POR RUIZ CUETO JEANNETTE DELMA

Over the course of my research I spent many hours observing Rangers, boat operators, shop owners, traders and other villagers at the customary border checkpoints. A frequent observation was that of villagers, traders and shop owners providing the Rangers with fresh vegetables from the market, instant coffee and snacks. Villagers would randomly stop by the checkpoint on their motorbikes with a bag of cucumbers or fresh pork meat, greet the Rangers and hang the bag(s) on a nail at one of the wooden pillars of the Rangers’ hut. The Rangers would later take the bags back to their accommodation and use the food to make their dinner. On another occasion, a Ranger helped a female villager at the checkpoint start her motorbike. She later came back with a pack of instant coffee for the Rangers.

It was only during the latter part of my research that I came to realise that these occasional gifts were in fact part of a more regular gift-giving process, which implicitly contributed to the facilitation of trade across the river that marks the border. Shophouse owners regularly supplied both the Rangers and the Lao border guards with coffee, beer, snacks and other goods from their shops. The shop owners call these gifts khongfak, which literally translates into gift or present and is also used as a term for souvenirs.

Since Thai shop owners provided the gifts on behalf of their customers as well, they included a part of the cost of the khongfak in their shopping bill. In this way, Thai and Lao traders shared the costs of the gifts.

When asking for more details about this kind of gift-giving process, a female shophouse owner explained that the process was strongly individualised. She offered gifts to all the Rangers but “some will take them and others will not”. In all of the cases I was able to observe, Rangers accepted the gifts given to them. When I arrived at one customary border checkpoint on a border market day, the Rangers had already received energy drinks and mangosteen fruits from the traders who were selling goods to the Lao visitors at the checkpoint. Later, one of the watermelon traders brought the Rangers two watermelons in a plastic bag. The process happened completely without words – the trader merely smiled as she handed the bag over to the Ranger who nodded while taking the bag and placing it on his bench. Shophouse owners at checkpoints also invited the border officials to share food and drinks with them during festivities such as the yearly village festival or the Thai New Year. They would order homemade Lao whisky from across the border and ask the border officials to join in.

While Rangers rarely rejected the gifts offered to them, they also rarely demanded any gifts. In most occasions they would merely accept what was given to them. A shop owner on the Lao side explained that traders provided border officials with gifts because they were graengjai (literally translated as “fear heart”) as the border guards were lenient in their enforcement of the law. The term graengjai has no English equivalent and it is often exemplified where a person of lower status defers to a person of higher status, demonstrating an acknowledgement of their higher position, their decisions and actions (even if they do not agree with them). According to Walker and Hallinger, graengjai means “to be self-effacing, respectful, humble, and extremely considerate”

and “avoiding behaviour that would cause embarrassment to other people or imposing upon them” (2007: 265). According to the shophouse owner mentioned above, the

process of gift-giving must thus be seen as part of the cultural norm of graengjai. From this perspective, the border guards were provided with gifts out of respect for their position and to prevent them from feeling imposed upon.

The practice of giving gifts to a person with a higher social status can be found in nearly all parts of Thai and Lao society. School students give presents to their teachers;

employees provide gifts to their line managers. Some of my interlocutors even provided me with vegetables from the market when we met. The boat operators at one customary border checkpoint even ordered a sweet rice dish for me after I mentioned that it was one of my favourite dishes. When I asked what the gifts were for, they were confused and said: “We just want to give this to you because we like you”. Feeling graengjai about this myself, I started giving gifts to them as well. A similar situation happened when I was sitting with the Thai Rangers at a customary border checkpoint one day and received a watermelon from them. I reciprocated the following day by providing them with several cans of instant coffee. Over the course of my research I was quickly engaged in gift-giving practices with my all of my interlocutors including traders, shop owners as well as state officials.

Based on these examples I suggest that we must differentiate between gifts exchanged between friends and acquaintances on the one hand, and gifts given to superiors on the other. The important difference here is the reciprocal exchange of gifts, which does not take place when gifts are given to superiors. The gift exchange that occurred between friends and acquaintances, which I was also involved in, is a typical case of reciprocity as Mauss (1970) described it in his seminal work. Mauss established that the gift obliges the recipient not only to accept it but also to reciprocate. Drawing on ethnographic examples from across the world, he argued that gifts are exchanged with the intention to develop or maintain reciprocal relationships and to establish alliances. They could also be a way of increasing one’s status by putting the counterpart in debt as in the case of the North American potlatch ceremony. While the debt factor may not be as prominent in the examples presented here, the intention of establishing and maintaining social relationships was certainly important.

In the case of gifts given to superiors, the gift is accepted but not reciprocated. Here, the gift is an acknowledgement of another person’s higher status and power. I suggest that the khongfak given by traders and boat operators to state officials fall into this category,

which I will classify as a specific type of gift, namely that of tribute. Humphrey makes use of the term ‘tribute’ in her study on post-Soviet economies, defining it as “an acknowledgement of who rules the streets” (2002: 144). Since they are not reciprocated, tributes can also be seen as a one-way or free gift. Joana Cook (2008) has discussed the free gift with regard to alms donations in Thailand. However, such donations differ from tribute in that they are given as a “field of merit” (Cook 2008: 19), that the renouncer is not allowed to show gratitude and that neither the giver nor the recipient are recognised in the process. Tribute, in contrast, is given as a way of showing appreciation for the specific person it is given to. In my research area, the usefulness of the term tribute is substantiated by the comment made by the Lao shop owner who explained that gifts were given out of gratefulness for the border officials’ toleration of trade. Of course, the order to tolerate this kind of trade had come from higher ranks of government and not as a request from the traders themselves. The tributes must therefore be seen as a thank you rather than a bribe.

In Pasuk and Sungsidh’s (1996) famous study on corruption in Thailand, they refer to similar types of gifts, which are called sin nam jai (gifts of good will). In Thailand, the attribute of nam jai (good will from the heart) is as highly valued as jai di (good-hearted) and sin nam jai are gifts that reflect this attribute. According to Pasuk and Sungsidh, the intention of the giver plays an important role that allows us to distinguish this type of gift from a bribe. The gift must be the result of the giver’s wish to show compassion without any prior agreement or expectation. The recipient must also not deviate from their duties and responsibilities as a result of the gift. Pasuk and Sungsidh’s work is based on a study they conducted in the early 1990s. They found that the sin nam jai was considered acceptable among businessmen, officials and the lowest income categories including farmers. Among the middle class it was more often considered as a form of bribery.

So when exactly does a gift or tribute turn into a bribe? Combe and Wee (2009) point out, in this respect, that a bribe is only then a bribe when it is given before the respective favour takes place. The longer the passage of time between favour and bribe, the more it can be seen as a gift, especially when it takes on the form of a festive gift (Combe and Wee 2009: 299). This is where the boundaries between gifts and bribes become blurred. In Pasuk and Sungsidh’s (1996) study on Thailand, survey respondents mentioned two further differences between gifts and bribes. Since a gift must be given

without any expectations to return the favour, it should not be demanded. As soon as a gift is demanded, it can be considered a bribe. The nature and value of the gift itself also played a role. Small amounts of gifts such as flowers, Buddha images, liquor, and an invitation to a good restaurant were perceived as sin nam jai in Pasuk and Sungsidh’s study while high value gifts such as a Benz car or a large sum of money was seen as corruption.

In fact, far from being ignorant about the widespread gift-giving practices within the modern Thai nation-state, the Thai government has incorporated them into the law, drawing a distinct line between gifts and bribes. In the Notification of the NCCC Commission Concerning the Provisions of the Acceptance of Property or any other Benefit on Ethical Basis by State Officials B.E. 2543 (2000) (still valid in the 2007 constitution) it is stated that state officials shall not “receive property or any other benefit from any person other than relative and the price or value of the thing received from each person and on each occasion does not exceed 3,000 baht” (National Counter Corruption Commission 2000⁵⁷). While the 3,000 baht rule acknowledges the existence of gift-giving practices, it has also caused some confusion because it does not specify what is meant by “each person” and “on each occasion”. In the case of my research area, gifts and tributes were given on an on-going basis. On each occasion, goods such as vegetables, coffee and alcohol did not exceed 3,000 baht but over the course of one or several days, the limit could well have been exceeded.

What is even more interesting is that the 3,000 baht rule defines gifts as all goods apart from money. The transfer of money is considered a bribe. In most of the gift-giving cases in my research area, money was not involved. Instead, state officials received goods on an ongoing basis. There was no before or after anymore in this ongoing reciprocal relationship. Festive gifts were also involved when shop owners invited the border guards to share drinks and food in their homes. I argue that in most cases in which small-scale traders supplied state officials with khongfak, the gifts were a way to acknowledge the Rangers’ work along the border in which they focussed on drug and car smugglers while being more lenient with traders of daily necessities. I suggest that this was different in situations where state actors demanded gifts in the form of money or goods. Such demands revealed the predatory nature of some state actors in certain

57 In July 2008 the NCCC was renamed to the National Anti‐ Corruption Commission (NACC).

situations that both reinforced and took advantage of their embeddedness in society (see further Chapter 6).