#文章首发挑战赛#
The Dai people, an ethnic minority in Yunnan, China, and the Tai people, the main ethnic group in Thailand, are actually one ethnic group with the same roots, which can be seen from the similar traditional culture and traditional clothing of the two ethnic groups. The most famous Songkran festival of the Dai people will also appear in Thailand, and even the Dai language spoken by the Dai people can almost seamlessly connect with Thai except for a few dialect accents. The original pronunciation of Dai and Tai is also very similar linguistically. Therefore, in fact, academically, the Dai and Tai people are studied as the same ethnic group.
However, it is strange that China's Yunnan does not border Thailand, and Dehong, one of the two major Dai settlements, is located in the west of Yunnan bordering Myanmar, and Xishuangbanna, the other major settlement, is located at the junction of Myanmar and Laos in the southernmost part of Yunnan.
It seems that Myanmar and Laos have severed the connection between the Dai and Tai peoples, but in fact, the connection is precisely here. Myanmar borders China in the northeast of the country, which happens to be its largest ethnic minority, the Shan State, and the Shan people, who mainly live here, are actually the name of the Dai people in Myanmar. In the same way, the main ethnic group in Laos is actually the Dai people, but by a different name.
Geographically, the Lancang River, which flows south from western Yunnan Province in China, is called the Mekong River after leaving the country, and the middle and upper reaches of the Mekong River basin of the Lancang River are an area where China, Burma, Laos, and Thailand converge, that is, the main settlements of the entire Dai, Shan, Lao and Thai ethnic groups. Among them, China's Dai population is relatively small, with more than 1.3 million people, Laos's Lao nationality as its main ethnic group is about 5 million, and Myanmar's Shan nationality, in addition to mainly living in Shan State, there are scattered in Kachin, Kayah, Karen and other ethnic minority states and the central provinces of Myanmar, according to different statistical calibers, the total number ranges from 5 million to 8.5 million, but it is also the second largest ethnic group in addition to the Burmese Burmanse.
As for the Thai people in Thailand, they are the most numerous, accounting for 40% of the total population of Thailand, with more than 26 million people. In addition, there are also a small number of Dai and Tai ethnic groups in Vietnam and Cambodia in Indochina, and even the Ahom people in northeastern India in South Asia also belong to the Dai and Tai branches.
However, these ethnic groups, as essentially the same ethnic group, do not all live very happily in China like the Dai people. The worst of these are the Shan people in Myanmar.
How did the Dai and Tai ethnic groups in Indochina come to be? Why do the larger ethnic groups in other countries not do as well as in China?
The ancestors of the Dai and Tai ethnic groups first originated in Baiyue in the pre-Qin period of the mainland, and after the 5th century BC, they established the Ailao State at the intersection of southwest China and the Indochina Peninsula. After the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty, some ethnic groups moved further south into the Indochina Peninsula, and established the Shan State in the middle reaches of the Mekong River. However, due to the existence of indigenous Mon and Khmer ethnic groups in the southern part of the Indochina Peninsula, and the successive establishment of kingdoms such as Chenla and Funan, the Dai and Tai people can only choose to settle in some mountainous areas with relatively poor conditions in this region, and continue to blend with other ethnic groups, such as accepting the Southern Buddhism from the Khmer people, which is commonly known as Theravada Buddhism, and continues to spread to the north, affecting the entire Dai and Tai ethnic groups.
At the same time, the Tai Dai began to experience different regime changes between the north and the south, including the southern part of Yunnan in China, the northeastern part of Myanmar and the northern region of Laos, and the flourishing Nanzhao State emerged during the Tang Dynasty, of which the Dai and Tai were the main ethnic groups. Later, the Nanzhao Kingdom was destroyed, and during the Five Dynasties to the Song Dynasty, the minority regime Dali was established here, and the Dai and Tai ethnic groups were still under its rule.
After the Mongol Yuan destroyed Dali in the 13th century, the Dai and Tai peoples, like other ethnic groups in the region, began to gradually enter the situation of local Tusi rule, and during the same period, the Dai and Tai people in the south established the Sukhothai Kingdom, the predecessor of Thailand. During the Ming Dynasty, the Sukhothai Kingdom was known as Siam, while the Dai and Tai regimes in the north inherited the Tusi system of the Yuan Dynasty, and the Ming and Qing dynasties were subservient to the Central Plains Dynasty. Although the Burmese dynasty also partially controlled the Tusi tribe in northern Myanmar from the 17th century, the Shan State inhabited by the Dai and Tai ethnic groups in Burma still claimed to China and Burma in the form of multiple Tusi regimes, and even Burma was a vassal state of the Qing Dynasty at that time.
However, in the mid-to-late 19th century, with the British occupation of Burma, the French colonized Vietnam east of the Indochina Peninsula and continued to encroach on Siam and occupy Laos. In addition to the Dai people in China, the Thai people in Thailand are now relatively well-off.
The Shan people in Myanmar, because the British colonial period was a state of self-government, and the agreement with the Burmese after World War II to jointly establish the Union of Myanmar was also a loose alliance, coupled with the prevailing oppression of the Greater Burmese nationality here, resulting in armed struggle in the Shan areas of Myanmar to this day. Although Laos is not doing well economically, the Lao people survive in a relatively stable national environment after all.