There has been a lot of discussion about the smoking ban and its’ enforcement so here is my 2 cents.One approach to wrapping your head around Thailand is to run around ranting and raving like a lunatic—yelling, screaming, and posting about how Thai people, the Thai government, the Thai police, the Thai Bureaucracy, and Thai businesses are insane moronic idiots acting irrationally and if they would only do things The White Way Thailand, Thai people and the world would be so much better off.
This common approach leads to frustration and really doesn’t yield much in the way of understanding or appreciating the world around you.
A second approach to wrapping your head around Thailand is to look deeply at what appears on the surface to be irrational behavior and try to understand it. Think harder and come up with an alternative explanation for why Thai’s and Thailand are the way they are.
The second less common approach is a lot more rewarding, more useful and leads to a more peaceful Thailand existence. In fact, if you are going to spend much time at all in Thailand, this less common approach is pretty much de rigueur to maintaining your sanity.
One line of thought that yields a lot of traction in understanding Thailand is understanding the difference between the way people get rich in The World and the way people get rich in Thailand. I am not talking about grinding out a lower or middle class living as a wage slave but Thai’s go about getting really really really rich the Thai way.
In The World people get rich through efficiency and innovation.
A person in The World gets rich through efficiency by finding a way to produce an existing good for less cost than everyone else.
Walmart is a good example of this. There are plenty of retail stores but in their niche, for whatever reason Walmart is able to produce and sell at a lower cost. As a result, the owners of Walmart and their descendants are fabulously wealthy.
A person in The World can also get rich through innovation, i.e. bringing a new product to market.
Apple computer and the IPhone is recent example of getting rich through innovation. By designing a better cell phone Apple is able to sell a shitload of phones with a hefty profit margin.
Unlike The World, in Thailand you cannot get rich through efficiency and innovation. The system just doesn’t allow it. (2)
With no stable legal framework and no stable predictable enforceable property rights or contracts, anyone who built a large profitable business in Thailand can have the business or at least it’s profitability destroyed by a capricious change in the laws by the government, the promulgation of costly regulation or cavalier enforcement of existing regulations by nameless unreachable bureaucrats, or by the simple extortionate demands of the police.
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Great post BBK! A must read in fact for anybody who wants to do business in Thailand. I wish you wrote this 3 years earlier. Don’t get me wrong I have no regrets doing business here and feel it makes it even more rewarding if you can succeed but it’s a tough business environment to digest.
I have come to many of the same realizations as you point out and it certainly causes the western business mind to make adjustments. Trying to fix it or getting frustrated by it is pointless. When in Rome…
I also feel as you do that the end result makes it all worth it so I don’t think it would be a good idea to fix it. Who wants another Singapore or Malaysia.
View all comments by pmmp
It was a similar story a few years back in the Philippines when a smoking ban was introduced in Makati. On the surface a ‘good thing’ for Public Health and non-smokers. The difference there, was that it was possible to set aside some space for smokers - usually a small room - as long as it wasn’t above a certain proportion of the total space of the venue. So, maybe ‘ok’ for smokers too? But of course, what this means in practice is that you have to draw up plans, get permission to make alterations, then get the work done. And then the work has to be inspected and approved. So, basically, many opportunities for all kinds of people to make their percentage, or for those that can’t afford to jump through all these new hoops and don’t want to lose their smoking customers to evade / bend the new regulations by bribing the appropriate officials or police to turn a bilnd eye. So what seems like an initiative for the public good is actually a huge income generation scheme for officials, builders, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all…
View all comments by K1ndofblue
You are confusing Chinese-Thai and Thai ethnic origins and ethics.
Of the 20 families that own 80% of Thailand, 19 are Chinese-Thai.
Like Toxin, they are really just Chinese mafia - they are not really Thai by any western measure.
View all comments by Durian Doug
Here is a recent article about an example of what I am talking about.
Communist China and Thailand are similar IMHO.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-framed14mar14,1,2337710.story
BigBabyKenny
View all comments by BIgBabyKenny
I think one of the keys to a pleasant existence here is to have really low expectations and to learn to walk away when those expectations are not met. That way disappointments are few and fleeting.
I think George Washington’s advice about avoiding “foreign entanglements” works well too. That man knew what he was talking about.
About being shaken down over allowing smoking when the law prohibits it, anyone gotten a ticket on the 405 in West LA recently? What’s that good for, a couple hundred bucks with court charges?
My Thai-Chinese friend calls cops here “order takers”. But once you know that, isn’t the secret to stay out of their line of fire? She puts her helmut on when she thinks there’s a brown uni ahead. And if you don’t, then, well, can you really complain?
View all comments by Mr. Kotter
*hushed golf applause”
Good post. But it doesn’t answer the question why initiative isn’t rewarded in Thailand. And that’s ANY initiative, not necessarily business-scale. Nobody stands up and takes responsibility, which is a core value of any initiative. Theravada Buddhism? Maybe. Couldn’t-care-less-ism? Chronic short-term-ism? I think that’s closer. As long as there’s fish in the net today, who’s thinking about tomorrow?
View all comments by Pants Elk
I think a tad simplistic view of Thailand and where its’ economy is at. For example trade protectionism has been happening in a few other countries apart from here - Japan, USA to name a couple.
You make some valid points and it makes good reading for a newbie…
View all comments by psi100th
Coming back to the smoking ban: No-smoking in Hilary 2. No-smoking signs everywhere in Hilary 3. But In Hilary 3 I was allowed to smoke yseterday despite of all the signs. After a while two Man in Brown walked by me after the obvious visit to the manager without minding my burning cigarette. My female company said these police are the contact police of the Hilary 3 bar and “take good care” of the bar. Does have Hilary 2 have different police taking care of them?
View all comments by Phoenix
p - it just shows you the confusion, the lack of staff directives and how bungled the whole thing really is. I am sure hilary has as all the same police.
View all comments by smitty
Great post on how to succeed in Thailand. But do you really think the world class women of Thailand are playing pool at Gulliver’s and hanging out at Thermae? I haven’t met one educated Thai woman who is at least middle class and has ever heard of these places.
View all comments by go go groupie
GoGo Groupie,
In Thailand, the women who would go to university and enter the middle class in The World never get the chance.
Part of it is they know that if they get a degree there is not that much value added. Women graduating from Thai universities are not getting entry level jobs at big brokerage firms, fortune 500 companies, going to work for dynamic startups like Google where their is a clear upward path to a high paying career.
The other side is that since the families know there is not much value added, they don’t want to commit a lot of family resources in an investment without much of a potential return.
The World Class women I am talking about are the World Class women minus the education etc. that they would have if they were born anywhere else but Thailand.
They still have the looks, charm, and innate intelligence but lack the polishing experience they would have received outside of Thailand.
BigBabyKenny
View all comments by BIgBabyKenny
I thought his post effectively explained his theory on why these women, who end up undereducated bar prostitutes or in low-end jobs in Thailand, would have ended up as successful women or the wives of successful men in a variety of fields of endeavor in most other countries in the West. I’d say there’s a certain amount of merit to that reasoned argument. I don’t think BBK ever said that educated middle class women shot pool in Gullivers.
“the poverty, stifling of individual initiative, and limited opportunity for personal advancement for the average Thai channels the individual effort and ambition of the average Thai woman into the few legitimate opportunities available.
The most intelligent, beautiful, charming, entertaining, engaging and sexy women in The World are busy becoming chief executives of Fortune 500 companies, high powered attorneys, heart surgeons, movie stars, or end up married to rich, powerful, famous, or handsome men. (3)
In Thailand, these same women are directing clueless foreigners to the bathroom from the information desk at World, teaching language class at AUA for $2 per hour, dressed in a funky spandex micro-mini peddling cell phone service at Fortune IT, standing in the Nana parking lot in cheap 6 inch Plexiglas stilettos, sitting in the smoke filled Thermae at 1AM nursing a beer for 3 hours (4), playing pool at Gullivers (5), running a small cellphone shop on the 3rd floor of MBK, giving a skilled ball/testicle massage at Orchid (6), standing on the MRT platform elegantly dressed and coiffed on their way to a low paying mind numbing dead end office job or taking Yabaa on weekends to bring some joy into their otherwise bland existence. (7)
All of these world class women wander around Bangkok hoping and dreaming of escaping the Thai Way….”
View all comments by werewolf
sorry, BBK posted his reply while I was copying and writing. never mind….
View all comments by werewolf
I don’t buy it. If you ever venture out to Silom/Sathorn/Wireless/Paholyotin roads during lunch or rush hour on a weekday, you’ll see scads of well dressed, decently educated (by Thai standards), attractive, engaging women. Yes, these women are not leading fortune 500 companies and some of them can be downright boring, however, many are not and they do end up earning decent money after a few years (I work with these girls who are in their mid to late 20’s and they earn from 40,000 Baht a month and up). Assuming they have a smattering of ambition, they can do much better. You’d be surprised at the opportunities available to the locals. Even though it’s nothing like women have in the west, it’s not nearly so bleak as you think (although if you want to be very rich, I think you’re spot on in your post). In any event, I’d say these girls’ intelligence, charm and beauty far surpass that of the average gulliver’s girl. Nor are they pining away for the Great White Hope to get them out of their dire straits - just the opposite in fact. Surely you don’t still believe the line “i don’t like Thai man. Thai man bad”?
View all comments by go go groupie
I think you are both right to some extent but I think the women go-go groupie is referring to are the ones who got the better options from day one. the ones in the bars did not. I am not saying this is based on scientific studies but I think that is generally how it plays out.
There are tons of nice office hotties in bkk. An amazing amount. I have tried my hand at them a few times and generally I come away realizing that they would make an amazing gf for a guy who wants to settle down. Get married and be good.
however they demand a little more time and attention than let’s say the gulliver’s girls. So it is not that both these worlds exists or that one is better than the other. I think one has to ask themselves what they ultimately want.
If I go to normal venues and chat, get numbers and dates I find I can make it happen. Then I suddenly realize I have created a monster. This girl likes me and wants me to be serious. Oh shit. Now what?
Hence i like the tweeners. The young girls or girls who know the scene but are not ruined by it. Maybe it is hard to find but I think it is doable. The girls who like other girls. The girls who know that u still need nights out with your mates and that although you are nice guy you dont plan on getting married at the moment.
From a recent stick column:
“Charlie Sheen philosophy to dating”. If you’re unaware, Charlie believes that using a prostitute is much easier, simpler, not to say cheaper, than being in a long-term relationship.
I hate to steal but it kind is how I feel at times. I am sure someone has their example of the perfect non bargirl gf to blow me out here. I am not saying they don’t exist. I think it all has to be based on what you really want.
Last time I checked the office pulls I had where not too interested in discussing 3 somes. Maybe I am just not pulling the right office hotties?
I am sure there is the holy grail here. The amazing office girl who performs and is low maintenance like the bargirl. Could be a real find.
I will keep hunting. I am sure we can keep discussing this until the cows come home since it sounds like we all have an angle here.
View all comments by smitty
On the education issue: Thai society, as most asian societies, values education a lot. A university degree gives the holder social prestige, higher respect and a better social standing.
If parents can afford it they usually always pay for the best education possible for their money. Their daughter gaines herself and her family respect and face by graduating from university. Even if such girls get underpaid office jobs, their family and society in general respects them much more than any bargirl who might make four times as much money but left school after six years.
I just yesterday recognized the picture of the female boss of the Hilary 2 bar at the wall above the bar inside. The picture shows her in her graduation outfit. Many girls on Thai dating websites post their pics in their graduation gowns - not because they don’t have others, but because they think this represents them best and shows their best side.
The majority of bargirl’s parents does not know about the job of their daughters (I know, some know and some even support it, but thats not the majority). And all families who can afford it send their young ones to university. It’s not all about money and ROI in Thailand. One must take status, respect, face, etc. into the equation too.
And in the end, only such girls can ever have the hope to really find a nice Thai husband, which most families (and girls) still desire. No bargirl will ever find a middle-class Thai hubby. And to my personal impression 60-70% of Thai-Farang marriages break up later, for whatever reasons. And no matter if it was a BG or GTG. Let’s face it, we Farang are the Rock stars in Thailand, but at the end of teh day when the dream becomes reality, the majority of Thais love Thais and Thailand most, not us Farang. And that’s good.
View all comments by Phoenix
I get the impression that Thai’s like Farangs and Japanese.
Mamasans.. I recently discovered what percentage of the bar fines the Mamasans at Rainbow get and then I forgot sorry. It was a lot though I remember doing the maths when I was drunk and there raking it in.
If it Flys, Floats or Fucks….. Rent It.
View all comments by Young Royal
Of course thias that make a living of farangs like us.
I personally don’t think that the cream of Thai woman work at a gogo in nana.
View all comments by yesman
@Yesman - No I meant that Thai’s in general, ones who have nothing to do with making money from Farangs, like us.
View all comments by Young Royal
I certainly don’t think that the cream of English or Scottish women come from the Dock gates or back alleys of Glasgow, London, Liverpool, etc. The same is true of their Thai counterparts. I have nothing against them either. I don’t think I said that.
I think Smitty had it right, seperate the person from the position.
There’s good and bad people in the world.
Who are the cream of Thai women? I guess all the hard working ones who go about their jobs whatever it may be, in a decent way.
View all comments by Young Royal