Thailand Business & Thailand Property Info Blog
February 1 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand one comment
As I was saying in my previous post, it is a simple statistical matter that some of my readers will run into trouble of one sort or another when in Thailand. So can you count on your Embassy to help you if you are in deep trouble?
Originally posted 2009-12-04 03:13:01.
February 1 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
I was checking my early posts and I realized that while I referred in several posts to the concept of Thainess, I never actually defined it.
Originally posted 2009-08-31 10:34:04.
February 1 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
While the purpose of this blog is to inform on how to do business and not to do politic I will nevertheless from time to time dedicate a post to the ongoing Thai Political Crisis.It seems that the time of a possible reconciliation of all parties as not yet come and that the political situation is about to become even more muddy if it was possible and we are to enter another period of incertitude
Originally posted 2009-09-13 08:02:00.
February 1 2010 Categories: Thailand Business, Understanding Thailand No comments yet
Not really because Thai people are honest. There are always exceptions of course but as a foreigner coming to do business in Thailand you have to be more wary of citizens from your own country than from Thais.
Originally posted 2009-07-24 04:10:21.
February 1 2010 Categories: Thailand Business, Understanding Thailand No comments yet
If I had to qualify the Thai legal system, I would say that Thailand is a country ruled by Civil Law with a touch of Common Law. Civil law is one of the predominant system of law in the world. The other being common law, which is the legal system developed among Anglo-Saxons people.
The main difference between the two systems is that civil law is laid down from abstract rules and judges must apply those rules to the various cases before them. Read more…
Originally posted 2009-07-23 05:17:20.
February 1 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
In Thailand, there is a “little something” in the air, I can’t point exactly what it is maybe too much somtam (local spicy papaya salad) or Singha (local beer) but from time to time an ordinary person will lose all focus and reason and over a few years will go from the status of a respected professional to a pitied fool.
Originally posted 2009-11-22 05:10:08.
February 1 2010 Categories: Doing Business In Thailand, Understanding Thailand No comments yet
Yes. Thailand has low violent crime statistics compared to other countries such as France or the US. Of course, violence does exist but is not often directed at foreigners. While there are from time to time crimes against foreigners, they are still rarer than in your homeland and when foreigners do get into trouble, they, often bring it upon themselves.
Originally posted 2009-07-23 13:06:14.
February 1 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
You cannot read Thai news and not know about the issue of the two brokers that have been recently arrested for spreading rumors about His Majesty the King health that affected the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET). The Authorities are visibly at a loss on what to do. They seem to believe that they have to do something about it but limit for the time being their answer to punishing the allegedly guilty parties involved and if possible to prevent such a thing of ever happening again.
Originally posted 2009-11-04 03:36:50.
February 1 2010 Categories: Thailand Business, Understanding Thailand No comments yet
It is definitively a strange start of the year in Thailand. During the past week there has been very few legal or economical news worth to report which explain my silence. As to the political scene there have been no major developments yet but this did not keep many commentators and journalists to entertain themselves by calling out “Wolf!”or in this particular case commenting on a possible Coup and even worth “Civil War” in Thailand.
Originally posted 2010-01-07 08:18:32.
February 1 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
Absolutely, however, as with everything there are always exceptions but if, you treat your Thai employees well and with respect, you will notice that they will give you the loyalty that you do not expect to find anymore.They will be hard working and, committed; they will protect your interests and the interests of your company as if it were theirs. Over time the company will become a second family for them up to the point where you will see an employee in tears informing you that she is leaving your company for a new job. Such moments, are a real reward.
Originally posted 2009-07-23 06:05:50.
February 1 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
So, the mountain labored and brought forth a mouse, and after a lot of declaration of the contrary the NTC will not auction the 3G licenses before the end of the year. History has repeated itself (please see my previous post on the subject “Ridiculous Thailand: The 3G license drama (2)”). The NTC already did it in 2006 announcing that the 3G licenses would be issued within the end of year 2006 and they were not, and they will not be issued by end of 2009. What next then? Will we have to wait another 3 years before something happen again on this front. I mean some countries are already experiencing with 4G now.
Originally posted 2009-11-07 11:40:27.
February 1 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
For service providers that rely on foreign investment like us, 2008 was a bad year and I remembered in October 2008 whishing for the year to end and for a fresh start in 2009. Obviously, the subprime crisis and the seizure of Bangkok airport by the yellow shirts shattered any chances of fresh start. Curiously and despites everything that happened 2009 was not as bad a year as it could have been. Still the year is about to come to an end and it is now time to think about what 2010 may bring us. Unfortunately, prediction are difficult with a political situation at a standstill and the business community holding its breath and waiting to see what will happen next.
Originally posted 2009-11-30 03:53:22.
February 1 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
I have generated for Readers convenience a TABLE OF CONTENT of all the post I published to date and in which I give my opinion on political or business related news in Thailand.I hope this table will help you to navigate more easily in my blog
Originally posted 2009-11-14 08:06:15.
February 1 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
Today in the Bangkok Post Bag, Richard a foreign tourist that has just spent 5 weeks driving around Thailand and covered 4,000 kilometers is complaining of having been arrested 8 times by Thai police for various traffic offences but having only one time paid a legitimate fine. Richard is according to his own words “disgusted” by Thai police and I’m “disgusted” by Richard hypocrisies.
Originally posted 2009-08-19 06:22:41.
February 1 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
Having spent 10 years ago a full 18 months teaching and lecturing in Thai schools and government universities and having continued, from time to time, lecturing at Thai universities I had a look at the system from the inside and based on this personal experience I would say that Thailand has overall a good education system.
Originally posted 2009-08-13 23:03:16.
February 1 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
In a previous post I already mentioned the 3G licensing drama but only touched the surface of the matter. In this post I decided to discuss this issue more in depth. According to Wikepedia encyclopedia: “As of August 28, 2009, 250 3G/HSPDA networks have commercially launched mobile broadband services in 109 countries; and out of the 250 networks already operational 169 3g/HSPDA networks support 3.6 Mbit/s peak downlink data throughput. A growing number are delivering 21 Mbit/s peak data downlink and one network has been upgraded to 28Mbit/s. Several others will have this capability by end 2009 and the first network supporting 42Mbit/s network is set to come online in late 2009.” In this context it is a scandal that Thailand still does not have 3G capability.
Originally posted 2009-10-17 05:21:34.
February 1 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
I always loved idioms because there is a lot of wisdom attached to them and I particularly loved the “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” idiom because it teach us not to discard something valuable in our eagerness to get rid of some useless thing associated with it. Something Thai political class is in need to learn quickly.
Originally posted 2009-11-11 04:13:00.
February 1 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
While the purpose of this blog is to inform on how to do business and not to do politic I will nevertheless from time to time dedicate a post to Thai Political Crisis. Indeed Thai Political crisis that has been ongoing since September 2006 has dramatically affected Thai society as a whole and also have caused a lot of distress within the local business community and also the foreign business community with an important diminution of foreign direct investment.
Originally posted 2009-08-23 13:49:56.
February 1 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
To start the year with a smile Thai Airways Board is fortunate that ridicule does not kill otherwhise it would have been decimated which would have been sad those guys that have given us so many reasons to laugh recently.
Originally posted 2010-01-05 07:26:01.
February 1 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
In a nutshell “Thainess” is a concept that provides the foundation for social harmony and the respect of order in a patriarchal, hierarchical society where people display cool heads, warm hearts, gratitude and public deference.
“Thainess” has a lot of by-products that we will discuss from time to time in this blog.
Originally posted 2009-08-11 12:47:19.
February 1 2010 Categories: Doing Business In Thailand, Understanding Thailand No comments yet
The key to success when doing business in Thailand will be “understanding”, and you cannot arrive in Thailand and immediately jump into the fray because you will inevitably fail.
January 30 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
I have been following Thai politics for a few years and I learnt not to be surprised anymore by the antic of Thai politicians reported daily by Thai press.
January 27 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
Two weeks ago I was wondering why we were not hearing a word from General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh one of the pillars of old Thai politics. It seems I was too quick to worry because he is back as a member of Pheu Thai party and possibly as the new anointed leader of the Pheu Thai.
Originally posted 2009-10-04 05:22:44.
January 22 2010 Categories: Thailand Business, Understanding Thailand No comments yet
The first thing you will hear when coming to Thailand is foreigners complaining about the workings of the Thai Administration. I used to work with a foreign lawyer who had what I call the “colonial state of mind”. This lawyer was so full of his own superiority and so sure that his country’s administrative system was superior to Thailand’s that he never understood the system here, which is a mistake.
Originally posted 2009-07-23 05:40:23.
January 5 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
If you have been following Thai news you cannot have not read about the other affair of the week (the first affair of the week was the police chief election mess) that is to say the story of this Thai television company that has produced footage about an alleged jet-ski scam in Phuket which has been broadcasted on British TV and is now on U-Tube.
Originally posted 2009-09-18 08:42:05.
January 5 2010 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
One of the interesting aspects of blogging is that I can see the Google searches that bring readers to my blog. Today a reader had a query which read “how to efficiently bribe Thai Police?”. Now, I don’t know about you but when I read this kind of query I cannot help but guess that someone is in trouble and expect to get out of it through the help of a bribe.
Originally posted 2009-12-03 12:50:50.
December 25 2009 Categories: Understanding Thailand No comments yet
Generally they do but while Thais can seem very friendly at first understand that it is only an appearance. Friendly attitude is as much a part of ‘Thainess’ as the respect for authority.
Real friendship demands more than just a smile. You must be careful that things are not always what they seem.
Originally posted 2009-08-12 13:17:13.
