as those from "three" to "ten") and terms related to gambling. Chin Haw Chinese speak Southwestern Mandarin. The rise of China's prominence on the global economic stage has prompted many Thai Chinese business families to see Mandarin as a beneficial asset in partaking in economic links and conducting business between Thailand and Mainland China, with some families encouraging their children to learn Mandarin in order to reap the benefits of their ethnic Chinese identity and the increasing role of Mandarin as a prominent language of Overseas Chinese business communities. However, equally there are many Thais, regardless of their ethnic background who study Chinese in order to boost their business and career opportunities, rather than due to reasons of ethnic identity, with some sending their children to newly established Mandarin language schools. Rise to economic dominance 19th century The previous official of the British Raj government as well as colonial agent named John Crawfurd used detailed records kept from 1815 to 1824 to analyze the productivity of the 8,595 Chinese resident there vis-a-vis other ethnic groups. Astonished by their competence, he concluded that the Chinese population, about five-sixths of whom were unmarried men in the prime of life, "in point of effective labour, may be measured as equivalent to an ordinary population of above 37,000, and...to a numerical Malay population of more than 80,000!". By 1879, Chinese merchants controlled all steam-powered rice mills in Thailand. Most of the leading businessmen in Thailand were of Chinese extraction and accounted for a significant portion of Thailand's upper class. In 1890, despite British shipping dominance in Bangkok, Chinese businesses oversaw 62 percent of the shipping sector and served as agents for Western shipping firms as well as their own. They also dominated the rubber industry, market gardening, sugar production, and fish exporting sectors. In Bangkok, Thai Chinese dominated the entertainment and media industries, being the pioneers of Thailand's early publishing houses, newspapers, and film studios. Thai Chinese moneylenders wielded considerable economic power over the poorer indigenous Thai peasants, prompting accusations of Chinese bribery of government officials, wars between the Chinese secret societies, and the use of violent tactics to collect taxes. Chinese success served to foster Thai resentment against the Chinese at a time when their community was expanding rapidly. Waves of Han Chinese immigration swept into Siam in the 19th and early-20th centuries, peaking in the 1920s. Whereas Chinese bankers were accused of