One way to beat the world's credit crisis: Start printing your own money.

The villagers of Santi Suk began creating their own cash here on the sun-bleached plains of northern Thailand following Asia's financial crisis a decade ago.

Decorating their money with children's sketches of water buffaloes and Buddhist temples, the villagers conceived it as a do-it-yourself attempt to protect themselves from the whiplash of vast outflows of speculative money which undermined local currencies and threw Thailand -- and much of Asia -- into recession in 1997-98.

At the time, some villagers faced questioning before Thailand's central bank and were accused by local government officials of plotting a secessionist revolt.

Now, with Thailand's economy slowing sharply, the DIY cash is beginning to flow freely again.

'We need our own money more than ever now,' says Phra Supajarawat, the wiry, orange-robed abbot of the local Buddhist monastery, who doubles as a 'governor' of Santi Suk's tiny, one-room bank. 'Things are turning bad in Thailand and people need something they can believe in,' he says.

Homemade currencies, sometimes known as community or complementary currencies, have a habit of popping up during economic crises. Some towns in the U.S., Canada and Germany introduced their own scrip during the Great Depression. Similar schemes have emerged more recently in Japan, Argentina and Britain.

One of the more successful programs has been in Berkshire County, Mass. Residents there pay $10 to get 11 'BerkShares,' which are widely accepted in local stores, encouraging people to shop at home instead of using dollars to buy goods online or at large retail chains. Launched in 2006, BerkShares are still being used.

The idea is that by using local currencies, residents don't spend so many dollars, Thai baht or euros, thus helping to keep more resources within their communities. And because local currencies can't be banked away to earn interest, users keep spending it, providing a boost to their area's economy.

Pattamawadee Suzuki, an economics professor at Bangkok's Thammasat University, has studied the phenomenon closely. She says she is unsure whether there really is a significant financial benefit to using local currencies such as that used in Santi Suk. 'When times are good, villagers prefer to use Thailand's national currency,' she says. 'But there is a very strong social benefit to using local currencies,' Ms. Pattamawadee adds. 'That place, Santi Suk, is more self-reliant than other rural areas of Thailand. They don't depend on remittances from relatives in Bangkok.'

Many villagers -- who use the local notes as a means to barter for everyday goods -- corroborate Ms. Pattamawadee's analysis. A visit to the village's early morning market reveals a brisk trade in freshly harvested vegetables and a couple of butchers are hard at work selecting cuts from a side of beef. Shoppers haggle and gossip, clutching scrip depicting local rural scenes.

'We've learned to depend on our own work,' says Buasorn Saothong, a robust 54-year-old rice farmer, who also dabbles in creating herbal hangover cures. ('Just chew on this paste and five minutes later you'll throw up and feel much better,' she says.)

Over the years, there has been stiff opposition among Thailand's authorities to the Santi Suk villagers' experiment. The central bank, the Bank of Thailand, declared the villagers' currency 'a threat to national security' in 2001 and brought Phra Supajarawat and other villagers to Bangkok for a scolding. 'What they were doing was just plain wrong,' says Chatumongkol Sonakul, who was governor of the Bank of Thailand at the time.

The villagers of Santi Suk launched their currency, which they called 'bia,' the local dialect word for 'seedling,' in the wake of the 1997-98 crisis. At the time, many were struggling with debt problems and were receiving fewer and smaller remittances from relatives working in the Bangkok area because of the financial crisis.

Two young foreigners from international volunteer organizations, Canadian Jeff Powell and Dutchman Menno Salverda, visited the area and suggested the villagers adopt a local currency to better manage their problems.

The villagers agreed. They approached Phra Supajarawat, now 68, to be the governor of the new village bank, which still consists of a safe housed in a hut that the villagers are happy to open up for anybody who wants to see the stacks of local currency piled inside. A competition was held among the local children to see who could come up with the best designs for the village's new money.

A few months later, in 2000, local government officials and police officers arrived in the village. Phra Supajarawat went along to see what the fuss was all about. Government officials told him he was treading on the toes of the central bank. 'I thought, 'Oh no, the police are going to arrest me for counterfeiting,'' he recalls, laughing.

That didn't happen. But over the following months villagers, including Phra Supajarawat, were regularly taken to Bangkok to explain their rogue currency to the authorities. In the meantime, Santi Suk's 'bia' notes went underground, used in secret by a handful of families.

In 2001, Nakorn Chompoochart, a lawyer with Thailand's Law Society, offered his services to help the villagers start circulating their currency again. 'I told the villagers that people in other countries also had their own local currencies, and that if anybody tried to prosecute them, I'd defend them,' he says.

Phra Supajarawat says Mr. Nakorn's offer of legal support gave people of Santi Suk the confidence they needed to persevere. To this day, no legal cases have been filed against them, although to make their currency absolutely legal, Thailand's Ministry of Finance would have to officially authorize its use. That still hasn't happened. A spokesman for the Finance Ministry declined to comment.

A breakthrough came when Phra Supajarawat learned from the central bank that one of its biggest objections to the villagers' currency was its name. The term 'seedling' -- 'bia' -- was the same as the word for 'money' in the central Thai dialect used by the central bankers in Bangkok.

So the villagers changed the name of their currency to the Thai term for 'merit' instead, and circulation began to steadily increase. The government dropped its objections, and Santi Suk-style currencies have since begun to slowly spread across the rest of northeastern Thailand as neighboring villages adopt the idea. Other villages are switching to barter trade for business instead of using Thailand's national currency, says Ms. Pattamawadee, the economics professor.

Today, interest in Santi Suk's monetary experiment is picking up again. Visitors from other parts of Thailand and nongovernment organizations are streaming into Santi Suk to see how it works, despite the currency's murky legal status.

'It was a big coup for us when the local rice mill began accepting it,' says Ms. Buasorn, the hangover expert. 'The mill is the focal point of the local economy. It means other people now realize our money is a real alternative.'

应对全球信用危机的对策：发行自己的钞票。

讪滴戌村位于泰国北部一处阳光明媚的平原，十年前亚洲金融危机爆发后，该村村民便开始自行印制货币了。

1997至1998年，由于大量热钱的涌出，当地的货币急剧贬值，泰国──以及亚洲大部分地区──的经济都陷入了衰退，讪滴戌村村民便通过自行印制货币以求自保。钞票上的图案是当地儿童绘制的水牛和寺院。

当时，部分村民接受了泰国中央银行的讯问，当地政府官员还指控他们图谋分裂。

如今，随着泰国的经济再次大幅放缓，这种DIY货币又开始流通起来了。

Phra Supajarawat精瘦结实，身披黄色袈裟，他是当地寺院的住持，也是讪滴戌村那家只有一个房间的小银行的“行长”。他说：“我们现在比以往任何时候都需要自己的货币，泰国的形势日益恶化，人们需要的是信得过的东西。”

自制货币──有时候也称社区货币或者是补充货币──通常会在金融危机期间涌现。大萧条时期，美国、加拿大及德国的一些市镇便发行了自己的临时货币。后来在日本、阿根廷及英国也有过类似的行为。

美国马萨诸塞州波克夏县就是一个成功的范例。居民花10美元可换得11张“波克夏尔”(BerkShares)，在当地商店都可以通用，此举是为了鼓励居民在本地店铺消费，而不要上网或者在那些大型连锁商店用美元消费。“波克夏尔”在2006年推出，如今仍然通行。

使用了本地货币，居民就不会花很多的美元、泰铢或欧元，从而可以把更多的资源留在自己的社区内。加之当地货币无法存入银行生息，所有者必须把它花出去，这样就对本地的经济起到了推动作用。

曼谷法政大学（Thammasat University）的经济学家教授Pattamawadee Suzuki深入地研究了这一现象。她说她并不确定像讪滴戌村那样使用本地货币对于经济是否确有明显的好处：“等形势转好后，村民们还是更愿意使用全国货币。”不过她同时表示：“使用本地货币有非常明显的社会效益。讪滴戌村这个地方比泰国其他农村地区要自立，他们不需要依靠曼谷亲戚的汇款过日子。”

许多村民都用当地货币购买日常用品，他们的生活状态证实了Pattamawadee教授的分析。去村子的早市看看，你会发现这里交易活跃，有很多新鲜蔬菜，还有两个屠夫在忙着切割牛肉。顾客们手里攥着描有当地乡村景象的临时货币，一边跟摊贩讨价还价，一边唠唠家常。

Buasorn Saothong今年54岁，身体非常硬朗，她说：“我们已经学会了依靠自己的劳动。”她除了种植稻谷，还会调制治疗宿醉的草药。（她说：“你就嚼一嚼这个药丸，五分钟后你就会吐，这样感觉就会好多了。”）

多年来，泰国当局一直坚决反对讪滴戌村民的做法。2001年，泰国央行(Bank of Thailand)宣布讪滴戌村货币“是对国家安全的威胁”，并且把Phra Supajarawat及其他一些村民召至曼谷予以斥责。时任泰国央行行长Chatumongkol Sonakul说：“他们的做法大错特错。”

1997至1998年的金融危机之后，讪滴戌村村民发行了自己的货币，他们称之为“bia”，这个字在当地方言中意为“幼苗”。当时，许多村民都深受债务困扰，而且由于金融危机，在曼谷地区工作的亲戚往回汇款的次数和数额都在日益减少。

然后，两个来自国际志愿者组织的外国人──加拿大人杰夫·鲍威尔（Jeff Powell）和荷兰人梅诺·萨尔福达（Menno Salverda）──来此地考察，他们向村民提议，使用自己发行的本地货币以解决目前的难题。

村民们同意了。他们邀请现年68岁高龄的Phra Supajarawat出任新成立的村银行的行长，如今银行仍然就是间小屋子，里头有一个保险柜，堆着成摞的当地货币，谁要有兴趣看，村民们都会很乐意为你打开保险柜。当地的孩子们还举行了一次比赛，以决定谁的设计能够印到新货币上。

几个月后，2000年的一天，当地政府一些官员和警察来到了村子。Phra Supajarawat跑过去一看究竟。官员们告诉他，他把中央银行惹恼了。Supajarawat笑着回忆道：“我想，‘哦，大事不好，警察要以伪造假钞的罪名逮捕我了。’”

这样的事情倒是没有发生。不过，接下来那几个月里，包括Phra Supajarawat在内的众多村民被频频带到曼谷，向政府人员解释自制货币的问题。这段时期，讪滴戌村的“bia”纸币转入地下，只有很少几户人家还在秘密使用。

2001年，泰国法学会（Thailand's Law Society）律师Nakorn Chompoochart主动提出要帮助村民们重新使用他们的货币。他说：“我告诉村民，在别的国家也有人用自己的本地货币，如果有人要起诉他们，我会为他们辩护。”

Phra Supajarawat说，Nakorn先生要提供法律援助的提议给了讪滴戌村人坚持下去的信心。到目前为止，没有人对他们提起过诉讼，不过他们的货币要想完全合法化，必须有泰国财政部（Thailand’s Ministry of Finance）的官方授权，这一点目前尚未实现。财政部一位发言人拒绝对此置评。

随后，事情有了重大进展：Phra Supajarawat从央行方面了解到，他们的自有货币遭到央行反对的最主要理由是它的名字：“bia”这个词在曼谷央行工作人员所用的泰国中部方言中正是“钱”的意思。

于是村民们改掉了货币的名字，如今它的名字在泰语中意为“价值”。此后货币的发行量开始稳步增长。政府对此也不再反对，讪滴戌村自制货币的做法逐步得到了临近村庄居民的认可，并开始逐步传播到了泰国东北部其他地区。Pattamawadee教授说，还有一些村子也不再使用泰国货币，而改用实物交易的方式。

如今，讪滴戌村的货币尝试再次引来了关注。尽管讪滴戌村货币的法律地位依然不甚明朗，来自泰国其他地区以及非政府组织的人员还是源源涌至讪滴戌村，看看这种货币是如何运作的。

前文提到的那位宿醉治疗专家Buasorn说：“本地碾米厂开始收我们这种钱的时候，我们都喜出望外。碾米厂是我们当地经济的中心，他们这么做意味着其他人现在真的认可我们的钱了。”