Chinatown. But I thought it was much better walking through narrow lanes instead of trying to get through crowd with a bicycle. Besides, the traffic on the main road would be rather dangerous as we don’t have bicycle lanes around the area.

I found a very old Chinese shrine which those early Chinese immigrants decided to established for their community as a source of spiritual support and guidance through their challenging new beginning in another country. So, the shrine has been lovingly taken cared of through generations of caretakers. Most of the statues and sculptures were imported from China as they had to be blessed by highly respected monks and been through sacred ceremonies. This was the good old days of relatively flexible lifestyles in China before the rise on communism. That’s probably why Chinese tourists love to go on temples tour for religious blessings and ceremonies in Thailand. However, I think some of these temple tours have become too commercialised.

The old statue of Bodhisattva or Kwan Yin was truly impressive, it’s quite rare to find such a statue with each arm holding sacred object imperfect round formation. These sacred objects were lovingly crafted by old generations of Chinese artists. The new or recently made statues could not match the artistic details and elegance of the older generations’ statues.
The shrine room was very dimly lit so as to preserve the antiques but this made it very difficult for taking photos.

The details on the wooden beams under the roof were just fantastic wood carving in bright colours. I like the antique giant pot for incense. The drawing of the Chinese guardian on the wooden door looked like a traditional Chinese soldier in Chinese opera. Seatings with prayer books were already set for evening prayer. If you have never heard Chinese monks and novices performing an evening chant, you should drop by at the oldest temple in Chinatown called Wat Muongkorn (Dragon Temple). Oh! No! they don’t teach martial art there! One good thing I got from the old shop-houses was two new pairs of rubber boots at whole sale price.

Luckily I found my way back to Yaowarad Road where Chinatown was waiting for me. The price of gold was still relatively low and affordable so there were people on all the famous gold shops. I had to find my bus stop on the other side of the road. Hope I could remember to get back to that Chinese vegetarian snacks some day!

Have a nice day!

Cheers.