Traditional Siamese vs Modern Siamese

Because of the breeding history, Siamese cats are divided into two types: Traditional Siamese and Modern Siamese. The majority of traditional Siamese cats sold on the market today are not recognized by CFA and are referred to as "accent-colored short-haired domestic cats".

You can search for Siamese cats on the CFA, FIFe, and TICA websites, and you will see such cats.

And the one you have at home is probably such a cat.

The person who sells you the cat, whether it's a breeder or a cat dealer, will probably kindly tell you that it's a traditional Siamese, not a modern Siamese.

Have you ever thought carefully about what defines a traditional Siamese? What does it look like? And how is it related to modern Siam?

There is a kind of cat: Thai cats consider themselves to be Traditional Siamese

The following paragraphs are translated from the Thai cat introduction on the TICA website.

Breed Profile

The Thai is a breed dedicated to preserving the original form of the native Thai accent cat, which is the official name of TICA and many European associations. "Thai is the official name of TICA and many European associations. Thai cats are short-haired cats with an accent color pattern, dark blue eyes, a slightly whiter body and darker colored limb ends. However, they are moderate in form and not extreme. Some people think that Thai cats resemble "apple-headed Siamese", but others do not. "Applehead" is a rather colloquial term, not an official breed name, and means different things to different people. The Thai cat, the natural accent color you can find in present-day Thailand, also resembles the Siamese cats of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For example, Greta Hindley's female cat Prestwick Perak.

History

For at least 700 years, the Thais have favored an accent-colored cat they call the Wichienmaat. From some of Thailand's most famous cat-related poems, we know that the Thais have bred and raised this cat since the time of the Ayutthaya dynasty, through the subsequent Siamese dynasty, and all the way up to today's Thailand. In the nineteenth century, the British came to Thailand (then called Siam) and discovered the Wichienmaat, a cat with exceptional blue eyes, a slightly white body and dark-colored limb ends. They had not seen a similar cat anywhere else in the world and decided to introduce it, naming it the Siamese. The goal of Western breeders was to improve this accent-colored breed native to Siam by making it more uniform and striking in appearance. They soon bred Siamese cats with eyes that were bluer than their origin. They also worked to breed the head and body of the Siamese cat to be more and more distinctive. By the 1950s, cat show competitions featured Siamese cats with longer heads, bigger bones, and slimmer bodies. Many people liked this metamorphosis of the Siamese cat, but others preferred the breed's older, more modest form.

It was in the 1950s, when breeders around the world chose to breed the intermediate Siamese cats of the early 1900s, that the Thai began to deviate from the Siamese breed. By the 1980s, the intermediate Siamese was no longer competitive in cat show competitions, as mainstream breeders were breeding a more stylish and extreme cat. At the same time (1980s), the first breed cat clubs for the traditional Siamese were born in Europe and North America. In 1990, the WCF association in Europe awarded the breed championship to a traditional form Siamese cat and changed its breed name to Thai, thus distinguishing the Traditional Siamese from the competition style Siamese cats of the time.In 2001, Thai cat breeders began to bring in the blood of local accent-colored cats from Thailand to preserve a healthy genetic pool for Thai cats and to enhance the genetic profile of the native cats of Southeast Asia Because they are so different from Western cats, the TICA Association recognized the Thai cat as a preliminary new breed in 2007 and officially recognized the breed in 2009. Since then, Thai cat breeders in North America and Europe have been able to breed and participate in cat shows under the same breed standard.

*Pictures of Thai cat award-winning cats are attached here for reference

It is easy to see from this history that Siamese cat breeding began before 1900, and in the 1950s, there was a divergence between traditional and modern forms. While the standards of the various cat associations were biased in favor of the modern Siamese, preferring a more elongated and extreme form, the traditional form, was considered to be the poorer Siamese cat and was gradually eliminated from competitions. Many breeders, however, still insisted on breeding the traditional Siamese, which was recognized by the WCF in 1990 and was renamed the Thai Cat. It was recognized by TICA in 2009 after reintroducing the bloodline of the native Thai accent color cat.

What the official website doesn't tell you is that the vast majority of Traditional Siamese breeders are not willing to register their cats as Thai cats, nor do they recognize the Thai cat as the Traditional Siamese.

This is easy to understand: a breed changes form during the breeding process, and in the case of two schools of breeders arguing over who bred the orthodox Siamese, no one will be willing to classify themselves as a new breed. Traditional Siamese breeders, who insisted on breeding the Siamese cats of their choice when the standard of competition was not in their favor, were under more pressure and more unrecognized effort. Many breeders no longer continued to record the pedigrees of their cats with the various societies, but instead recorded them themselves.

The association that emerged in the 1880s, called the Traditional Siamese Fanciers' Club, was unanimously recognized and embraced by Traditional Siamese breeders, as it provided a platform for Traditional Siamese who were able to provide pedigree records to register and compete. However, when the club's president was replaced, it was reduced to a money-grubbing organization that paid people to register. It was soon disbanded with deep disappointment among the breeders.

When the WCF gave the Traditional Siamese an award and named it the Thai Cat in 1990, it was a worthy gesture for traditional breeders, but the honor ultimately belonged to only a small group of people. In fact, during the decades when the Traditional Siamese lost the guidance of the Association's standard, it was left to develop different looks according to the different preferences of each of the breeders, and at this point it was impossible to standardize the breed standard by the look of a particular breeder's cat. And reintroducing the bloodline of the local Thai accent color cats is even more unacceptable to traditional Siamese breeders. The traditional Siamese that has been continuously selected and bred for over a hundred years is also too different from the native Thai cats, and doing so would be tantamount to denying most of the previous efforts of the breeders. The stance is different, and although the Thai cat breeder's original intention was to preserve the traditional Siamese, he ultimately had to let the Thai cat live up to its name and return to its most primitive form. This is the most reasonable thing to do, but it is impossible to say that the Thai cat is the traditional Siamese.

On CFA not recognizing the Traditional Siamese

We've heard a lot of this, and it's actually very wrong of CFA, as the world's only genotyping association, to recognize all Siamese cats with a pedigree, except that it's standards are skewed towards the modern Siamese, and CFA recognizes that the Traditional Siamese won't be able to win competitions because it doesn't meet the breed standard. As a breeder, how long do you insist on registering every cat with the association when you breed cats that don't meet the association's breed standard to win competitions? Ten or twenty years? But that's not even close to enough. It's not that CFA doesn't recognize the Traditional Siamese, it's that most Traditional Siamese have lost their CFA pedigree records. You can still find very few Siamese in traditional form with CFA pedigree records.

About the "Applehead Siamese"

This bit of TICA banter is interesting. In the history of Siamese cat breeding, it was customary in the United States to refer to the traditional Siamese as the Applehead Siamese, and there's nothing wrong with that, it's very graphic compared to the modern look. It's just that I want to tell you that there was a time when breeders mistakenly bred opposite eyes and folded tails as breed traits of Siamese cats, and then realized they were defects. So they introduced western cat blood to dilute the defect, and in the meantime a bunch of round-faced, apple-headed Siamese appeared. This is just an episode in the history of Siamese cat breeding. It is not what it originally looked like.

Regarding your cat, the so-called traditional Siamese in China

The earliest Siamese cats in China, many of them probably came directly from Thailand and were never bred by European or American breeders. Of course there are also traditional Siamese from breeders, mostly without identity, who came to China at a relatively cheap price. Some may be the offspring of modern Siamese, treated as traditional because of their stubbier and shorter stature. These cats are in turn bred and slowly developed in the country by domestic fanciers and breeders.

Some people may look at a traditional Siamese and say string, accent color short-haired domestic cat. You get angry and you want to refute it, but I'm sorry, this article won't help you either. It may actually have the blood of a field cat or some other breed, and without pedigree records to trace back to, it's all unknown to you.

You don't come to your house asking if your traditional Siamese is pure, in fact it's best not to ask that about any cat. Pure or not pure is to ask the pedigree, yes is yes, no is no, as a cat owner you should know best, with the eyes to see the photo can help you analyze its ancestors 8 generations is impossible. Most traditional Siamese around the world do not have a pedigree that can be traced, and neither does yours. So if you're asking when you know there's no traceability, I think you're asking, "Does my cat look like a cat with a pedigree?"

But I can't tell you exactly what a traditional Siamese looked like, whether it was a 1900 Siamese, or 1910, 1920, or 1950.

All I can say is that it's a look somewhere between the earliest native Thai accent color cats and the modern Siamese.

It has such a special history and comes with a deep regret. It has not been forgotten because of the adherence of breeders to their individual breeding goals; and it is for the same reason that it will no longer have a uniform look, and the possibility of regaining its identity has been lost. But while the modern Siamese is reaping the honors at cat shows, the traditional Siamese has quietly made its way into millions of homes, based on the genuine love of people for it.