Thailand’s Political Peasants: Power in the Modern Rural Economy

2. Ban Tiam’s Middle-Income Rural Economy

Ban Tiam is located in a narrow valley about one hour’s drive from the city of Chiang Mai. The houses of the village are clustered around a long, straight road that runs south from the district center. It is the last village before the paved road fades into gravel and enters the densely forested Lanna National Park. To the west of the road, the Talat River winds its way through Ban Tiam’s paddy fields. Even though the river is only a few meters across, it is the irrigation lifeblood of Ban Tiam, supporting cultivation throughout the year. The fertile river valley is about one kilometer wide, but it narrows dramatically just to the south of the village, pinching the paddy fields to a point. On either side of Ban Tiam, mountains rise precipitously. One is so high that if you climb to its summit you can hear the angels pounding their chili paste. On cold winter mornings it can be eight or nine o’clock before the sun rises above the mountain ridge, finally providing relief for grandparents and children huddled around improvised fires. The lower slopes of the mountains have been cleared for cultivation, but the higher reaches are heavily forested. A short journey along one of the tracks that winds into the mountains provides a magnificent view of the valley below: the meandering greenery of the river, a patchwork of cultivation on the paddy fields, roofs of the village just visible through thickets of trees, the glinting red and gold of the temple and its elaborate new drum tower, and swathes of fruit trees and teak plantations blending into the forested slopes (fig. 3). The village itself is made up of about 130 houses, spread out on either side of the main north-south road. Scattered among the houses along the main road are several shops, a tiny petrol station where hand pumps decant fuel 59 2 Ban Tiam’s Middle-Income Rural Economy from large metal drums, and a couple of rustic restaurants selling noodle soup. Halfway along the road, a truly magnificent wooden gate marks the side road that leads down to the glittering temple. Follow this road a little farther and you arrive at a large wooden spirit house, built in the shade of the thousand-year-old “lucky tree” to honor Ban Tiam’s supernatural lord. The temple and spirit house form the sacred center of the original village, but residential expansion means that they now lie toward its western edge (map 2). Most of the village’s houses are made of timber, and many are raised up from the ground in typically northern Thai style. Newer concrete houses, including a couple of minimansions built by Ban Tiam’s nouveau riche, are built on the ground, trapping the heat as their whitewash dazzles in the afternoon sun. Houses are located in compounds, which contain a miscellany of small gardens, fruit trees, scrawny chickens, sullen dogs, and abundant junk. Many of these compounds are big enough for a second house, often for the family of a married daughter. Household compounds are clearly demarcated and usually fenced, although there are numerous informal rights-of-way passing 60 Ban Tiam’s Middle-Income Rural Economy figure 3. Ban Tiam in the wet season, looking east. (Photo by the author.) through them so that pedestrians and motorbikes can avoid long detours along the public laneways. Many of the compounds feature large open sheds where garlic is hung to dry on long bamboo poles. Most have small shrines to the house plot’s territorial spirit, and about twenty have slightly more elaborate shrines for the ancestral spirits of Ban Tiam’s various lineages. Rice stores sit on sturdy poles, capped with iron in an attempt to keep rats at bay. A few households have carefully tended lawns, but these are an exceptional sign of domestic refinement. Ban Tiam’s Middle-Income Rural Economy 61 map 2. Ban Tiam, Thailand. (Map by Cartography Unit, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University.) The image is unmistakably rural, but Ban Tiam is certainly not isolated. Drive north out of the village and it takes only a few minutes to reach the district center with its market, hospital, banks, schools, shops, restaurants, and government offices. In a nice reversal of common northern Thai classification , this small center of civilization is locally referred to as Forest Village, because...