Growing up in Phuket, Pichakorn Phanichwong did not think she had a different upbringing than anyone else.
Born and bred on the biggest island in Thailand, she felt she grew up in a typical Chinese Thai, or Phuket Baba, household.
“My grandmother would observe most of the major Chinese holidays,” she says. “All of them involved a large meal that was arranged on our best tableware in front of the pictures of our ancestors, then we’d pray to bless the food and we’d have a large family gathering.”
What Pichakorn – who uses the name Peach online – describes seems like a household version of the blessing of offerings to ancestors and deities commonly observed in rural China. That comes as no surprise, as she is a Peranakan Chinese of Hokkien descent; merchants from southeast China began trading in Southeast Asia in the 6th century.
The term Peranakan is used primarily in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, where it refers to a native-born person of Chinese or mixed Chinese and Malay descent.
When Penang in present day Malaysia was established as a trading post by British naval officer Captain Francis Light in 1786, it attracted Hokkien merchants who were already in the region and looking for financial security and business opportunities.