Baan Na Cafe

A cheerful musical drama that promotes community livelihoods and fosters love for one’s hometown through the love story between a country girl and the heir to a wealthy family, with canals, rice fields, and tractors as silent witnesses.
Don (Nam Rapeepat), the son of a wealthy businessman who owns a leading export company, receives a sudden phone call from his father ordering him to fly back to Thailand immediately. When he arrives at the Lertmahadamrongsakul mansion, he discovers that his father, Sia Direk, has fled from his creditors without a trace, leaving behind only a letter and a map instructing Don to travel to Khok Samran village and seek help from Yim, his old friend.
With no other choice, Don is forced to travel to Khok Samran, enduring an extremely difficult journey because the road to the village is so rough and undeveloped. But no matter how badly Don had imagined Khok Samran, reality proves even worse, and he must accept that he may have to stay there indefinitely. Furious, once he reaches a stretch of road where he can speed up, Don slams the accelerator to the floor, sending his beautiful car shooting forward like a rocket — almost crashing into the cart of Yai Yim’s niece, Wanjai (Krathip Chawallakorn), an 18-year-old country girl. Her father died when she was young, and her mother left to work in Bangkok and then disappeared, so she has been raised by Yai Yim, her uncle, ever since. She loves him like a father. Trained to do everything like a man, she loves her hometown deeply and works as a teacher at Khok Samran School. In the chaos, Don swerves to avoid a buffalo, sending his precious car crashing under a banyan tree, and he immediately loses consciousness. At least Wanjai manages to bring his unconscious body safely into Khok Samran in the end.
Khok Samran is a small village, and in truth its lack of development has an understandable cause. Chai, the owner of a canned-fruit factory who bought votes to become the local administrative chief, is the father of two sisters, Buatuam (Oh Rungrawee) and Buaban (Namwan Lawan), both of whom dream of becoming stars. He has tried every possible means to seize control of the village. But the village still has Yai Yim, no ordinary headman, who refuses to be easily dominated.
In the past, Yim was the first person from the village to venture into the capital, saving every penny until he became the owner of a café that grew from a small shop into a thriving venue called Banna Café. There he fell in love with and married Salika (Honey Passorn), one of the café’s star singers who could fill the place with customers eager to hear her sing. At his café he also had Kru Nuan (Yong Chernyim), the bandleader who trained and nurtured talented country singers, as well as Tub (Don Jamugban) and Chu (Chusri Chernyim), the comedians who made customers laugh every night. Yim and his people lived happily and enviably — until one day dark influences pressured him to sell the café. Yim refused. Fortunately, a wealthy and kind customer — Sia Direk — stepped in to solve the problem and save Yim and his people’s lives. Even so, they were left destitute. Once again it was Sia Direk who gave Yim a sum of money, enabling him to relocate with more than fifty families and settle in this village.
Yim and his villagers learned that the capital, though attractive on the surface, is full of deception and greed. Rural society, close to nature, is in fact the truly complete society, one that shapes people into good-hearted human beings. For this reason, Yim and the villagers are determined to preserve their village in as natural a state as possible. But that does not mean life in Khok Samran is colorless. Yim and the villagers — descendants of singers, musicians, and comedians — recreate the atmosphere of Banna Café every evening, filling the village with music and cheer. That is why, no matter what schemes Chai uses, he cannot spread his corrupt influence into Yai Yim’s village.
But Chai is not the type to give up. If deceit does not work, he will use force. As the local chief, he finds every possible way to harass Yim’s village, hoping to make it so deprived and difficult that no one would want to stay there. Yet strangely, none of Chai’s evil plans ever discourage Yim or his villagers.
While Don is unconscious, he dreams — and it is a dream full of pleasure. In it, he is in a luxurious foreign nightclub surrounded by beautiful women. But when the glamorous women open their mouths, they speak fluent Isan dialect, and all the foreigners chatter noisily in Lao, shocking Don back to consciousness. When he opens his eyes, he finds himself surrounded by country bumpkins. Just as he is about to scream in horror, the village brass band led by Yai Yim bursts into sound. And most striking of all is the sharp-featured face of Wanjai, Yai Yim’s niece, expertly giving Don first aid in every possible way.
Don quickly notices that everyone in the village is delighted to welcome him, especially Yai Yim, who tells him that Sia Direk is his dearest lifelong friend and great benefactor. Direk once sent Yim a large sum of money to buy a plot of land where he intended to spend his old age. Don immediately feels hopeful — at least his father has left him some property. But when he sees the land, his excitement collapses. The fifty-rai plot that Yai Yim proudly presents is just land — nothing built on it except for a tiny shack and a few scattered trees. Don angrily demands that the land be sold so he can get cash and return to Bangkok. This deeply upsets Wanjai, because to her Don’s land is a dream plot; if it were hers, she would till it, plant it, and turn it into the most fertile and livable land possible. But to Don it is worthless.
Yai Yim promises to help Don find a buyer. Don laments that he cannot endure living in such a backward place even for a single day and insists that Yim sell the land. Fed up, Wanjai devises a plan to teach Don a lesson. She promises to find a buyer for him as quickly as possible, but on one condition: Don must make the land look valuable first by clearing it, planting crops, and building a house on it, showing pride in ownership so that buyers will want it. Don falls for the trick and agrees, asking Wanjai to act as his guide in developing the land, promising to pay her a generous commission. Wanjai pretends to accept, simply to keep him in Khok Samran longer.
Wanjai soon realizes that Don is the worst product of city life imaginable: fussy, pampered, afraid of even stepping in chicken droppings, and hopelessly addicted to technology. Don, meanwhile, feels as though he has been thrown back into a time before the fall of Ayutthaya. What nearly drives him insane, however, is that no one in Khok Samran seems troubled at all by their difficult way of life. On the contrary, everyone is absurdly cheerful.
Each day Don becomes a reluctant farmer, facing natural hardships and constant quarrels with Wanjai. Yet little by little, without realizing it, he begins to absorb the simple and beautiful way of rural life. He also witnesses how Yai Yim solves the villagers’ problems with kindness and compassion. Most importantly, Don comes to appreciate the love and solidarity among the villagers, who are always ready to face hardship together and never think of abandoning their homeland.
When the authorities announce that Khok Samran — the only subdistrict without an OTOP product — must submit a community product for competition, Wanjai sees this as the only way to force Chai to allocate part of the budget to support the village. She rallies the villagers to create an OTOP product. But Chai tries to block them, claiming that everything they make already belongs to other communities’ OTOP products. Still, the villagers do not lose hope and create something entirely new and unexpected. Don also uses his knowledge and abilities to help invent several OTOP products for the villagers. Even though some of them seem ridiculous, his wholehearted dedication — and his near-fatal efforts, such as the case of the “khao lam delivery” — begin to open Wanjai’s heart to him.
Just as their relationship is progressing well, Don’s father suddenly reappears, penniless, begging his beloved son to find a large sum of cash so he can pay off his debts and stand on his feet again. No sooner has he asked for help than he must flee once more from creditors and the law. Feeling pity for his father and cornered, Don turns to Chai, who has long wanted to seize Yim’s village. Chai refuses to buy Don’s land alone, saying that even if it is beautiful, it is too small for him to use effectively. He wants to buy up large amounts of land from all the villagers. If Don can persuade them to sell, Chai promises him a huge reward — enough to solve his father’s crisis.
Don worries about what Chai intends to do with the land, but Chai quickly assures him that he plans to develop Khok Samran into a major agricultural production area to supply raw materials for his canned-fruit factory, which will supposedly make the villagers richer. Hearing this, Don feels relieved. Even though he knows he is betraying Yai Yim and Wanjai’s trust, his pity for his father leaves him feeling that he has no choice.
Don then devises a plan to bring his village friends to Bangkok and expose them to its glamour. Many of them become dazzled by the lights, colors, and excitement of the city and return thinking about selling their farms and moving there. When Wanjai learns that Don is behind it all, she is heartbroken and angrily drives him out of her village.
Devastated at hurting Wanjai — the woman he has only just realized he has fallen hopelessly in love with — Don decides to go against the tide and refuses to sell the land to Chai after all. When he confronts Chai, he accidentally discovers the truth: Chai has deceived him from the beginning. Chai actually plans to build a canning factory on the land of Khok Samran as soon as he brings in electricity and water infrastructure funded by the government. Yim’s village will then become a dumping ground for industrial waste, poisoning the environment.
Realizing how badly he has been wrong, Don must now find a way to fight Chai and save the village of the woman he loves — the woman who taught him the beauty of a simple, sufficient life — and restore Khok Samran to the happiness it once had, even if it means risking his life.
Follow the drama Banna Café, airing on Channel 7 every day, Monday through Sunday, at 6:45 PM. The first episode aired on Sunday, January 3, 2010.