| | |
| ||
|
Normally, this left column is for the |
Commentary, BlogThailandGuru.com > Commentary, BlogRainy SeasonAugust 2007 The past few years, the rainy season has started unusually early, but the volume of rain per day less on average. The peak is August to mid-October (and then there is a quick switchover to the cool, dry season). It is significantly different from the 1990s (I arrived in 1994 during the rainy season). The flooding along the river in Bangkok, and the depth and duration of inland local flooding after a downpour (ankle to mid-wheel depth for a few hours) is uncommon now. However, the uncommon morning shower (most rains come in the late afternoon) causes significant traffic jams. Why this is so, I don't know. Maybe people delay going to work, so they all hit the road at more nearly the same time. Today was one of those days. We turned on the radio to hear the traffic report and talk show starting at 8:00am, but the host was late to the station ... due to unusually heavy traffic ... arriving 40 minutes late, after continuous music and ads.
Don't Use Unregistered SIM CardsJune 2007 If you are a businessperson, and if your Thailand mobile phone number is not registered (i.e., you bought a SIM card off the street and use prepay cards, not receive bills), then you should register your SIM card phone number to yourself. The reason: If you ever lose your phone, then you lose your phone number, and none of your customers can reach you. You cannot get your phone number back -- unless the phone number was registered to you. If it's unregistered, then you can only buy a new SIM card off the street with a new number. So many times, I can't reach a customer, then find out they lost their mobile phone, and I ask them what about their customers, and they reply it's a big problem which might be costing them a lot of lost business because people can't reach them. Plus, they must contact and request everyone to change their phone listing. Their business cards are also wrong. It's easy to register a mobile phone. Just go to any office of your carrier. As a separate matter, I suggest you back up your phone book to your computer. Practically every mobile phone has the option of a data connection to your computer by USB cable. However, download the software from the mobile phone manufacturer's website and install it on your computer BEFORE you connect the data cable. (Believe me, before not after, or you might get a driver problem.) Many phones come with the cable and a CD in the box already. In addition to being able to back up your phone book for in case your phone is lost, you can also mass delete Sent SMSes, back up SMSes for your archives, copy photos off your phone, and even use your phone for a wireless internet connection when on the road (but slower than a LAN or WiFi). Hi-So Pub Sexual Harrassment (Rare)May 29, 2007 Sometimes, you read about people you know in the news. This week, it was about the daughter of one of our customers, a well to do property owner whose house we found a renter for. The daughter and her boyfriend were allegedly assaulted in a high society Thonglor bar/restaurant by a drunk politician and his bodyguards when they had a disagreement as regards a sexual advance by a model towards the lady's boyfriend. The politician was with his swinger models, rumor has it. I must say: If you ever find yourself in a situation like this, don't let stupid pride and ego get you into trouble. Just be disinterested and leave. Pay the bill with exact cash or more, and don't wait for the change. My only bad experience came in my first year here, when I had a lady come up to me and ask me to buy her a drink. She was beautiful and spoke good English. I did. Shortly thereafter, a tall Chinese guy walked up to her and just stared at her, not saying anything. Then she said "I have friends there and there and there..." pointing around. I quickly went to pay the bill, but didn't have small money. Like an idiot, I waited for the change, and it took a very long time, in fact never came back. The next thing I knew I was hit over the back of the head with a bottle and kicked around and tossed out of the bar with a mild concussion. I was lucky. And they were just teaching her a lesson. Another time, when the row of Thai pubs on Suttisan were in trend (95% Thai clientele, upper class), I was at a table with a cute young Chinese lady who just froze when a big Thai guy came up to our table and inquired who I am. I had noticed the guy's entourage but hadn't thought much of it, but I did sense his interest in my lady. So I told him (truthfully) that I came here from Washington DC because of the US government's Asia Regional Office (without going into details) and he backed off. (He was a Yabumrung.) Another time back in 1995 (actually, not long after my concussion), I was having a really nice time with my girlfriend at a Thai disco (NASA) when a 30-something lady came up to me and spoke in English. I thought I misunderstood her, and was confused why she opened her purse and showed me a ream of 1000 baht bills, offering me 10,000 baht (US $400 at the 1995 exchange rate), and pointed to more in her wallet. I asked my girlfriend to find out in the Thai language, and after half a minute she froze and her eyes got big. Then she said, incredulously but factually, that the lady wanted me to switch to be HER boyfriend for the night, and was willing to pay big money for it. That's what I thought I'd misunderstood. I gracefully declined so she wouldn't lose face, showing strong loyalty to my girlfriend. In the case this week involving our customer's daughter, the two victims went to the Thonglor police station and filed a report, and the police from another station eventually stopped the accused, but the accused loudly and brashly asked them if they knew who he is (which they did) and powered up the window on the policeman's arm and drove away at high speed. The policeman is OK. Many people from the politician's voting district in Samut Prakarn went to the Makkasan police station to encourage them to press charges, alleging that this politician bought votes with dirty money and has neglected his district in Samut Prakarn. This story has been all over the gossip rags and repeatedly on the TV news. The security cameras which recorded the incident ... well, they failed for that segment of video. The model tried to save face with a subsequent statement to the press which was so ridiculous that it has become a joke making the rounds... There have been other incidences in the past involving other politicians and their sons, but this kind of thing has become less frequent over the 12 years I've been here. They are hot stories in the Thai gossip newspapers, but there are few prosecutions which are completed, though the perpetrators lose a lot more as regards their status in society and their future than any court penalty could give (short of a prison sentence). This kind of thing has become extremely rare, but I strongly recommend people to think about what their response would be in a similar situation, and really implement it. Just be disinterested, don't argue, pay your bill, don't wait for the change, and just calmly walk out without even looking at them again directly (but maybe in a glass reflection or the corner of your eye discreetly). Hell hath no fury like an egomaniac scorned. Bizarre Trend
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)March to May 2007
The Thai magazine "CSR Journal" (Corporate Social Responsibility) put one of my Thailand Guru website photos onto the cover of the March to May 2007 edition of their magazine (with permission) to highlight pollution, taken from my short Bangkok air pollution page (the latter photo is clearer). It's amazing how air pollution is accepted here, as exemplified by the guy just standing there and not moving away from the huge expanding black cloud. There have been periodic efforts by the police to enforce emission controls, on and off, but I haven't seen this in quite awhile, so it apparently has died instead of growing. The worst polluters are the little green buses and the big white-and-blue buses, one of the latter being pictured here. Some of the buses such as the cream colored ones are usually pretty clean. There is a program to convert buses from diesel and petrol to gas which burns cleaner, but I don't know which bus companies plan to implement this. The white and blue buses like pictured here, and the little green ones, have the worst drivers as well as the worst pollution, like nobody really cares.
In contrast, the air conditioned buses are fairly nice. I once lost some property on a cream bus, and when I went to the station they found the bus and the property, too, and returned it!
Police Catch Purse Thieves Motorcycle TeamApril 2007 One of my wife's employees had her purse snatched by a passing pair of guys on a motorcycle on Asoke. She immediately called police on 191 and the police eventually caught the two guys, by knowing their direction and quickly calling the motorcycle taxi groups along the way. She went to the police station and got her purse back. The two guys were there, and the policeman explained that they were drugatics. Again, the police impressed me, despite their insufficiently low salaries. Currency Speculators, Baht Appreciation, and Government PolicyJanuary 28, 2007 As reported in the News section on December 19, 2006, Thailand suddenly instituted a "Torbin tax" policy on major capital inflows to discourage currency speculation. Over the past month, there has been so much sensational misinformation and misunderstanding parroted in expat circles about the government's new policy to require a 30% reserve for major capital inflows, that it really justifies clarifying this, where the Thai government and sensational worldwide press have failed to do so adequately as regards the general public. The sky is not falling (but neither are advertising rates in those media!). The Thai government has been clarifying who is affected by this policy, but not in the most competent way as regards public relations. If you can convincingly show you aren't a currency speculator, then you shouldn't have a problem with this 30% rule as you should fit into one of the many exemptions. Here, I want to note that Thailand is not a terribly strict country. You can move small to moderate amounts of money into Thailand for business investment without a lot of worries or hassles if you talk with your bank branch about it and check the relevant regulations. That's where the rubber is on the road, not the high flying rhetoric and urban legends. However, it may be best to keep your money offshore as best you can, and just transfer and use it as necessary when purchasing goods and services, paying salaries, or whatever else. Regarding Thailand's policies, I am supportive of policies to combat currency speculation as regards "hot money" flipped for quick profits, simply because it is disruptive of the economy and adversely affects so many businesses. However, an overkill reaction can do much worse damage. What worries me is not so much the decision as the people pressuring the government to try to keep the value of the baht from rising naturally. The exporters are clamoring for more controls, but helping the exporters can hurt others and the Thai economy even more. Exporters can apply pressure by showing more specifically how they are affected, and many of them are powerful entities with influence, whereas others are not so effective in showing how they would be affected in positive ways. (Exporters benefit from a weaker baht because Thai products are cheaper overseas.) It is well known that Thailand is a good place to move your money right now because the baht is strengthening relative to the dollar. Indeed, in the one week up to the time of this commentary, the baht has increased in value by 5%. Yes, in one week. Not one year, but one week. Of course, not every week is like this, and some weeks are losers rather than winners, but it is clear that the Thai currency is on the way up relative to the dollar, albeit other currencies are going up, too. In Asia, the difference is that other Asian currencies which trade more freely have risen even more than the Thai baht, and the Thai baht is seen as having more appreciation potential at this point in time. Therefore, currency speculators move money into Thailand, wait for it to appreciate, then move it back out. In massive amounts, especially by openly available "pools" or "funds", the Thai baht can actually be manipulated in value by massive inflows and outflows in the shortterm, at great profit to the "pools" or "funds", but at the cost of business stability. However, any policies to control the natural value of the Thai baht to keep it from rising in the longterm are questionable. It is my opinion that the Thai government should point out that the increasing value of the Thai baht is still another good reason to move money into Thailand for investment reasons. It's not the best reason, and in my opinion other investment factors are much bigger, but people are unlikely to be hurt by investing in Thailand, like they were when the baht was pegged to the dollar before the 1997 crash, and it makes for good P.R., rather than bad P.R. The glass should be half full, not just half empty. The exporters who are hurt the most are those who are trying to be the cheapest guys in the world. While price is an important matter as regards competition, even more important are market analysis for new and different products, and product quality. We should not be trying to protect the copycats. We should be encouraging an influx in new and innovative designers and brokers -- the most creative of which are small and medium size enterprises. Anything done to discourage these people will be bad for Thailand's longterm interests. These people are not the kinds to make their opinions forcefully known to the government on currency matters, quite unlike the "cheapest guys in town" on thin margins in the copycat and basic labor-intensive semi-raw materials industries who will scream immediately and loudly when their products because more expensive overseas as the baht strengthens. The Thai export promotion motto of "refinement and diversity" are not consistent with protectionism of cheap copycats. If the government doesn't specifically reach out to accomodate investors in innovative products, rather than mainly serve the interests of established copycats, then Thailand will lose its competitiveness. I have travelled to the USA and looked at the prices for goods there, to compare them to the prices of equivalent goods made in Thailand. The margins for many moderately innovative products are huge, whereby the margin for the seller and the middleman are not significantly affected by even huge currency fluctuations. The middlemen and the sellers are making good margins. However, in basic copycat goods, it's a whole different story. However, for copycat items, it's difficult for Thailand to compete with China at being the cheapest guys in town. The key for exports, in the view of the storefront purchasing agent, is whether the product is designed in a way which differentiates itself from other products, and whether the design quality is good. The price is the last thing they ask me, and the response didn't differ significantly when I presented various prices within reason. However, I don't try to sell copycat products. This whole rationale of trying to control the value of the Thai baht to protect exporters seems so blown out of proportion in the big picture of business and Thailand's future. Why does the government listen to a lot of these exporters? It reminds me a lot of some of the wealthy customers I know who live in penthouses, drive Mercedes Benzes, attend expensive socials and spend ostentatiously but argue for the cheapest prices, yet compare the prices of our services to those of sweatshop operations, have questionable quality of service, often pay their bills late (and sometimes not at all), and don't have the most productive employees. I have researched how many of these people got rich, and it is often from the taxpayer by corruption, such as government contracts, relatives in government positions of influence, purchasing property before an announcement of a road or other infrastructure element was planned, and so on and so forth. Many of these people have little creativity or innovation, but just copy what other successful people are doing, have the money to do so, don't pay their bills for businesses which can't compete, and lean on government contacts when necessary. Are these the well established people who the government is listening to -- special interests -- instead of looking at Thailand's best longterm interests? I also must wonder who is behind the appalling January decision by the government to disallow foreigners from having majority voting power in companies in many sectors ... as also reported in the News section on January 10. Obviously, that protects established special interests against foreign competition, benefitting the priviledged and protecting their status while damaging Thailand's longterm future by discouraging innovative foreigners from coming here to improve Thailand's competitiveness in the world. Looking at all these developments altogether, you can't help but wonder who is exerting influence behind the scenes, and which priviledged special interests are pulling such protectionist strings on government policy since the coup. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm afraid there's more than a grain of salt in this, from what I read and hear. Funny Thai TV CommercialJanuary 2007, early (posted here January 15) Siam Commercial Bank is running a new commercial where there are two ladies in the elevator, one pretty and one ordinary. A professional guy is running to the elevator and asks them to please hold it. The pretty one presses the Close door button whereas the ordinary lady presses the Open door button. The guy gets in and thanks the pretty lady while ignoring the ordinary one. That's all the commercial is. Then the scene fades into the Siam Commercial Bank logo. What do you think is the meaning they are trying to get across? I can see many places where it applies ...
All commentary from October 2005 until well into 2006 has been lost and I don't know if/when it will be recovered. In October 2005, our new programmer moved new commentary to a fancy database format linked to a forum database. In mid-2006, he left to work for another company, and I switched the format back to editing my plain old HTML files, but I was unable to recover the commentary from his database. The fault is mine. Click here for commentary up to October 2005. This section is personal commentary. I have two separate pages for Most items noted in one of the three pages is not noted on the other two.
| ||||
|
Want to privately ask the Thailand Guru? Contact us.
Thailand Guru is proudly original, not a copycat. | |
|
 | |
(May 2007) A trend started around April of hanging a doll under the back of the car, to blow in the wind as they drive down the road. (I thought about hanging a long tiger tail from the bottom center of my bumper.) For awhile, I saw a lot of cars like this on the expressway going to/from the suburbs. Discussions in the Thai media, however, revealed the origin of this trend: Among taxi drivers, who tend to be even more superstitious than average Thais, if they accidentally killed someone (by the notoriously aggressive driving by some of them), they were afraid that the spirit of the deceased dwelled under their car, so they put the doll there to occupy the space with a different spirit, so there's no room for the deceased. Something like that... So the trend quickly disappeared! Except among taxi drivers. Don't stare too much when you pass them, and steer clear!
