Hoje, dia 23 de Abril de 2009 o Jornal Bangkok Post, de língua inglesa que se publica em Bangkok, dedicou duas páginas a este tema.
É pena que muito portugueses visitem Phuket, banham-se em suas cristalinas águas nas imensas praias que possue, porém não tomam um banho de cultura e desconhecem até, digo na sua grande maioria, que os portugueses tiveram uma presença e influência muito importante nesta cidade bem como na cidade de Penang na Malásia.
Sino-Portuguese Architecture
The architecture of the buildings around the old town area is usually described as Sino-Portuguese. That is a mixture of Chinese and European influences.
The buildings are mostly shop houses, three or four stories high. They have a ground floor shop where the family can run their business with living space behind and on the floors above. Many of the buildings are very narrow measuring only 5 meters wide but they can stretch up to 50 meters back. You can most clearly see the Chinese influence in the ornately decorated doors and windows while the European influence is behind the distinctive walkthrough archways.
The Chinese influence comes from the large number of Chinese migrants who came to work in Phuket's tin mining industry and from the strong trading relationship Phuket formed with Penang. At the time, the island of Penang in Malaysia was the major local trading port and the Chinese dominated its business community. If you go to Penang today, you can see some very similar architecture.
The Portuguese reference is misleading. The Portuguese were among the first western traders to have a presence in Thailand but they had left long before Phuket started to flourish. The European influence is mostly British Colonial style imported from Penang, which was a British colony at the time.
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