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An Interpretation of Northern Thai Peasant Economy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Edward van Roy
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Extract

A venerable occupation in North Thailand is the production of miang, a delicacy consumed as a snack or dessert by local people and by those of neighboring regions ranging from Assam to Tonkin and north through Yunnan. The product is prepared from tea leaves fermented by peasants living along the upper slopes of the Northern hills, the natural habitat of the wild tea shrub. The finished product is transported from there to wholesalers located in most sizable towns and villages of the lowlands. Each market place in lowland villages includes the stall of at least one miang vendor, who is supplied with inventory on a credit basis by the wholesaler and who retails the commodity by the bundle or by the chew, each unit, ordinarily laced with a dash of salt, garlic, sugar-water, or shredded coconut, selling for one baht (approximately U. S. $ .05) or less.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , May 1967 , pp. 421 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1967

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References

The Northern Thai communities studied are ethnically and culturally indistinguishable from the Tai Yuan, of whom a thumbnail sketch and bibliography are provided in Frank M. LeBar, Gerald C. Hickey, and John K. Musgrave, Ethnic Groups of Mainland Southeast Asia. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files Press, 1964, pp. 214–15.

1 Sealy, J. R., A Revision of the Genus Camellia. London: The Royal Horicultural Society, 1958, pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

2 Symes, Michael, Embassy to Ava in 1795. London, 1800, p. 273.Google Scholar

3 Seidenfaden, Erik, The Thai Peoples. Bangkok: The Siam Society, 1963, p. 112.Google Scholar

4 The problems associated with forced labor throughout Thai history are referred to in Wales, H. G. Q., Ancient Siamese Government and Administration. London: Bernard Quaritch, 1934, pp. 95–6, 123, 132, 161, 199–201.Google Scholar

5 “Report of the Botanical Section,” The Record, II, No. 6 (1922), 8–16Google Scholar; “Report on the Cultivation of ‘Miang,’” The Record, LII, No. 1 (1923), 16–20.Google Scholar

6 Campbell, P. D. J., Report on Survey of Tea Growing Areas of Thailand. Bangkok: Colombo Plan, March 1963Google Scholar. Additional evidence suggesting the antiquity of Thai hill villages is provided by archaeological finds in the vicinity of the research area, documented by Ruth, and Sharp, Lauriston, “Some Archaelogical Sites in North Thailand,” Journal of the Siam Society, III, Part 2 (July 1964), 237–39.Google Scholar

7 Myint, Hla, The Economics of the Developing Countries. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964, pp. 43–44.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., p. 44.

9 It is sometimes suggested that peasant economies are organized around a central kinship structure. In the present instance kinship has not been found to play a significant economic role except within the household; therefore it has not been dealt with here.

The Thai hill population does not maintain itself over the generations through the continuation of individual households; rather, the sparse evidence suggests that communities are constantly in process of being recomposed as households immigrate and emigrate in accord with their individually changing economic circumstances. In this respect, it seems, Thai hill communities differ from their lowland neighbors.

10 Frankel, S. H., The Economic Impact on Under-Developed Societies. London: Basil Blackwell, 1953. p. 30.Google Scholar

11 Substantive data on incomes were collected by a survey of all local households, conducted over a three months' period. Sources of income were individually investigated and informants' brief statements of cash earnings for the previous twelve months' period (or four miang harvest-seasons) were compared with their more detailed statements of dispositions of goods and services by volume. These data were multiplied by going prices to derive relatively reliable income figures. The problem of home-consumption of real income is avoided in the present case because of the peculiarity of the crop produced.

The imputed data invariably proved larger than informants' statements of cash income, probably because of informants' ignorance of annual cash flows as well as because of the discrepancy between cash and real income resulting from the patron-client credit arrangement (to be surveyed below).

12 Pearson, Harry W., “The Economy Has No Surplus: Critique of a Theory of Development,” Trade and Market in the Early Empires: Economies in Theory and History. By Polanyi, Karl, Arensberg, Conrad M., and Pearson, Harry W., eds., Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1957, p. 323.Google Scholar

13 The group of clients clustered around a patron in the Thai fashion has been termed the “entourage” by Hanks. Though he offers no one-statement definition of the institution he identifies among its essential characteristics the following: “[The entourage] affirms that the individual cannot achieve as much as the group, but it binds together not equals but unequals. … All members take their orders directly from the leader and may work quite independently of each other.… As no one in an entourage contributes identically, each member occupies a special position and receives unique benefits.” Lucien M. Hanks, Jr., “The Corporation and the Entourage: A Comparison of Thai and American Social Organization,” ms., 1965, pp. 3–5.

14 Cf. Gouldner, Alvin W., “The Norm of Reciprocity: A Preliminary Statement,” American Sociological Review, XXV, No. 2 (April 1960), 167–69.Google Scholar

15 In fact, the absence of Western-type credit situations in this setting intimates that contractual agreement is held in disfavor here; thus, its absence in areas where its presence would be expected.

For instance, the marriage ceremony, which in the West is a ritualized contract, lacks this characteristic in the traditional Thai setting. No bonds of marriage, no wedding vows, are pronounced; no tokens of fidelity to a contract, such as rings, are exchanged. Only a raut nam, a blessing in the form of a libation, is visited on bride and groom individually to mark the occasion.

Failure to appreciate the distinction between the contractual arrangement and the entourage leads to interpretations such as the following: “Marriage in Siam, for both prince and commoner, is a nonreligious civil contract …” (Wales, H. G. Q., Siamese State Ceremonies. London: Bernard Quaritch, 1931, p. 48).Google Scholar

16 Cf. Moerman, Michael, “Western Culture and the Thai Way of Life,” Asia, No. 1 (Spring 1964), 31–50Google Scholar, particularly the discussion on page 42 and the statement, “The exchange of leadership for dependence, of protection for support, of authority for respect, is the very stuff of [Thai] social life.”

17 Cf. Gouldncr, loc. cit., 175.

18 The king, at the apex of the pyramid, is yet a client of the gods. (See Wales, Siamese State Ceremonies.) Who-knows-what lies at its base.