Thailand's top ten wealthiest families according to Forbes

[mauRICE]

From looking at their last names and their faces, I'd say at least seven of these families are of Chinese descent but it could well be all of them are as some of their last names have been changed/bestowed by the ... for their contributions to .... When will it be enough for this lot?

[vinapu]

still, like all of us , when they go to the bathroom they need to turn exhaust fan on. I also venture to say , from time to time thay must be stuck in the traffic.

[daydreamer]

15 hours ago, mauRICE said:

When will it be enough for this lot?

It won't be anytime soon.  Greed has no bounds.

The number one man on the list is the father of the young man responsible in the famous Red Bull hit and run death of a Thai police officer.

 

[PeterRS2]

18 hours ago, mauRICE said:

From looking at their last names and their faces, I'd say at least seven of these families are of Chinese descent but it could well be all of them are as some of their last names have been changed/bestowed by the ... for their contributions to .... When will it be enough for this lot?

Thailand understandably has the highest number of the most mixed Thai/Chinese in the world, thanks in large part to massive immigration from China as that country was collapsing in the 19th century. Intermarriage did the rest. Most Prime Ministers and the majority of those who have served in the Thai parliament have/have had some Chinese ancestry.

And they now dominate the nation's economy with 8 of the top ten richest being of Chinese descent.

https://www.thebigchilli.com/feature-stories/thailands-six-pack-the-powerful-thai-chinese-families-who-dominate-the-countrys-business-scene

This is similar to the private sector in Malaysia. Public sector jobs are held for the Bumiputra Malays, but it is the Chinese in the private sector who earn more. In 2015 the Forbes 50 Richest List stated  eight of the top ten Malaysian nationals were of ethnic Chinese descent.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbespr/2015/02/26/robert-kuok-retains-top-spot-on-forbes-malaysia-rich-list/

[daydreamer]

21 hours ago, PeterRS2 said:

Most Prime Ministers and the majority of those who have served in the Thai parliament have/have had some Chinese ancestry.

Yes, the current PM Anutin's family roots are from Guangdong.  Anutin says he speaks Cantonese at home.

[PeterRS2]

59 minutes ago, daydreamer said:

Yes, the current PM Anutin's family roots are from Guangdong.  Anutin says he speaks Cantonese at home.

He's had three wives. I wonder if they all spoke/speak the Cantonese dialect. Mind you, speaking several languages is not uncommon. I had a friend in the UK who, though English, was a German teacher. He had married a French woman. By the time they were ten their three children were trilingual, sometimes switching languages as they chatted with each other.

[a-447]

37 minutes ago, PeterRS2 said:

He's had three wives. I wonder if they all spoke/speak the Cantonese dialect. Mind you, speaking several languages is not uncommon. I had a friend in the UK who, though English, was a German teacher. He had married a French woman. By the time they were ten their three children were trilingual, sometimes switching languages as they chatted with each other.

I have lots of friends in Germany.

In one family, the husband is Italian, but was brought up in France. The wife is German. 

Both speak German - although the husband insists on speaking French! - Spanish and English.

The kids speak German to their mother and French to their dad. I also speak French and German but the family always wants to practise their English with me. (The bane of every English speaker who travels!)

The kids often start a sentence in one language and finish it in another!

When you learn multiple languages and gain proficiency in them , I think the brain just rewires itself, allowing you to switch seamlessly between them. Often you don't even know which language you are speaking! 😂😂😂

As for the richest people being Chinese, is that really a surprise? From personal - albeit, limited- experience, I haven't gained the impression that Thais are particularly ambitious. And the Chinese obsession with money is well-known.

 

[vinapu]

1 hour ago, a-447 said:

haven't gained the impression that Thais are particularly ambitious. And the Chinese obsession with money is well-known.

 

yet Thais created country we all want go to and keep returning 

[hank75]

9 hours ago, a-447 said:

I haven't gained the impression that Thais are particularly ambitious. And the Chinese obsession with money is well-known.

There are lazy and poor Chinese too, they just don’t get as much press coverage 

On a more serious note, many of these Chinese families run the family units like businesses which is one of the secrets to their success and growing the wealth with each generation. 

[vinapu]

58 minutes ago, hank75 said:

There are lazy and poor Chinese too, they just don’t get as much press coverage 

 

dose of reality never hurts

[bkkmfj2648]

2 hours ago, hank75 said:

On a more serious note, many of these Chinese families run the family units like businesses which is one of the secrets to their success and growing the wealth with each generation. 

Thanks Hank. 

I recently discovered that this is also a similar phenomena in the Philippines - with the Filipino-Chinese history thanks to a Youtube blogger that I follow regarding life in the Philippines - produced by California Expat.

 

 

[PeterRS2]

From the Han Dynasty and the opening up of the Silk Road in 121 AD through to the early 19th century, China was the richest country in the world. China's inventions and innovations during that period are quite staggering. Inevitably though, as the mandarins and those at the top got richer, many peasants grew poorer. Corruption, starvation and local wars persuaded many families to emigrate throughout the period, with South East Asian countries seeing Chinese populations from as early as 1,000 AD.

But it was the prosperity resulting from trade that persuaded many Chinese families to settle outside the country. In those times most of the local populations under their Kings and Sultans in South East Asia were largely illiterate peasants. These Chinese are the ones who became increasingly richer as trade grew and many form the backbone of many South East Asian countries today.

Others came later after the 1949 Revolution. Mao had promised the very large number of merchants and businessmen in Shanghai that they could continue without interference from his communist ideology. He first regarded them as necessary in developing the economy. But in 1951 he changed his mind. Some in the pre-war years had already been moving their money out of Shanghai, fed up with Chiang Kai-shek's massive corruption and fearful of the Japanese advance south. In 1951 when the communists broke their promise, that became a flood. While most of the businesses and the executives essential to running them moved to Hong Kong, others spread throughout Asia. Hence the major presence of very rich families with strong Chinese roots throughout this part of the continent. 

[mauRICE]

On 7/15/2026 at 10:22 AM, a-447 said:

The kids often start a sentence in one language and finish it in another!

When you learn multiple languages and gain proficiency in them , I think the brain just rewires itself, allowing you to switch seamlessly between them. Often you don't even know which language you are speaking! 😂😂😂

This happens a lot in my family and family gatherings are a caucophany of polyglots. Malay, English, Arabic, Mandarin, Thai - and even Korean and Japanese among my nephews and nieces - it amuses (and confuses) my partner who speaks Thai and English.

I read recently that LOTE has declined dramatically among Australian students and there are only 400+ students studying Indonesian in the entire country? And Indonesia is just next door and one of Australia's most strategic partners. Shameful. I feel that languages shape our world view and the biggest know-it-alls I've met were frightfully monolingual and monocultural and the most painful to listen to. 

[vinapu]

9 hours ago, mauRICE said:

 I feel that languages shape our world view 

+1