Portuguese Heritage in Bangkok

Presented by the Embassy of Portugal , from 8th to 11th December 2011, on the occasion of the celebration of 500 Years of Diplomatic Relations between Portugal and Thailand.

Conception, Santa Cruz, Rosario

The three 'Portuket' villages in Bangkok

(Samsen, Kudi Chin, Kalawar)

Churches, landmarks of Portuguese settlements in Siam

Throughout 500 years, many Portuguese have chosen Siam to settle down. They started to arrive in the beginning of the 16th century. Some were traders, others were skilled at soldiering and religious men came along to help these Christian people. Initially located in Ayutthaya a number of churches were built by Portuguese Missionaries in Siam.Siamese kings gave the Portuguese Padroado the right to profess Catholic religion since the middle of the 16th century.

In Bangkok three congregations gave birth to three distinctive communities of Thai Catholics of Portuguese descent. The purpose of this exhibition is to tell their history and to illustrate similarities and differences between them.

Bangkok

Santa Cruz Church

Rosario Church

Conception Church

Church of Immaculate Conception Community of Samsen

The present church was rebuilt in 1847

The Portuguese were granted a settlement by King Narai the Great (1657 - 1688) of Ayutthaya along the Chao Phraya River at the Samsen area. There, in 1674, they built the Church of the Immaculate Conception, served by a Dominican friar, Father Laneau. At the start of the first Chakri reign, after a Siamese military expedition against Cambodia (1781–2), a group of 400 to 500 Christian Khmers arrived in Bangkok, apparently accompanying the several thousands of war prisoners brought back from the Thai campaign.

Wat Noi (the chapel)

Immaculate Conception Church

Our Lady of MercêsAssigned to join the Christians at ‘Baan Portuket Samsen’ with the holy image they brought with them from Cambodia, a delicately carved Our Lady that continues to grace the Immaculate Conception Church.

Saint Anthony of Lisbon also graces the Church of Conception

The Cemetery of ConceptionThe existence of Portuguese people in Samsen community is still evident today in the tombs like the one from 1824 carrying the inscription “Senhora Feda Costa Mordoma de Confraria de Conceição desfaleceu na idade 75 anos”.

More tombs of “Portuket”

Pasten and other food

Massaman (a meet stew with potatoes similar to the alcatra of Azores)

Pasten (pastel)

The Portuguese presence is testified also by the food and by some Portuguese words that people in this community still remember like tia, tio, mãe and pai.

In Samsen, during Christmas people bake a cake similar to the Portuguese Pão de ló that they call Kanom farang.

Church of Santa Cruz Community of Kudi Chin

The present building, after a near total renovation in Italianate architectural style, dates from 1916.

The first church, finished in 1770, was made of wood. When the whole settlement burned down in 1833, a new church was built, already in masonry.

During the Burmese invasion of 1767 many Portuguese sacrificed their lives beside the Siamese army. After this war, a great number of them accompanied General Taksin, the future King, to found the new capital of the Siamese Kingdom, in Thomburi.The new King rewarded the Portuguese who had fought for Ayutthaya with a plot of land for them to establish a settlement and a church in a place near his palace.The royal grant is dated 14th September, Day of The Exaltation of the ‘Holy Cross’ (“Santa Cruz”) in the Catholic liturgy.

Saint Anthony of Lisbon also graces the Church of Santa Cruz

Although also known as Saint Anthony of Padua, Santo António, was born Fernando Martins de Bulhóes in Lisbon, in 1195. He remains one of the most celebrated Saints in Portuguese churches.

Thais of Portuguese descent from the Santa Cruz Community

Francis Chit or Chitrakan (1830-1891) recruited by King Rama IV as official court photographer. In 1880, he managed to set up a photography shop in New Road, becoming the first studio photographer in Bangkok.

Phayia Viset or Pascoal Ribeiro de Albergaria, General of Artillery

Angelina Sap, wife of Robert Hunter and descent of Maria Guiomar and Constantine Falcon

Maria Guiomar de Pina

Kanom farang kudi chin and other food

We find people still baking queques (a kind of sponge cake) calling it kanom farang kudi chin.

Khrop khem similar to coscorões, a traditional desert for Christmas in Portugal.

Church of RosarioCommunity of Kalawar

The present church, in Gothic style, dates from 1897.

A dissident group of people from Kudi Chin established a new settlement, and some years later, in 1786, King Rama I granted them the land to build a church, they called of the Church of the Calvary (“Kalawar” in Thai). Later it became known as Holy Rosary (“Rosário” in Portuguese).

Frei Francisco das Chagas, a Dominican from Goa, came to the congregation of Kalawar in 1787.Worth mentioning that around the same time the King also proposed that the Portuguese establish a “factory” in Bangkok, which would finally happen in 1820.

A legend tells us that the first settlers brought from Ayutthaya a wooden sculpture representing the laying body of Lord Jesus. It is kept in the church and is displayed during the procession of Good Friday.

Saint Anthony of Lisbonalso graces Holly Rosary Church

Thais of Portuguese descent from Kalawar Community

F.V. de Jesus

Names of the Portuguese survivorsfrom Auytthaya

500 Years of ‘Portuket’ in Thailand

The Catholic Church arrived in Siam with Portuguese culture, to support the many Portuguese who were settling down in this country. Portuguese priests were the only Christian farang priests for nearly one century, till the arrival of the Missions Étrangères de Paris. The relation of Portugal and Thailand is in a way unique due to the existence of these communities of ’Luso-Asians’ dating from the 16th century, who married, lived and died in Thailand.

The Portuguese presence is still evident in many ways: from culinary (apart from the ones we saw here, there are the popular Foy Thong or egg threads and egg yolk sweets of Portuguese origin) to vocabulary (pang, missan, consun, cradat, bot, calamé…).

Another distinctive sign of the Portuguese origin of those neighborhoods is that many people retained the surnames thai-ized like Ribeiro, Dias, de Paiva, Gomes, Cruz, Rodrigues, Lopes, Horta, Fonseca, Sousa, Pombeira.