The influence of Chinese civilization in SE Asia

Ill look at it in my own perspective, here in the Philippines, the Chinese influence is as much prevalent as the influence of the Middle Eastern traders that ventured here years ago, though this is because of a modern migration of Chinese in this region, which may number from 1 million to a total of 10 million, during the early years of the Philippines and when it was occupied by the Spaniards, the Chinese were threated as third class citizens, allocated in  slums and in fact lived in isolation to both the Filipino Populace and the Spanish one, there major contributions at that time were not centered in religion nor architectural design, neither language as well but on food. a large number of food could be traced to Chinese cuisine. even today, the chinese seem to marry only fellow chinese in this country, though there are various reasons for this, a few claim they are preserving their culture, some that they do not mix with something lesser (I find this offensive and shocking), that they are limited in number and must produce more (more shocking, 1.3 billion my last reading world wide) and etc.


In regard to other south east asian countries, Philippines during the start of its republic was more open to foreigners, Ill cite as examples, Thailand and Malaysia where the Chinese populations werent given a chance to learn their own language and laws were created as measures for this.

In essence most countries in this region were more culturally affected by the Middle East culture and South Asian culture than that by Chinese culture even though by proximity, China was nearer.


Edited by Julius Augustus - 09-Apr-2008 at 15:19

another is pancit.