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2 - “Normal Fruits for Laos, Premium Fruits for China”:Transnational Flows of National Differences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2022

Simon Rowedder  and
Tina Harris
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Summary

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Luang Namtha traders’role in the transnational trade of Thai fruitsbetween Thailand and China, radiating out from aTai Lue village in northern Thailand. They appearto have a major stake as middlemen mediatingbetween Thai and Chinese traders’ fruit-relatedquality contestations. Central to this is theirdiscourse and practice of reserving high-qualityfruits for the Chinese market and mediocre fruitsfor the Lao market. While their view of anunder-performing agricultural sector explains theimport of Thai fruits, their perception of China'seconomic supremacy explains the further export ofpremium fruits to China. Lao cross-border traderspurposely reproduce a frontier of nationallystereotyped differences to enable and sustain thetransnational flow of Thai fruits.

Keywords: Thai fruits; discourses ofquality; Laos; China; transnational flow; nationalstereotypes

Located along the Mekong River, in Thailand'snorthernmost Chiang Rai province, Ban Huay Meng isthe oldest of three Tai Lue villages in Chiang Khongdistrict, followed by Ban Sri Donchai and Ban HatBai. It shares with Ban Sri Donchai the history ofTai Lue migration from Muang Ou in Sipsongpanna (nowlocated in present-day Phongsaly province innorthernmost Laos) into Chiang Khong in the late19th century. Sophida Wirakunthewan (2005, p. 44)refers in her comprehensive study on ethnicity andtrade dynamics in Chiang Khong to the historicalaccount of Ban Sri Donchai's former subdistrictheadmen (กํานัน kamnan), Thongdi Wongchai and WongWongchai. According to them, the Tai Lue of Muang OuNuea decided to escape their destitute situationamidst several Chinese invasions in 1885. Under theleadership of Phaya Kaeo, they first migrated to DoiLak Kham in the present-day China–Laos border area,where they remained for less than a year. Theycontinued to migrate southward and eventuallycrossed the Mekong River to Ban Thung Duk inpresent-day Wiang subdistrict of Chiang Khong beforethey moved again to Ban Thung Mot, now in ChiangKhong's Sathan subdistrict. There, this group of TaiLue migrants divided into three groups. The firstone settled down further north at the Meng creek(ห้วยเม็ง huay meng)and founded the village of Ban Huay Meng.

Type
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Information
Cross-Border Traders in Northern Laos
Mastering Smallness
 , pp. 103 - 140
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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