August 17, 2005

Random Blather | Rick Salasar's Handy and Indisputable Guide: Part 2

Apologies to the millions, ok thousands, I mean hundreds, well perhaps closer to dozens, of people around the world eagerly awaiting my much-belated follow-up to the first installment of Rick Salasar's Handy and Indisputable Guide to Making it in Thailand.

Ok, maybe it's a stretch to round the number 2 up to dozens (except at large accounting firms, apparently) but it makes me feel good so it's cool, ok?

Aaaanyway, here's the first and likely most intelligent option for those interested in living in Thailand. More options to follow in the next installements. I promise they won't be so few and far between as the rounds one and two of my handy and highly-disuptable guide.

Bear in mind these are a response to requests for information on how to make a go of it. Other things might, and have sometimes, worked but this is the list of choices for a "plan that stands", ok?

1. Make a bundle, "retire" to Thailand.

Make enough money somewhere else to set you up for life here. This has to be by far the most sensible, realistic, likely and pain-free approach. Hands down. Therefore, it's not the approach I took, of course.

Oh, how I could regale you with tales of "if only", "I used to be somebody" and "how much money I lost that I could have brought here and lived like a king (or chosen Nigeria instead and lived AS a king, but that's a different 419-related matter altogether.)"

Trust me. If you can find a way to beg, borrow, steal or, heaven forbid, actually EARN your money, do it somewhere else.

Sure there are SOME people who came to Thailand with little or nothing and made a successful go of it and GUARANTEED you can and will meet an almost unlimited string of asshats here who will tell you all about how good their business is here, how much money they're making, how much they still have on the go back at home, what a business wunderkind they are, etc., but also GUARANTEED is that 99.9 per cent of them are so full of crap, they probably COULD be hugely successful in agriculture if they found a way to package all that BS.

I usually beam at these busy, successful junior Donald Trumps (some of them not so junior, in fact) and ask, like an incredibly curious child, what motivates them to get up at 4am to work as an extra on a Thai movie until midnight for 1000 baht. No kidding. They reckon they're fooling anybody but themselves.

Then again, there's so much of that fertiliser on offer in the Land of Smiles the market would end up as depressed as a Jomtien Jumper on about the twelfth storey before the last page of the last chapter of his own sad story.

My other favourite is the type who spends an hour telling a couple of slightly dated bargirls who are both deeply captivated by his wondergut and hair-dye charms, in a voice everybody else in the restaurant is forced to listen to, about his business acumen, usualy so large that it rivals his obviously equine phallous.

This is before he heads back to his 5000 baht/month, 30 square-metre, one room international corporate HQ and "lurve nest". I have no beef with what people spend on their digs. Hell, I know at least one of these guys cuz he lives in my building and I don't spend twice that amount on my room but I don't end up breathless from telling everybody I meet how rich I am.

Cuz, I ain't, ok Nong Khai? Would you please ask the Finance Ministry to stop contacting me with requests to help officially beef up the Isaan economy? Thanks a bunch, like, krup.

The bottom line is this: if you really want to do the smart thing, make a shedload of money in North America, Europe or wherever before retiring to Thailand. No, fifty thousand dollars is not a shedload of money. And don't be ultra stupid, either. Leave it offshore, for Pete's sake.

As we all know, a relatively small amount of "hard currency" goes a long way in this part of the world whilst the monthly salaries of even the relatively successful here amount to little more than the weekly wages of a toilet cleaner in the West.

If you're dying to get out of the UK to somewhere with a better life, more sun, etc., go to Australia. The Aussies are making it very easy for the Poms to enjoy the good life right now. Probably, they need a good laugh or something. Actually, I keep reading about a distinct lack of workforce there, so go for it. I am reliably told that even sanitation workers (garbage collectors in Normalese) in Oz make ridiculous amounts of money.

The key is to give yourself options. You can come here with no job, no appropriate visa, no work permit, no Thai language ability, much higher monthly costs than most locals, no contacts, no understanding of the culture, none of the rather arcane and bizzare skills required to work with Thais and the eventual need to get back home somehow and battle with all the other lifers here over a tiny pool of mostly-illegal jobs, immigration issues, work permit issues, unruly and dishonest employers, the various other mental pressures and a likely messy end.

Or you can live a superb life.

It's your choice, it really is. If you still think I'm talking tripe, go read up on what it means to play a percentage game.

If you still think I'm talking tripe, welcome to the Land of Smiles, studley, here are the keys to your twelfth-floor Jomtien condo.....

Posted by Rick Salasar at August 17, 2005 03:38 PM

Comments

Posted by: van_keith at August 17, 2005 05:43 PM

Posted by: Rick Salasar at August 19, 2005 01:58 PM

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