Successful Living In Thailand (A Story)

The following is an excerpt from Successful Living In Thailand, by Roger Welty. You can buy this book on AsiaBooks.com.

Here's an instructive story of what not to do in Thailand. It may seem exaggerated in its recital of a foreign businessman's insensitivity, but sad to say, it is true, and Murray is not unique.

Murray retired to Thailand from New York City in 1991. At the age of forty, he already had his MBA, three years of therapy with a strict Freudian psychoanalyst, an amicable divorce from his wife Amy, and a small fortune from the sale of his father's business.

Murray's father had run a factory in New Jersey that made rawhide chew toys for dogs. In the 18 years that Murray helmed Happy Bones, Inc., he proved himself to be a consummate man of commerce. By the time he sold the company, it was doing over a million dollars per year in mail-order sales.

Arriving in Thailand, Murray decided to live on Phuket and bought a house on Kata Noi Bay. He bought a big motorcycle and a flashy red sports car. He bought the best television, satellite dish, and stereo system available. He took diving, shooting, and equestrian lessons. He took trips to Singapore and Hong Kong. He sat on the beach for hours at a time. He soon got bored.

Murray therefore decided to open a business. Business was what he was good at, he said to himself, and it would be more fun than falling off horses. He looked around and saw that the highest profit margins in retail seemed to be in five-star hotel boutiques. He examined their stock and decided that there was a lack of quality leather goods available. He contacted a lawyer and set up the Chao Fah Leather Importers Ltd.

Khun Mot Malangsap, the lawyer, told Murray that he would need a Thai partner, and Murray calmly cut Khun Mot in for a percentage of the business. He was acquainted with the concept of the 'silent partner' and was sure if Khun Mot received a little sweetness every month, Murray would be able to handle business in his own way. That's the way it worked in New York City, after all.

Khun Mot found them office space, an architect, and a decorator to make the place presentable. The first day he took Murray to see the site, Murray insisted on telling the labourers how to lay the carpet by pointing out nips and tucks on the floor using his feet. After they left, Khun Mot explained to Murray that in Thailand, gesturing with your feet is about the rudest thing you can do. Murray just replied, "'Dese guys are employees, I'll treat 'em any damn way I like. 'Dey don't like it, let 'em go work somewhere else."

They moved into their offices after Khun Mot unsuccessfully tried to convince Murray to hold a blessing ceremony with the monks from the local temple. "Business is my religion," Murray said. The first day, Murray tripped over a ripple in the carpeting and sprained an ankle. They discovered that the carpeting had been laid but not tacked to the floor.

Murray went to the airport to receive his first shipment of purses, jackets, and boots, but came back empty-handed because of some problems with customs officials. When Khun Mot called to clear things up, he spent ten minutes apologizing for Murray's behaviour. They ended up paying fees and fines that were equal to 200 percent of the net worth of the shipment.

Murray began to run his samples around to the resorts. Everywhere he went, he would stride up to the front desk and say, "I wanna see da boss!" Usually he was referred to a duty manager or executive secretary, to whom he would say, "I wanna see da boss! You know, the farang in charge. I don't wanna waste my time wid' no damn Thais!" He would end up leaving his card, which was thrown in the trash as soon as he stormed out of the lobby.

As Murray paid the rent on his office each month, salaries for the secretaries who had no orders to take, and drivers who had no stock to deliver, Murray would curse the Thais and Thailand. He said the rudest things imaginable about everything that is sacred to the Thai people. Since he had never learned a word of the Thai language and didn't understand the Thais when they talked, he assumed the Thais wouldn't understand him in return. He was wrong, and one day his beautiful car was vandalized. A week later, someone broke into his house and stole his nice television set. A week after that, someone threw a rock at him as he rode his motorcycle through Patong.

Before long, Murray found that his capital was gone. His products were on sale in only 11 outlets and he was finding that people who are vacationing in a tropical seaside resort have little motivation to buy heavy leather jackets and boots that they can get cheaper back home. He was losing a frightening amount of money each month, and his only material asset was his house. Then he received a notice that his house had been built on public land and he had one week to vacate before the government's bulldozers would return his expensive Bermuda grass back to the jungle.

Murray knew when to cut his losses. He told Khun Mot that he wanted to bail out. The lawyer agreed, and after the big fir sale, he took 51 percent of the profits. Two days later, as Murray was packing up to vacate his house, two very polite policemen came in and found someone marijuana under his bed. Murray had never smoked anything in his life, but it still cost him every Baht he had just to stay out of jail. Upon his release, he sold his furnishings for just enough money to buy a plane ticket back to New York.

He left Phuket about six months ago, to take a job as bookkeeper in his cousin Joel's tailor shop. Nobody was surprised to see him go and nobody missed him once he was gone.

(Story by Steve Rosse in The Nation, June, 1995.)