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Photo: Fabrics on display at Jatujak market in Bangkok What's On This Page? |
Thailand - Random Thoughts Page 5
She had one of her staff run me up some shirts. I thought they were white when I looked at the material under fluorescent lighting but they actually had a purple hue. The collars were flimsy and they didn't fit particularly well. I tried to wear them but they ended up being used to polish my car and clean my windows. Since I started living in Thailand a question I get asked regularly is if I can recommend anywhere to get clothes made. I guess it makes sense. Handmade clothes are expensive in developed countries because labour charges are so high. If you go somewhere such as Southeast Asia where labour charges are negligible then handmade goods become a lot cheaper. The theory is good but opportunists - mainly from India - have identified this craze and have made a mockery of the whole industry. I find the whole Indian tailor business in Thailand to be not only a joke but a bloody annoyance. It begins even before tourists set foot in Thailand. These guys take out big advertisements in the airline in-flight magazines. The shops always have 'Armani' somewhere in the name. The proprietor is a fat, bearded Sikh with a big grin and in the photo has his arm around a minor Hollywood celebrity who he claims he makes all his suits for. A number of packages will be offered, priced in US dollars. They go along the lines of one mohair suit with spare trousers, two shirts, three ties, a belt, a pair of comfy slacks and a safari suit (for that essential Rolf Harris look). They claim that they can turn clothes around in a matter of hours and will stop at nothing to get business. Every shop has a tout outside who tries to shake the hands of passing tourists with a "Good afternoon sir, where are you from?" They will willingly collect people from their hotels to take them to their tailor shops and they bribe Bangkok tuk-tuk drivers with fuel coupons just to get tourists through the door. Of all the things that annoy me in Thailand, these guys are probably the biggest annoyance of all. Their shops are just places to ensnare people and are located in heavily touristed areas. The clothes are normally made in the same sweatshop factories in poor parts of town using slave labour. Don't worry though. If you really have a desire for bespoke clothing, proper tailors do exist in Thailand. The picture above is one such place located near the Oriental hotel. A. Song Tailor is located at 8 Trok Chartered Bank Lane. They can be reached on various phone numbers: +66 (0)2 630 9708; +66 (0)2 235 2753; +66 (0)2 235 3190; +66 (0)1 487 4097; +66 (0)5 171 4525 and the e-mail address is: asongtailor@yahoo.com They are open from 9:30 - 19:30. This is a proper tailor shop and there are a few differences compared with the Indian places. For a start, you will notice in the photo that there is no smarmy tout outside trying to drag people inside the shop and no tuk-tuks that have been involved with hijacking innocent tourists to get them to the shop. Individual items are made; not packages which include a safari suit. A suit will typically cost around Bt6,500 to Bt7,000 and not Bt2,500 which the Indians will make you one for. It will also take three to five days to make and not eight hours. You may also find that several fittings are required which the Indians won't do. One tip I read somewhere - if you do decide to use an Indian tailor - is to lie about your departure date. If they know when you are leaving they will deliver your clothes just as you are about to leave but there won't be any time to make alterations when you find you can't button up your trousers. However, if you have more time in the country they can then make the necessary alterations. Personally I would never use one of these places. Many tourists are just bone idle and can't be bothered searching for decent tailors the same way as many foreign men can't be bothered searching for decent Thai women. Just like finding girls in bars, finding Indian tailor shops near the beach takes no effort. However, as I have said elsewhere, nothing worthwhile having in life comes easy.
The water supplied to my apartment is used for the following activities: showering, brushing my teeth, hand-washing clothes, flushing the toilet, washing up dishes, watering my pot plants, cleaning the floor, throwing over dogs on heat. My three goldfish live in tap water without any apparent problems. (The only problems they have had are with me unknowingly adding a couple of nice looking black and yellow fish to the tank which had quite an appetite for goldfish. When I found a second half-eaten goldfish I realised there was a bit of a problem and took the predators back to where I bought them from.) You may have noticed that 'drinking' wasn't included in that list. I think there are some people who drink it but this is not something I would recommend. It looks fairly clear from a running tap but if you fill a container you will often notice that it has a strange brown hue. Not nice. It is best to drink bottled water and it isn't expensive in Thailand. There are various brands available at various prices but any water sold as drinking water should be safe to drink unless it's been tampered with. What brand you buy and therefore how much you pay is a matter of personal preference. Buying large containers instead of bottles is a way of getting it cheaper. When drinking bottled water make sure the top is sealed and that the seal is intact. One woman in Bangkok got really stroppy with me when I asked for another bottle because the one she sold me was not sealed. For all I know she could have just filled it from the tap. When ordering bottled water at restaurants they should bring the bottle to your table unopened and break the seal in front of you or let you do it yourself.
They use tap water but there are lots of different filters to purify the water. I drink a lot of the stuff as there is a machine installed in my apartment building. It tastes good, looks fine and I haven't had any problems. The machines are endorsed by Thailand's current PM and many machines have a photo on them of the great man drinking a glass of machine-filtered water. There was a horrible story in one of the Thai language daily newspapers on 29th January 2005. A 60 year-old man from Chiang Mai had drunk some untreated tap water from a natural source. I'm not sure from where exactly but it was either a well, a pond, a stream or a spring. He had somehow ingested a leech that was in the water. Again, I don't know what stage of development the leech was at when he swallowed it. Anyway, the leech attached itself inside his throat and survived very well, helping itself to a regular supply of his blood. At some stage he realised something wasn't right and started suffering from a lot of pain. He ended up having open surgery so that doctors could remove the parasite. The newspaper reported the story and published two photos - one of him on the operating table and another of the leech. (Thai newspapers love to publish gory photos.) The offending animal was black and huge. It was photographed against a ruler and was four to five inches long and very fat from the nutritious diet it had been enjoying for several months. My advice is just to stick to the bottled water or the special drinking water machines.
Thai Bureaucracy and Dealing With It The Thais have their own way of dealing with things and it works for them. It would be easy for me to criticise the system and write about how much time I have spent (wasted) dealing with bureaucracy but it is their country. Two things you will need an abundance of if dealing with Thai bureaucracy are time and patience (two things the locals seem to have a great deal of). Don't expect anything to get done quickly. Allow at least three visits to any government department. The first visit is to find out what you need. On the second visit you will be told about more things you need that you weren't told about on the first visit. You may get what you want on the third visit or you may be told about some more requirements. At times it seems that officials are doing all they can to make things difficult for you but apparently that's not how the Thais view the situation. The Thai view is that government officials are public servants whose wages are paid from taxes so therefore they do all they can for the people who pay their wages. Thai bureaucracy involves a huge amount of paperwork. Everything needs to be photocopied and signed and/or stamped. My passport has been photocopied so many times the ink has started to fade. I consider the only relevant pages in my passport to be the details page and the page that has my current visa but at times every single page has been copied and I have been required to sign each copy. On some contracts I have been asked to sign up to seven times on each page. The single best piece of advice I can give anyone is to involve a Thai to help you. There are several reasons for this. Thais like dealing with Thais. Even in totally informal situations they won't deal with me if I am with a Thai. For example, if I ask a Thai waitress a question (in Thai) she will respond to my Thai companion. Sometimes when I pay the bill my change is given to my Thai companion. I feel at times as if I have suddenly turned invisible. Thais understand the system. When dealing with Thai officialdom never show any sign of annoyance. When they tell you on the third or fourth visit they need something else a foreigner might be inclined to raise his eyes to the ceiling and ask, "Why didn't you tell me that before?" The Thai will just smile and say, "I'm sorry, how silly of me to forget something as obvious as that." Let a Thai friend deal with the official and just sit in the background as quietly as possible. If spoken to, smile a lot, be subservient and speak very politely. When Thais deal with officials they use a very high level of politeness in their speech. Even when the official is being completely unreasonable no one gets flustered. Getting angry constitutes a loss of face and it destroys the atmosphere of cooperation and harmony that is so important to Thais. It is the worse thing to do but I know, from experience, that at times it is difficult. Another obvious reason to let a Thai deal with the situation is language. Immigration officers might speak English as they deal with foreigners but in some other government departments you will not see a single sign in English or hear a word of English spoken. At times I have thought I have been up against a brick wall but I have always managed to get what I wanted - eventually. Sometimes it has been necessary to jump through hoops but this is all part of the game. Unfortunately there is no way to beat the system. Be polite, be patient, jump through the hoops by complying to new requests and eventually you will get what you want.
They survived for a while but I haven't seen one on British roads for many, many years. I was therefore quite amazed to see an Allegro being driven around Thailand. It is testament to Thai mechanics that they have the ability to keep such a pile of crap on the road. The Allegro is the automotive version of the Dodo. It became extinct years ago. Seeing a working Allegro in 2005 is akin to something like a Tasmanian Tiger turning up in Hobart on a Saturday afternoon. Give a Thai mechanic any vehicle and see what he can do with it. There are plenty of 50 year-old Mercedes running around that have had Nissan engines transplanted into them once the original engines became unserviceable. Even Maserati sports cars imported into Thailand are subject to Thai improvisation. The highly temperamental and vastly expensive high-revving Italian engines get replaced with big Lexus V8s which are cheap to run and almost indestructible. In some ways it reminds me of Cuba where big old 'Yank tanks' are kept going because of poverty and US embargoes preventing new cars from coming into the country. I think it's great though. Well done Thailand and well done Cuba!
The method Thais use to bathe is different too. Many bathrooms do not have a shower head arrangement with running water as is common in the West. In the bathroom will be a large water container. This is sometimes a concrete affair built into the bathroom or maybe just a large plastic standalone barrel. There will be a tap but this is just used to fill the container. In the bathroom, normally floating on top of the water, will be a small plastic bowl which is used to scoop and sloosh water over your body. It takes a bit of getting used to but I find that as long as the water isn't too cold it is OK. Toilets in non-tourist areas are almost always of the Asian squat variety. They are basically a hole in the ground but are sometimes raised a little way from the floor. If you are a man and need to pee it is obviously not a problem but I've never really got the hang of anything else. To be honest, I dread these things. Whenever I get invited to a Thai person's house to stay the first thought that goes through my mind is that I'll have to use a squat toilet. Toilet paper can be quite a rarity and in many public toilets you won't find any. If girls use a toilet in a restaurant it's not uncommon for them to grab a handful of paper tissues from the table before they go. Some public toilets charge a small entrance fee and there is a person in attendance collecting the money. Small packs of toilet paper can sometimes be bought from this person. Thais tend to use toilet paper differently, using it to dry themselves after first cleaning with water, rather than to clean. Rural toilets normally have septic tank systems which won't deal with toilet paper so used toilet paper is put into a waste bin in the bathroom. Out of habit, Thais will still do this with sewage systems that can accept toilet paper. On a few occasions after entertaining Thai guests I have found presents of used toilet paper left in my bin in the bathroom. To clean up after using the toilet it's a case of using that plastic scoop again and this is also what is used for flushing. Some toilets come with a small hose pipe arrangement which Thais use to clean their bums with instead of scooping the water. The squat toilets normally have no flushing mechanism and in some places where a sit down toilet is installed the cistern won't be plumbed in. Just get a few scoops of water and throw it into the toilet. Hand washing after using the toilet doesn't seem to be a big thing in Thailand. Perhaps the lack of close contact between hand and bottom by using water to clean instead of toilet paper lessens the requirement? In public toilets there are normally sinks with running water but soap is fairly unusual and towels or hot air drying machines are quite rare. Hot air drying machines that actually work are even rarer. Everything written here applies to non-tourist areas. In heavily tourist areas none of these things are normally a problem.
Mmmm, where do I begin? It's pretty awful but then again I was spoilt being brought up in England with the BBC. There are six terrestrial channels: Channel 3; Channel 5; Channel 7; Channel 9; Channel 11; iTV. Five of the six channels are operated by the government or military. This left (note the use of the past tense) one independent channel called, appropriately, iTV - the 'i' standing for independent, that was until it was bought by the Prime Minister's family business, Shin Corp. Therefore, there are now no independent TV stations in Thailand. A quick note on iTV. Thaksin bought the channel before he became PM basically to use as a mouthpiece to promote his own campaign to become PM. When he was first elected in 2001 he sacked the existing iTV staff for no reason, apart from the fact they still wanted to report news independently and not with a TRT slant. There was some justice four years later, however, when the courts ruled that the sackings were illegal and awarded the sacked journalists compensation equivalent to four years worth of back pay. Cable and satellite operators offer plenty more channels but these are subject to Thai censorship. On UBC, one cable operator, they even filter out commercials from foreign channels. During commercial breaks they show a screen of information about UBC and play annoying music. Everyone knows how subversive foreign commercials are so UBC are just protecting society. Soap Operas: Where I come from there are two genres of soap opera. There is the gritty reality (or not, as the case may be) of working class life in a large city, for example Coronation Street and EastEnders. Then there were the 80's shows about fabulously rich and wealthy families like Dallas or Dynasty where fortunes were amassed in the oil business. Thai soap operas are a different genre altogether. They are cast with beautiful people, many of whom are 'look kreung', the Thai word for someone of mixed race. The girls are white-skinned and beautiful, the men equally pretty in their own way. They all live in beautiful homes, wear beautiful clothes and drive around in expensive cars. No-one appears to work and I have never seen any indication of how their money was made. Thailand is presented as a place so spotlessly clean it makes Singapore look third world. Even the scenes in Bangkok are like this. The plot lines range from romantic trash to farce. All relationships are intense and embody the entirely unrealistic Hollywood notion of love. Almost every interaction is confrontational - perhaps the producers have been watching Eastenders? There is an attempted comedy element which normally features an outrageous 'katoey' (ladyboy). No Thai soap opera is complete without the antics of a few over-the-top, drama queen ladyboys. The 'comedy' has all the sophistication of clowns at a circus and cartoon noises accompany the pathetic humour. All that is missing are the red noses. The soundtracks are pure Looney Tunes. If you close your eyes you'd swear you were watching a cartoon. Money is absolutely no object in these shows. A couple of months before I wrote this the story line of one show covered a tour of Europe where everything took place in several major European capitals and many scenes were shot in the best restaurants in town, of course. Quite often the plots go off into complete fantasy. I just watched a show where one of the pretty girls in the cast had been transformed in to a genie and had a talking cat. A little while ago the story line was about encountering ghosts and evil witches. Dream sequences pop up regularly too. It's just a form of entertainment so I don't suppose it does any harm. The Thais are all hooked and enjoy these programmes and there is no rule that soap operas have to represent true life. All that concerns me is that along with the advertising on TV it is another message to Thais that being rich and white-skinned is good and if you're not you can't be happy. The American public have been taken in completely already. Everyone can be rich if they work hard enough and anyone can be president. No-one has to be ugly because the miracles of modern surgery and cosmetics mean everyone can be beautiful. Some Americans now even believe that there is no reason why they should die as life can be extended. (This version of 'permanence' is probably why you don't get too many American Buddhists). For Western, especially American, corporations to continue their constant year-on-year growth they have to look for new markets and Thailand is one of those new markets. Although I said above that watching these programmes probably doesn't do any harm I think actually for some people it does. At the end of the shows there is always a long list of sponsors - cars by BMW and Mercedes, watches by Rolex, clothes by blah blah blah. It's just one big advertising space (like the last few James Bond movies). I find this all incredibly sad. It's exploitative and many people are unable to work out they are being exploited. Comedy: I can best describe Thai comedy in terms that will only mean anything to Brits of a certain age. It is a combination of Crackerjack, the Krankies and the Benny Hill show. Comedy for Thais has to be 'sanuk' which basically equates to the childish, unsophisticated shows they put on TV. I doubt that 'The Office', in either a dubbed or subtitled version, would be very successful in Thailand. There is a show that resembles 'Spitting Image' in the UK. The UK version was extremely satirical and laid into British politicians mercilessly. When I first saw Thai politicians represented by puppets on a TV show I thought it might be similar but it is shown on iTV, Thaksin's channel, so it is therefore guaranteed not to give the government a hard time. There are times when I really wish I could understand more Thai so I could work out what this show is about. Game Shows: Game shows are just one long commercial. The little podiums the contestants stand on have adverts on them. Props also feature adverts. In other countries the props might be huge playing cards or something but in Thailand these are adverts. Long lists of advertisers are shown at the end of each show. News: Thai news is quite graphic. People being killed in Thailand is a daily occurrence and when it happens the TV cameras aren't far behind. The cameras get in close on the victims and show lots of blood. Some Thai news programmes resemble war zones. Perpetrators of crimes are also closely followed by the camera and made to look very remorseful. Everything involved in the crime is shown on TV - hand phones, drugs, contraband and the money that was made from the crime. Newsline: For farangs in Thailand without cable or satellite TV this is about the best thing on Thai TV. Every night at around 10:15pm on Channel 11 there is a round up of the news in English. The presenters are Thais who have grown up or have been educated abroad and speak flawless English. In addition to news items there are a couple of regular features. 'Bangkok Today' concentrates on the capital whereas 'Highlight Thailand' looks at another area of the country. Business news and sport are also covered. The presenter who does the business news is quite a colourful character who ignores his script most of the time to give his own (often forthright) opinions. Commercials: I find the whole subject of advertising quite disgusting these days, not just in Thailand. For many years now it has been a psychological science, if you can call it that. Adverts don't talk about what products do, they try to convince consumers that the product will give them a 'better' lifestyle. It's amazing now what can help people attract members of the opposite sex (according to the advertisers) - the beer they drink, the deodorant they use, the mobile phone they use. But it obviously works so they keep pushing out these lies. In Thailand the manufacturers and advertisers have very successfully tapped into Thai vanity and insecurity. It seems that every other commercial is for shampoo or skin-whitening products. One shampoo results in impossibly beautiful, glossy hair apparently but use another and your hair will attract passing birds who want to nest there. The notion of 'white skin good, dark skin bad' really annoys me. Thai girls with beautiful but naturally dark skin who have bought into this lie are spending a fortune on cosmetics trying to make themselves lighter. It's disgusting. I even find the wording on the products offensive. Here's something from a tube of 'whitening cleanser'. It says that the product is, "A first step to transform dull and dark skin to naturally fair, radiant skin." Why is dark skin 'dull' and fair skin 'radiant'? Is this emotive language or what? I don't know how much was spent on advertising in Thailand in 2004 but the figure was set to grow by 19% in 2005. If there is one sure way of making people unhappy it is to convince them that in order to be happy they need lots of things they don't have and then to get them in to debt buying those things.
The idea is that by thinking we prevent potential problems from occurring. This is fine in theory but when do we stop thinking? After we have thought of all the likely things that can go wrong we start to think about unlikely things. This can lead to all kinds of mental problems such as paranoia and anxiety. It is well known that people generally worry about things that will never happen. And all because they think too much. When I want to try to calm and clear my mind by meditating I just can't get my brain to stop having idle thoughts. I know that I should only be concentrating on my breathing but everything that has happened to me that day continues to flash through my mind. Not being able to stop thinking is a problem. I dwell a lot on past events which serves no purpose and just wastes mental energy. I can't turn back the clock, something happened, just forget it and think about what is going on now. We only ever live in the present so don't dwell on the past or worry about the future. It's a good theory but difficult to put into practice. Thinking too much is not encouraged in Thailand. It's not exactly a crime but a furrowed brow or a worried expression is worthy of admonishment. You will be told, "Khit maak," if you are seen to be thinking too much and that isn't a good thing. One of the things that has caused me many problems in Thailand is thinking. Some behaviour I have come across defies all logic yet trying to understand the reasons behind the behaviour just makes things worse. The Thais are very good at not thinking too much and this ability makes me quite envious. Life would be so much easier if I didn't think so much. It's not that they are incapable of thinking, it's just that they don't worry themselves with thoughts they can't do anything about. I think that in general this is a good thing but sometimes I wish the Thais would think just a little about the future and think about possible consequences of their actions. A little bit of anticipation while driving would be a good thing and some thought about making repayments before buying things on credit would probably save them a few debt problems. Not thinking too much has other benefits. Foreigners in Thailand are generally suspicious about other foreigners because they think a lot and make assumptions about why that other person is in Thailand. The assumptions are not always very nice. This tends to make farangs cynical and as a result they don't make many friends. The Thais don't think about bad motives and therefore don't exhibit such cynical attitudes. It makes for a friendly bunch of people who have lots of friends. Thinking. Is it worth the effort?
The other reason for Thais learning English is because they need to. They may deal with tourists and it is in their interest to be able to communicate well for business reasons. Some may need to speak English at work and some may need it for their studies. My experience with Thais who fall into neither of these categories is that even though they may be studying English they have no real motivation to learn. In Bangkok, Phuket and other tourist areas you will have no language problems. My limited ability to speak Thai serves me well in the provinces but has not been necessary in tourist areas where the Thais speak better English than I do Thai. Thai TV is mainly in Thai with the occasional programme in English, such as 'Newsline'. Apparently an English soundtrack is broadcast on FM radio for some foreign programmes on some TV channels but I have never managed to figure out when this happens. Radio in the provinces also has a very Thai flavour but it is different in Bangkok where English language stations exist. They normally employ announcers who speak with a sickening sweet and annoying American accent. As I have mentioned elsewhere there are English language daily newspapers available including The Nation which is an excellent read. Thai magazines are weird in respect of language. Quite often the magazine title and all the article headings will be in English but the actual articles are in Thai. It can be a little deceiving. I have picked up magazines that are all in English on the front cover but have been unable to read anything inside.
Thailand has what might be called a protectionist policy in place regarding employment. Just as there are laws in place to stop foreigners buying up large tracts of land in Thailand, there are laws in place to protect Thais from losing their jobs to foreigners. It's not a bad thing, actually. There is a long list of professions that foreigners cannot do in Thailand and accordingly, work permits will not be issued. If you are a photographer and have spotted an opportunity to set up a small studio to take photos of vain Thais who love their photo being taken, you can't. Photography is on the list of jobs that are banned for foreigners. The best way to work in Thailand is if you work for an international company and can get a transfer. With an expat salary and all the relocation perks you will enjoy a very good standard of living and your company will take care of all the bureaucracy and administration. A few people manage to set up successful businesses and do well but I don't hear about that too often. A big problem is the language. It's not like being in Singapore or even Kuala Lumpur where you can survive just by speaking English. In many areas of Thai business it is essential to speak Thai. I think it is probably accurate to say that most foreigners tend to work in one of two professions, certainly the ones I have met anyway. Thailand is a popular country for scuba divers to work, both instructors and divemasters. There are plenty of diving locations and not many Thais dive for some reason. Because of the way diving has grown in popularity in the last 15 years or so, many people come to dive in Thailand and there is generally plenty of work. By far the biggest profession for foreigners in Thailand is teaching English. It is something that foreigners naturally do better than Thais and there is a growing demand. It is one of the few jobs foreigners can do without speaking Thai (many do it without being able to speak English) but speaking a little Thai does help. The pay isn't great compared to many other countries but relative to what many Thais earn it is OK. People teaching English in Thailand normally do so because they want to live in Thailand and that is the only way they can survive. There aren't too many doing it to further their careers or save for their retirements.
He took hold of two pieces of wire, both of which had safety pins through them. He fastened the two safety pins together in order to make the electrical connection and the lights flickered on. My friend and I, both IBM hardware engineers at the time and used to more orthodox electrical standards, looked at each other and simultaneously laughed. It was another one of those 'Only in Thailand' moments. Fast forward to 2005 and I decide I'd like a ceiling fan fitted in my room. After several weeks of waiting, a contractor comes to give me a quote. The first surprise is his labour charge which I will detail in terms of UK pounds. The fan itself was about £20 and if I was installing one in the UK I would do it myself. The main reason for that is because getting someone to do it would be very expensive. In the UK, the actual fan would be the cheap part. Getting it fitted would probably be around £100 or more. So, how much in Thailand? The quote was Bt300, or just over £4. At one stage three men were involved plus the teenage son of one of them who was employed to search around for cables in small holes as he had small hands. They seemed to be doing a pretty good job until right at the end. Instead of the power cable coming down from the ceiling and being concealed within the fan housing it came down outside of the housing where it was coiled up, bound with insulating tape and left on display. At first I thought this was just temporary while they tested everything but no, this is how they intended to leave it. It looked awful. I protested gently. At first they didn't seem interested in tidying things up. After all, the fan worked didn't it? They told me the cable couldn't be concealed, which was absolute rubbish, and then they said they hadn't had much experience installing this type of fan. I was then told that when I move on to somewhere else the fan will go with me anyway so what does it matter? In fact, the agreement with my landlord was that it stays here so he won't be left with an ugly hole in the ceiling. Eventually they completed the job how I expected them to do it in the first place. The final result wasn't the best but it was satisfactory. It seems that Thais have a different set of standards to doing jobs compared to many Western foreigners. As long as something works, that seems to be all that matters. The photo above is of an electric meter in the street near to where I currently live. It's a typical piece of Thai bodging. It works fine - the dial goes round as it should to measure how much electricity is consumed - but it just hangs in mid-air and looks awful. The moral of the story here is that if you contract Thai workers to do anything, you need to make very sure they are aware what standards of workmanship you expect, or you need to watch over them constantly. Don't be nasty though when they are working for such small rewards. I tried to give my workers a Bt200 tip because Bt300 to do the job was so little but they refused and would only take Bt100. The other very important point is they don't perform shoddy work because they aren't able to do good work. Thai artwork and handicrafts are beautifully produced and I have seen many examples of fabulously constructed houses and landscaping. It just seems to be a cultural thing of not expending any more effort than is absolutely necessary in order to achieve something or to get something working.
To do almost any kind of work in Thailand requires a work permit. There may be a few diplomatic exceptions but for most mortals contemplating earning some money in the Kingdom, a work permit is required. One is even required for charity work so if you were thinking of being paid in 'donations' and claiming - if you were caught - that you weren't receiving any wages you are still breaking the law. Work permits allow foreigners to work in Thailand and are obtained through the Department of Employment, Ministry of Labour. Visas allow foreigners to live in Thailand and are obtained through the Department of Immigration. If you want to live and work in Thailand, you need both. Do not be confused. In my experience many Thai employers are quite apathetic about getting the correct paperwork to hire a foreign employee. Thais don't like to create work for themselves, especially if there is no direct personal benefit, and some see a work permit as being unnecessary even though they are quite willing to give a foreigner a job. The consequences of working in Thailand without a work permit are quite serious. Being discovered could result in some kind of a detention, a fine and deportation from the country, possibly all three. How would you feel about being banged-up, fined, deported and never allowed back into Thailand ever again? Saying that though, it is unlikely that you will be found out if you work illegally. Employers will tell you that no one checks up so you won't get found out. Quite possibly they are right most of the time. I know that some foreigners have worked in Thailand for many years without valid permits but is it a risk you are prepared to take? The ideal situation is that you are hired by a reputable company and they will handle everything - including the expense of getting the paperwork. They just tell you what you need to give them and they do everything else, apart from the physical trips over the border that you need to do. My situation wasn't that straightforward as I was more interested in casual, part-time work. I encountered the usual, "Don't worry about it," responses but I was never prepared to work illegally. I therefore had to sort everything out myself and because my employers didn't regard this as being absolutely necessary I also had to pay for everything myself. If you find yourself in a similar situation, some details about my experience may help. My first port of call for information was the Internet but when I first started reading up about the process I was almost tempted not to bother and not to work. The process looked so daunting I thought I didn't stand a chance. However, I think that certain individuals who post information have their own agendas. One source of information was offering a service to acquire Thai work permits for foreigners. They made the process sound very difficult but perhaps this was to justify the Bt12,000 service charge they were asking for? Other people just seem to want to be smug that they have got their permit and then make it sound very difficult. The first stage of getting a permit is getting a suitable job offer. This has to be in writing and Thais like lots of official-looking rubber stamps. Preferably, the person signing it should have a long, important sounding title. Once you have a job offer you then need to get a non-immigration B (non-B) visa. This is the visa that allows you to work. Most other kinds of visa (tourist, retirement, etc.) do not allow you to work. The process is straightforward but must be done outside of Thailand. Therefore, if you are in Thailand already you need to get to a Consulate or Embassy in a neighbouring country such as Malaysia or Laos. Fill out the form applying for a non-B visa and, with your passport, attach your job offer letter, two passport photos and the required fee (200 Ringgits in Malaysia). Unless there are any major anomalies you should get your visa the following day. It remains valid for 90 days after which time it will expire. When you go back into Thailand your visa is stamped and it then becomes active allowing you to work until it expires, that is, after 90 days from when you entered Thailand. Once upon a time, apparently, it was possible to get a non-B like this for six months or a year. Now though you can only get a three month single entry visa. Some people (and Internet resources) will tell you that if you ask nicely it is possible to get more than three months but at the Penang Consulate they will not give any more than three months. Believe me, I've tried. Once you have your non-B you can work legally. The idea now is to apply for your work permit. If you don't, you may be wondering if you can keep going back to the Consulate for repeated non-B visas. When I got my first one I only worked for a short time and didn't bother with a work permit. When I started my second job I needed to get another non-B and they stamped a warning that I should apply for a work permit. It would appear that you can get two non-Bs (or maybe three) on the basis of job offer letters but then you need to get a work permit. They apparently won't keep giving you non-B visas ad-infinitum. Now on to the actual work permit process. I decided right from the start that I needed help. My Thai language skills are sufficient for shopping and restaurants but not for something like this and besides, I didn't even know where the Department of Employment was. I found myself a small solicitor's office and spoke to someone there. The woman I spoke to actually had a contact working at the Department of Labour in the section that processes foreigner's work permits. Perfect. There are a few things to appreciate when dealing with officialdom in Thailand. No matter how good your Thai, you are a foreigner and Thais are always happier dealing with other Thais. For example, whenever I am with my Thai girlfriend and have a problem, I talk to the Thai I'm having the problem with but they always reply to her. It's just the way they are. Secondly, the locals have great networking skills. I know this is how everyone in the world operates to some extent but in Thailand it is even more the case. You have to know the right people to speak to in order to get things done. Without using the solicitor's office I would never have got in touch with the lady at the Department of Labour. Thirdly, remember this is Thailand. Even when they appear to be making no sense, try to bite your tongue, smile and let them do it their way. Trying to use Western assertion techniques just doesn't work. After talking to her friend at the Department of Labour my solicitor told me what I required. This demonstrates another danger of using the Internet too much. On the Internet I found different requirements and if I had followed these I would have ended up getting things I didn't require and not having things I did require. The list I was given consisted of the following:
That list didn't seem too bad and wasn't half as daunting as some information I had obtained on-line. Here's how I went about getting it all together.
I had to sign every piece of paper to say it was authentic (no need to get anything notarised) and also had to sign to give my contact at the Department of Labour power of attorney to apply for my permit. The service charge was Bt2,000 which, considering the hassle it saved me, I thought was reasonable. The initial work permit fee was Bt750. The work permit expires when the visa does. If you get it 30 days after getting your non-B it will therefore be good for 60 days. In my case it expired about two weeks after I got it. Both documents (work permit and visa) then need to be extended and this can be done in Thailand for another three months. After that it is necessary to go to a Consulate or Embassy outside the country again to apply for another non-B visa. With a work permit and employment contract it should be possible next time round to get a multiple entry one year visa. If you apply in Malaysia this will cost 500 ringgits. The solicitor told me that getting the permit in the first instance is the tricky part but ongoing extensions should be fairly straightforward. There was a warning attached though not to let my visa or permit expire because I would have to start all over from scratch again. Another thing to mention about work permits is that they are very specific about what you can do and where you can work. If teaching English, for example, the permit will allow that person to teach English at one specific establishment. If you find some part-time work elsewhere your permit will need to be modified before you can do that additional work legally. Having a work permit in Thailand does not give you carte-blanche to work anywhere doing anything. Here are the actual warnings (and consequences) that come written inside the work permit:
The whole process to get my permit took less than a month. In fact, after I had got all of the necessary paperwork together it took less than two weeks. I read some scare mongering on the Internet saying it could take several months. If it looks like your non-B visa might expire before your work permit arrives you can get an in-country two week visa extension for Bt1,900 specifically for this purpose. However, if after another two more weeks the permit still hasn't arrived then you may need to leave the country again to try to get another. Getting my work permit, which I thought would be difficult, was relatively easy. Getting my visa extended, which I was told would be a formality once I had a work permit, was anything but a formality. It was a real headache. My solicitor had told me on several occasions I could get it done at the local immigration office. I wasn't convinced at first but she seemed very sure. When the time came, she accompanied me. However, the immigration guy just didn't want to help me (not the first time I have encountered this attitude with Thai immigration). At first he started questioning the authority of the person who had signed my employment contract. A head of department wasn't good enough apparently and he wanted a letter from the Dean of the University. He said he would give me a two week extension and in that time I'd need to get a letter from the Dean. This would have meant getting a two week extension on my work permit, getting the letter he wanted and then repeating the whole thing again in two weeks. I wasn't happy. It would also have meant two lots of expense. But he then changed his mind and said the reason he couldn't give me a three month extension was because his office didn't have the necessary authority (contradicting what he had previously told my solicitor). However, if I went to the office at the border and spoke to one of his colleagues there I could get three months. I went off to the border office and asked to speak to his colleague. She didn't like me either. I could tell this from her tone of voice and body language but my girlfriend, who was with me, told me that she wasn't speaking very nicely on the phone either. It seems that the woman had some kind of a personal issue with foreigners working in Thailand. Just what I needed. She decided she needed another letter from my employer. Now, what I can't understand is that the Ministry of Labour had already sanctioned that I could work in Thailand by giving me a work permit. I was only asking the Department of Immigration to let me stay in the country in order that I could do this work so why were they questioning my right to work when another department had already said everything was OK? Anyway, there was no way round this. I had to get another letter from my employer and go back to see the immigration officer. She was then happy and extended my visa. Cost, Bt1,900. The next step was to extend my work permit to get in synch with my visa. Again, I was told it would be a formality but my lawyer had failed to give me a form I needed. My first trip was wasted and I had to return the next day. They were happy with everything but couldn't process my application on that day meaning I had to go back yet again. The fee for submitting my application was Bt100 and I was charged another Bt750 when I collected my work permit. Here is what is needed for the work permit extension. I have found the Ministry of Labour to be very good in this respect as they make it very clear what is required. The Department of Immigration is a completely different matter where it seems to depend more on the mood of the officer you deal with and whether he or she likes you or not.
(Yes, we may be farangs to everyone else in Thailand but, according to the Ministry of Labour, we are aliens.) After getting my initial work permit I was told that getting it and my visa extended would be easy and would take a morning. Instead it took four days and involved several visits to government offices at the border and in the provincial capital. The initial non-B visa, as I have already mentioned is a single entry visa. The single entry status remains after the in-country three month extension. Therefore, within this six month period you need to apply for a re-entry permit if you leave the country. If you don't, then your visa (and work permit) just get cancelled when you leave the country and you have to start everything from scratch again. A re-entry permit costs Bt1,000 for a single journey out of the country and Bt3,800 for unlimited journeys. The permit is good only for the duration of your current visa. If all goes well, then your next non-B visa will be for a year and multiple entry which will make life a lot easier. Getting my next visa was fairly straightforward. I had been told by immigration that next time round I could get a one year visa and that was what I was determined to get. Despite Internet forum postings from the usual doom-and-gloom merchants to the contrary I experienced no problems. I needed to apply at a Thai Consulate or Embassy outside of Thailand so went to the nearest one at Penang. I took my employment contract and a covering letter from my employer, two photos and some other documents just to pad out my application. I don't know if they were necessary but Thai officials seem to like lots of pieces of paper. I included a copy of my CV, qualifications, certificate of good health and a reference from a former employer just for good measure. Everything was accepted and they happily took the 500 ringgit fee so I guessed it was all OK. The following day I collected my new one year, multiple entry visa. Going back into Thailand I was only given a 90 day stamp but this didn't come as a surprise. With a one year visa I knew I would have to do something every 90 days, either report to immigration or leave the country. Where I am located it is no problem to get to the border and it costs just Bt100 for a return trip. Alternatively I can plan trips outside Thailand to coincide with my passport stamps. This is no big deal. Having obtained a new visa the next task was to extend my work permit to get the two documents back in synch. What I was expecting was for the work permit to be extended one year. However, I was told it can only be extended to the date stamped in my passport, that is, 90 days. This surprised me and isn't ideal. It means that every 90 days I have to leave Thailand and return in order to get my visa extended. I then have to go to the Department of Labour with my work permit, passport and work permit extension forms to apply for an extension. A few days later (it seems to be two working days) I have to return to collect my work permit. The work permit extension fees are Bt100 to submit an extension request and Bt750 for the actual extension. Work permit extensions don't have to be applied for in person but I don't know of anyone providing the service so in the meantime I'll have to do it myself. For the time being it looks as if I will have to make one trip to the border and two to the Department of Labour every 90 days.
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