Charoen Chai, the 1898 shophouse block in Bangkok's Chinatown

A few steps from the MRT Wat Mangkon station, in the heart of Bangkok's Chinatown, there is a block that most visitors pass through without stopping. It is called Charoen Chai, and it occupies the space between Charoen Krung Road and Phlappha Chai Road, in the Pom Prap Sattru Phai district. The first colonial-style shophouses here were built in 1898, during the reign of Rama V (King Chulalongkorn). The Chinese community knew the area as Tong Heng Gouy, "the long bamboo cane". The lanes had precise functions: along Soi Charoen Chai 1 people lived, while in Soi Charoen Chai 2 they worked, among liquor shops, Chinese medicine dispensaries and clinics. It was settled first by Cantonese, then by Teochew, traders and workers.

History of the quarter

Around 2010 the block was in danger of disappearing. The construction of the metro's Blue Line, which runs beneath Charoen Krung Road, sent land values soaring and put the quarter's survival in question. Instead of giving in, the residents organised: in 2011 the Charoen Chai Conservation and Rehabilitation Group restored an old two-storey shophouse and turned it into a small museum, the Baan Kao Lao Rueng ("the old house that tells stories"). Since then the community has also held an annual festival, the Charoen Chai Moon Festival, to pass on the Sino-Thai memory.

The museum

The building chosen is no accident: before becoming a museum it was home to Chinese opera artists. Inside today you can see the singers' stage costumes, objects and utensils of everyday life of old, panels on the history of the immigrants and the architecture of the shophouses. It is small, visited in half an hour, and it tells one precise thing: how a community of immigrants put down roots in this corner of the city and how it decided not to let itself be erased. Admission is free; at the entrance there is a donation box, which is the concrete way to support it.

The votive paper market

All around, the lanes are the largest wholesale market for votive paper money (joss paper) in Bangkok. It is a living trade, not a set piece: stacks of banknotes for the afterlife, and paper replicas of objects to burn for the dead according to Chinese tradition. The offering has modernised over the years and, alongside incense and traditional papers, you find replicas of smartphones, tablets, luxury watches and cars. You walk among shops packaging orders for temples and families, with the rustle of paper and the smell of incense.

How to get there

How to get there: MRT Blue Line, stop BL29 Wat Mangkon. Coming out onto Charoen Krung Road you take Soi Charoen Krung 23, a narrow lane full of stalls, next to the Wat Mangkon Kamalawat temple. The museum is at number 32 of Charoen Chai Alley, near the junction between Soi 23 and Trok Charoen Chai. It is open every day, roughly from 8 to 5. The best time to walk here is the dry, cooler season, from November to February, when Bangkok's humidity lets up and the lanes can be covered without effort.