There’s only one sun

A Documentary photography project, 2007 - 2008

Bannyang village, Fang, Chiang Mai.

 

Clear glass on 66 printed photographs on table

Noppakhunkiri, Thailand Creative & Design Center, Bangkok

 

50 photographs, ink jet print mount on wood
Noppakhunkiri, Royal Factory Museum, Bannyang village, Fang, Chiang Mai

 

 

 

Fang District is 150 kilometres from the city of Chiang Mai. Ban Yang village was left standing by the flash flood that swept through the village in 2006. The flood had destroyed houses, farmland and the first Royal sponsored food factory in Fang district, a project in the heart of the village that was a lifeline for residents. In their place it had left huge logs stripped from the deforested mountain scattered like matchsticks around the village. It was the biggest disaster the residents of Bang Yang had faced since arriving 50 years ago from China’s Yunnan province, seeking refuge from political persecution. After the flood, the villagers began to rebuild, and life around Lah’s house slowy started getting back to normal. Then, early this year, the village chief told her that Ban Yang had been selected for a new home-stay scheme being run by the Interior Ministry’s Community Development Department. Followed the rebuilding of the food factory, which gives local farmers the power to turn their agricultural produce into more valuable commercial products and the opening of the First Royal Factory in Fang’s museum early year later, Few people have heard of Ban Yang village, tucked away in the foothills of Chiang Mai’s mountainous Doi Angkhang area. At first glance, it doesn’t fit the profile of a charming highland hamlet. All its houses are rugged box-shaped concrete constructions, made to withstand the flash floods, while a spaghetti of electricity cables runs above the well-paved roads. First appearances are deceptive in Baan Yang. Peer below the surface that its people have embraced differences to create a harmonious lifestyle that has thrived for half a century. The village children learn Thai and Chinese - both compulsory subjects at the local school. Or there’s the mosque’s school, where young Yunnanese Muslims in white headscarves also learn Chinese. Sharing the road with mosque is the church attended by Christians every Sunday.