John Galt Presents: Pattaya Potpourri

My article today has no direct central theme. So, I'm labeling this column as a mixture of unrelated items with exception of the fact these items are all from Pattaya.

I was in Pattaya last week for a full 7 days. This was my first venture down there since October of last year. When I travel south from my home in Issan, I try to make my trip as productive as possible wrapping up work and pleasure in my schedule.

This particular visit had some significance as it was the first visit to a popular farang area since I had "out-ed" Stickman as Paul Owen. Stickman and his "gang" and some followers posted extreme hate messages on MangoSauce.com and there were a fair number of threats against my person. It's interesting to note that amidst all this extreme Internet posting that your beloved Stickman remained neutral throughout (or so he would have you believe). If I had seen a group of people in the process of "avenging" an action against me with threats of violence, I would have weighed in with a strong rebuke against the potential violence. I would have called those people down for advocating irresponsible behavior. That would be the right thing to do. However, we are talking about Stickman here and he rarely claims to be the responsible type when it comes to his commentary (any ideas why he omits this type of bold claim?). I, The Great Galt am one of the very few on the Thailand Internet who takes a bold, firm, and courageous stance against ignorance, lies, and mis-leading readership. I do not advocate offensive violence as any type. The other commentators here in Thailand seem to lay back and just go with the flow. And in some cases, I can assure you they secretly add flame to the fire when it suits their purposes. So, again I caution you against blindly believing everything you read.

Getting back to my point, this was my first visit in about 6 months. And if I believed what I read on the Internet (and particularly on MangoSauce.com), I should have been very afraid for my person. So, when I hit walking street, I settled in and made the rounds. I must have stopped into a dozen go-gos and beer bars looking for anyone who might recognize my face. I watched for anyone who might do a "double take" thinking that my face might have seemed familiar. And the results? No stranger noticed me. The people who I already knew greeted me of course, but there was not one, not one, minor sign that anyone from the pro-Stickman camp recognized my face. I was there for 7 full days and no once during that entire week did anyone recognized me from the web. When I out-ed stickman last year on November 16th, I was made the brunt of quite a few jokes over a number of months and 3 or 4 web sites did post my photo in a number of colorful ways. I would have thought for sure someone would register my face as being from the Thailand Internet landscape. But, this was not the case. So, yet again we see that all the hype about my "terrible unforgivable transgression" may in reality be nothing more then another Buffalo Shit commentary made by those who are NOT in the know. Or should we more accurately say this was commentary made by those want to move the masses in a irresponsible direction, but to no avail.

I was in Florida when the famous Wendy's ad came out inspiring us to look for the beef when it came to judging hamburgers. Basically, it was call for the consumer to look for the basic value of the hamburger.

Looking over Stickman's last 2 columns, I'm thinking to my self, "Where's the beef". Since Stickman's return, his publishing has been a bit week. Mainly, I think this is due to a disconnect between his writings and him personally. We continue to see little evidence behind his claims. We see very little of the personal side of his story. Seems like the commentary has been watered down to create subterfuge. It's almost as if Stickman wants you to be unsure as to who he is and I think this makes for a weak article. If you are also a reader of DaveTheRaveBangkok, you'll notice even in Dave's column, he is also reaffirming that Stickman "may or may not be" Paul Owen (which of course is the Stickman).

Evidently, Paul is trying to hide again and using uncertainty and vagueness in his writing to do it. That is fine. Just be leery of what he tells you in his articles. Let him play games if that what pleases him. Just be forewarned that guys like this who won't stand up and be counted on their word -- often times preach advice that is not to be trusted. This is unfortunate but true. I suggest to you that you are more likely to do well here in Thailand when you are reading accounts and advice from authors who are not afraid to take a stand and be known for their opinions. This is one reason that I have more respect for DaveTheRaveBangkok. He is a manger over at AngleWitch gogo in Nana plaza. If he tries to publish something to screw you over -- you can walk right in there and face him off and put him on the spot. He knows this and I'm sure that his writing is going to be more responsible because of it.

Two weeks ago, he made some comments about the Go-go bar decline. (Ok, we have some Beef here)

I think the concept of a decline in the go-go industry is a bit of an exaggeration. Certainly some of the activity of the naughty night life industry has been scaled back a bit post 2001. People may be parting less but over-all, I don't see any large closures. If anything, they may have been a reduction in expansion. Do we call that a decline? There are bar owners still making a very good living in the business. It can still be a viable income for those who know how to make that kind of a business work. One shining example of a new-comer who made it to big league status is Chuck at Club Boesche. I believe he arrived here a year ago last November and he and crew are on the top rung with a handful of the other top go-go clubs. I know him. So, I know of his story. There may also be some others who are also excelling in their naughty night life niches as well.

I personally would not be in the go-go business for profit. I don't understand that business like I do manufacturing and technology, etc. But, it does appear that the go-go business can be lucrative. If you have never been in the business and you have no contacts in the business then its a endeavor best not messed with unless you have some very big balls and scads of capital.

What Stickman has said about the working girls is pretty close to the truth. Some of these girls do very well and from my own personal accounts with them, I will tell you that they will trade a lot of that money away for a stable life with a loving partner. However, that partner has to have some resources because these girls don't walk away from 120k a month without having at least 1/2 of that in exchange. Many of them are not lazy and they will also exchange big income for a promising future income from other work. So, if you are a business owner here in Thailand with something really constructive for your girlfriend to do, then these beautiful go-go/beer bar girls will strongly consider leaving the industry for a normal life. I have some personal encounters to publish that support these statements and I hope to get to those stories in the next column.

This week Stick talks about how a Thai girls heart is broken when you break up with her... (Not much Beef, this article should have left you very hungry)

This is a pretty shallow commentary. I don't agree with this commentary for the average farang/bar girl relationship break up. This article is like a fictitious drama story that is written to stimulate you but not to help you very much. Let me say that this type of break up won't happen at all if you exercise the smallest amount of common sense. Don't take on a girl that is going to live with you just because she has no other choices in life. Pick a girl with self esteem and some desire to work for herself. I "The Great Galt" don't even like to get emotionally involved with a girl who isn't working and doing something constructive with her life. It doesn't take much to avoid these lowly (possibly broken) spirits. You also need to consider her feelings as important. If you respect her and want good things for her, then she'll respect you too. Isn't that easy to believe? Stickman here is showing you an extreme and calling it the norm and this is just not accurate. Breaks ups can be sticky, but I think this can be avoided.

I also encourage you to give the girl an agreeable way out. What's not to like about that? You may also consider that she may break up with you. So, this article about the wrath that will come of a bar girlfriend break up is a bit over the top. It's only true when you invite this type of trouble from a very poor choice in girls. You may also receive this response if you are one of the low-life farangs who get a kick out of beating people down and making them submissive to you through mental trickery and head games. If you are into that type of living, the you deserve the backlash of hell from a girl when you give her the boot (especially if you use the Marc Holt method of letting her catch you with another girl to make her break up with you -- (see this link for this absurd recommendation). People, if you care about people and you want to end your live-in relationship, I'm sure you can accomplish this with the right respectful methods. Thai girls may actually be easier to break up with than Western girls because Thai girls are a lot more thankful for what value you have brought into their lives. If you make the smallest amount of honest efforts to reach out to them in a civil and decent way - they are going to respond to you in kind. That's the truth. Sorry, to break up the party with this solid injection of reality, but Stickman's "stereotypical bar girl" buffalo shit article just doesn't cut it.

Both MangoSquashDave and Stickman printed an email from a guy who had a hard time at a local computer store. Here is who that email looked:

MangoSquashDave called that article Mac attack: Westerner beaten in Bangkok Apple Store

I live in Thailand and wanted to convey my experience at the Apple store in Siam Discovery Center, Bangkok. Last Friday, I placed an order for a MacBook Pro, a 30' display and accessories. The total came to 188,000 baht. Paid with a VISA Card. The Apple employee would deliver the setup later. While waiting for the delivery at my condo, the Apple salesperson phoned me and claimed to have made a mistake on the bill and wanted another 12,500 before delivery. At this point, I decided to rethink my purchase. To be honest, Thailand has lots of corruption and I felt I might be scammed? Not sure, but canceling my order was on my to-do list the next morning. I went to the Apple store and the salesperson stated they could not return the money. I HAD TO PAY MORE AND ACCEPT THE COMPUTER. They wouldn't deliver or cancel the order. I must pay 12,500 baht more! They would not reverse the credit card charges! At this point I noticed my signed credit card receipt in the counter and took it. I did not want this rip-off Apple store to have my signature or credit card info. The Apple store employee tried to physically block me from leaving the store. Grabbed me, kicked me, scratched me punched me. This is a woman and I am not able to defend myself without injuring her. I am big. I just took the abuse. I could not leave the shopping center. Held hostage. I was able to escape the Apple store and was attacked and screamed at all the way through the Siam Discovery Mall to the street and even blocked from entering a taxi. The Apple employees called security and all claimed I had attacked her! By then many security guards showed up and the claim was I was a criminal. This is all going on in Thai. Now I am being manhandled by 5 or 6 Siam Discovery Mall security staff. My expensive Nikon camera crashed to the ground during the melee. Several bystanders joined in and abused me too. I ended up at a Police Station, charged with assaulting the employee! All the Apple store employees were conspiring at the police station, telling false accounts of the events too, all in Thai. The police treated me like a criminal and threatened to put me away for 48 hours! Now I have a police record, a court date, no computer and a 188,000 baht charge on my credit card! TIT.

So -- is that it? Is there nothing more to the story? Can we just take this account as the gospel? What about the store's side?

See, this is what really pisses me off about guys like Stickman and MangoSquashDave and a few others. They are lazy SOBs and will just flagrantly repeat news with blatant disregard for how is might hurt others. There is nothing more irresponsible than hurting others with ignorance. In this case, this store's sales may be hurt by a possible false story. Is this story really true? Where there other extenuating circumstances? Did the customer pull any stunts to piss off and scare the computer shop workers? If the police were involved did this customer really step over the line?

People, all too often when a big problem like this occurs, it happens because there is a disconnect in communications and a farang flies off the handle and trys to emotionally strong arm Thais into having their own way.....

So I, The GREAT GALT did the simple thing..... I called the store to get their side of the story. What is so GD hard about that? Why doesn't Stickman and Dave make a stinking local phone call to get the full story. Hell, this store is in the neighborhood to both of them. They could have just walked in and spoke to the manager and then presented the balanced story on their sites but they are just to damn busy for that. They are just too damn irresponsible for that, and besides, a balanced story would not play up so well for web traffic either.

Anyhow, I called the store. I took me about 10 minutes. Their company name is CopperWired. They are on the 4th floor in room 426 of the Siam Discovery Center. I asked to speak with a manger in English. They handed the phone over to a young lady with decent English skills and I was able to get the story from her.

Right off the bat, there was no effort to deny that the incident took place. She was a bit flustered because I believe she the store was still a bit shaken up about what had happened. From what I understood, the heart of the trouble surrounded a warranty plan that was to cover all the customer's purchase. I believe she told me he was buying a full computer system and an extra 30 inch monitor and there was an error made in calculating the extended warranty coverage. She talked about the error being 3,000 baht short. But, as she spoke, it became clear that this deal was fairly complex, so I was not able to fully record all the details from her over the phone (as I am not familiar with the Apple offerings). This was her first discourse.

She followed up with the issue about the request for a refund. She explained to me that she had charged the Visa electronically and that the money was already in her bank when the refund was requested by the customer. She had a process to follow for the refund. Part of that process requires possessing the signed receipt and adding more paperwork to that to create the refund. However, these people were stopped in their tracks by the fact that the customer ate the receipt. (he neglected to write this fact in his email complaint above) That's right, they claim he was in a state that he took it upon himself to swallow the receipt. So, at this point the employees were probably quite flustered as they didn't have an easy pathway to make the refund occur. (can you picture what might be happening at this point? -- I get the vision of a crazy goofy farang getting pissy and boisterous, etc). Security was not called, as they naturally have security in the store. So, evidently they are observing this happening from the beginning and had become part of the proceedings.

I asked very clearly, "Did this customer touch any of the employees?", and answer was "No". She also told me that incident occurred over a 4 hours period. So, my guess would be that it was the farang who called the police. I'm guessing here. (could I also infer that the employee did not touch him either?)

She kept saying during our conversation that the customer did not understand. I can also believe that customer was probably very afraid he was getting ripped off, so he may have been in an agitated state.

This is all I gained from my conversation with this manager. I didn't want to take up a lot of her time. I capped off the conversation by asking her if the matter had been settled and she said she believed that it had been.

Let me take a stab at what may be the issue with the refund. Normally in the west we view a refund as a reversal of the original transaction or the non-completion of the original transaction. Typically a vendor needs a signed receipt to lock in the payment from the customer. (This is why the customer went for the receipt). Perhaps the process for the refund here is a separate transaction? Perhaps the vendors here can not cancel the first transaction and must make a completely separate second transaction as a payment to the account for the refund? In this case, the vendor would most certainly need to keep the original receipt so the customer could not back out of the first transition. If this where the case is it possible that the refund was transacted and then the customer tried to make off with the original receipt? If so, they he would be effectively stealing back the first payment. Ok, now I see why the store employees may have been in a tizzy about this customer going off the deep end. They didn't want to get ripped off either.

Bangkok is a very bad place for fraudulent activity on credit cards. There may be special rules that apply to these kinds of situations.

I have my doubts these employees "grabbed, kicked, scratch, and punched" this customer. By his own admission he is a big guy. It is very unlikely that any Thai would try to start a physical confrontation without a very good reason. It is also fairly unlikely that bystanders would "join in" unless it looked like there was a very urgent need. Just how "abused" was this guy being so big as he claims to be? I think some of what is written in the email above is a lie written just to punish the Apple Store at Siam Discovery.

This manager told me that they have many international customers and that it was unfair that this one customer would talk bad about the store when they felt they where trying their best to take care of his needs.

So, there you go. The truth is probably in between these two accounts somewhere.

What is the "Moral to the story". Take your time to communicate really well with the Thais. Don't go flying off the handle and doing stupid stunts like "eating the receipt". Understand that Thais are very afraid of doing things outside a procedure, so help them all you can by not forcing them to step outside those procedures. Be firm, yes, but keep your voice down. Don't make angry gestures. Steadfastness will prevail in a sticky situation. Don't be afraid to ask for a manager. Keep all your paperwork organized.

When it comes to banking transactions I believe you will find that all banks outside the country will side with you and believe you by default so the burden of proof frequently is on the shoulders of the seller.

I had an ATM machine fail pay me one day during a withdrawal transaction, yet that money still came out of my account. The employees came to empty that ATM about 3 hours later yet found no "extra" money in the machine. The accounting was correct. I thought -- where the hell is my 15,000 bath? I was a bit worried until I talked to my bank in the US and they told me that they saw the pending refund and that all was well. That money returned to my account in about 3 days. (I never had an ATM fail before so this was quite a shocker).

I have been having meetings with Tony for over a year concerning the adoption of LED lighting and technology for his use in his clubs.

So, it is will some excitement that I announce my first significant sale to Tony for a new LED lighting system this week. This system will feature the LaminaCeramics Titan RGB LED Light Engine. This is a new product and was released for sale about 4 months ago. What you see here with a basic lens costs about $100 full retail. (not electronics at that price)

My company builds the power and control electronics here in Thailand and we of course import the LEDs and lenses from the US. We also build the light fixtures here as well.

So, what is it like to do business with Tony? I think that is fair question and I'm willing to talk about it here.

Tony is a pretty sharp guy. He has to be for the business that he is in. I think he has been successful. I think he is an excellent negotiator. I have never seen him angry. (I hope I don't ever see him in that state). He is fairly serious about what he wants out of a business deal. He is up front and clear. I have a sense of trust for him. I believe that he will follow through on his word.

Tony is also very much in the mode of discerning BS from the facts. Its very subtle on his part, but I can tell that he searches through what you tell him very carefully. If you present a item to for sale, he will scrutinize your presentation very thoroughly. (and why not -- this is Thailand and people get ripped off here). Tony has been ripped off in the past. So he tried to stay clear of bad business dealing like everyone else.

I also appreciate his ability to put himself in the mindset of his customer. I have seen in walking around his clubs with vendors and sampling new seating and cushions and giving feedback to the vendors. Even when the first round of materials were not up to his expectations, he was careful to negotiate the change in the order without creating offense.

Like I wrote previously, I have been holding meetings and showing products to Tony for well over a year. I'm sure that in that span of time I have spent about $3,000 in efforts to find the right design and base product that Tony would want to purchase. I have also quoted him a price that is highly competitive to the open market on the electronics. So, I won't even break even in my direct business with Tony until I sell him a couple of lighting systems.

He is a big customer and it's possible that his account could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars over several years.

One of the major benefits that he will enjoy immediately with his new equipment is a reduction in his air conditioning costs. LED lighting runs relatively cool when compared to large scale commercial halogen color lighting. So, he should begin to see some return on his investment fairly rapidly in lower energy consumption in the form of a reduced electric bill.

These pictures show him in his morning meeting. Tony has two meetings like this each day. He splits his day into two sections and basically sleeps twice daily I believe. I was in his business office nearby waiting for a check and I think I counted about a hundred employee time cards on the wall and these may be only the hourly paid people in this one location. Tony has a number of businesses throughout Pattaya, Bangkok and also Phuket I believe. So, I would have to believe he has a total workforce that number in the many hundreds.

As far as Thailand is concerned, Tony is the dream customer in the entertainment/disco business. He is well known. I believe that he is well liked. He is successful. So, I have a good feeling this is a going to be a great customer.

Stickman must know Tony as well, because Tony at one time did sponsor a weekly prize for the picture contest. Or perhaps Stickman knew Tony's manager who runs Tony's Bar at Patpong?

Interestingly enough on MangoSauce a number of months back when I hinted around about my deal with a big disco owner in town, there was warning to me that Tony would never do business with me. Well, here is how that plays out in Thailand.....

Both Tony's people and Chuck at Club Boesche told me this past week that complaints are launched against them weekly. -- Every week the police show up and ask about civil infractions. Seems that other jealous business operators (and possibly other uninformed outsiders) call the police to call their businesses into question. The police come, the complaint is investigated and the police leave. So, there is an instinct on the part of successful business owner here not to believe BS that is packaged discrediting way against other person's business.

So -- my point is IF anyone had tried to bad mouth me to Tony -- they would have had an uphill time in discrediting me because I have built up my relationship with Tony. He has seen me efficiently respond to his requests over and over again. Every time I tell him I'm going to do something -- I do it. When I say I'm going to be there -- I am there. So, it would have been very tough for anyone to knock that down with the complaint that I "outed" Paul Owen or some frivolous unsubstantiated story.

What does Tony care about the Paul Owen outing anyhow? He is looking to benefit his business and I may be the only large scale LED lighting company inside Thailand. (not that he couldn't buy outside the country because he has flown outside the country to personally selected and purchase lighting equipment from abroad before).

After receiving the check from the office, I walked over to Tony and we shook hands and he said in his trademark raspy voice, "Nice to be finally doing business with you after all this time".

All I have to do at this point is deliver what I have promised and exceed his expectations for reliability and performance.

The educational system here is not teaching kids to be aware of health when it comes to contamination from handling. I see this over and over again. I see workers in food establishments touching all the silverware with their fingers. (keep in mind that I saw this girl in the picture miss-handle the forks repeatedly enough times to give me time to pull out my camera, turn it on and get this picture). I see them touching food with their fingers. They are putting fingers in their month and eyes, eating in the kitchen, not washing their hands. I think its a real problem.

Here is just one photo of a girl who is innocently arranging all the forks in the drawer and it was like she had this subconscious need to touch each and every fork on the surface that actually goes inside a person's mouth. This girl works at the Royal Garden Plaza at the place called the "Food Wave" (see the patch on her arm). She is nice girl I'm sure, but Thailand needs to work on their health training. I would predict solid disaster for any communicable disease like an Avian Flu that might break out here. Surely, there would be a massive number of people infected. And I'm not even talking about habits at the home front -- which are much worse. People commonly eat out of the same large bowls with eating utensils. Their bathrooms stay wet for long periods of time. They repeatedly use wooden chopping blocks for cutting meat and the list would go on and on.

But, improvement takes one step at a time and if Thailand has any luck at all, they will revamp education to add a greater emphasis on better hygiene.

There is a new push in Thailand to adopt placing power wires underground. I heard this same plan local to me in Issan. I think we seeing this here we see this in Pattaya. Evidently, Thailand is looking to make some changes and adopting some new methods in efforts to increase the beauty of their streets or perhaps reduces costs (and whatever other benefits are received with this change). Here are a pictures of this work being done right on Beach Road in Pattaya.

They were shooting a music video on Walk Street when I was there. This was a 100% Indian production. All the crew and the actors in the video were Indian. They were playing music and shooting short 2 to 5 second clips. They started at the front of Walking Street and made their way back to Tony's.

When I saw this production, I gave some thought about the faces in the crowd and I believe it is easy to notice an increase of Indian men in town "shopping" on walking street. I had not really noticed this before. There has been a lot of news in recent years about India coming into it's own economically and it stands to reason that we will be seeing an increase in the number of Indian males coming here for a little R&R Pattaya style. Just what kind if impact will that have on the locals? Will India's AID issues have an negative impact here in Thailand? I don't think anyone will have the answers to those questions for a while.

Right now visitation from Russia is up because their restrictions on having a Visa have been lifted (they can get the entry stamp again now). It will be interesting to see if the Indian economic boom will also bring Thailand a surge in Indian tourist traffic.

This was 2 weeks ago when I had a fresh article. Numbers last week were very flat long the 250 to 300 visitor per day mark. We are still seeing the largest percentage of visitors from the US at about 27%.

This site helps generate web traffic for one of my two commercial company sites - www.AsianSignals.com. I do have Google ads running on that site and I thought you might like to see what I earned last month from the Google service. Here it is. It's not much but it's not hard to imagine that the income would be much higher if I had some real serious traffic over there.

I had some fun down in Pattaya. I did indulge myself a bit with a few go-go girls and one beer bar girl. I'm going to bring those stories to you in my next column so the next article should be quite interesting. I have some more pictures to show you. I'll have a hotel recommendation. I'll offer up some thoughts on the prices that we see down there. I just got back here last Sunday and so I really could not put all this together in just a couple of days. I have this organized in 2 weeks.

So, until then... Question everything you read on the Thailand Internet. Look for the common sense in what people tell you. Keep in open mind about the Thailand culture and above all, if you have a gripe about a purchase at a store, please don't eat the receipt in front of the employees and be shocked when you can't get an immediate refund -- ok? (duh)

If you are outside the country -- visiting Thailand right now is a good deal because this is the beginning of an off season and hotel rates are dropping. I believe those rates go back sometime in November. There are lots of girls down in Pattaya right now. Their attitudes seems pretty good. So, this is a bonus. Also keep in mind we are in the raining season and getting around will be bit more challenging and your beach weather won't be very nice (if you come here for beach activities).