Girls wanted ...

Girls wanted... by expat. Well that's a pretty familiar theme in Thailand of course, but one apparently bewildered farang is in need of a whole bundle of Thai girls; at least according to this appeal he's placed on the internet:

"Could anybody give me any pointers of how to recruit Bar Staff from Isaan please....?

Got brand new Bar Beer in Walking Street, Pattaya but desperately need some Bar Girls, Go Go girls & cayote Dancers.. Bar very busy but just not enough ladies...

Many thanks"

Which kind of leads one to wondering how he ended up with a bar in the first place, if he didn't know how to recruit 'staff'!

Regular patrons of a certain kind of Thai bar will have a rough idea of the system involved. There's the grapevine of course, whereby a busy, well located bar with the right quality and quantity of customers will always act as a magnet for the girls. The word soon gets around. Also important is the boss, and the money. The basic retainer isn't much, but the bosses offering a stingy two or three thousand baht a month as a retainer will only get away with that if the bar is has a regular stream of generous customers. The boss needs to show respect for his girls - they're not tied to working for him by an official contract. They can, and do, leave on a whim. The tips are important - some bars offer as little as 20B a lady drink, ie 20%. (Seems counter-productive to me - after all, a customer in the know would rather give a girl a 100B tip than buy her five drinks for 500B so she can earn the same thing).

Then when times are hard, and the girls difficult to find, some owners will be out in the villages on a direct recruitment drive. Or at least their Thai partners will be. I've always wondered how that works... I mean, can you imagine the conversation? There must be an particularly Thai way of asking tactfully "Excuse me, we are looking for go-go dancers and bar girls, and are willing to pay families XXX if they'll sell them to us". Which is pretty much what it boils down to, after all.

As for the Thai partners, their attitude towards the girls is important too - firm but fair, in the traditional mamasan fashion. In Chiang Mai I've heard tales of one Thai part-owner helping herself to the tips from the jar on the bar when the farang husband's back was turned. Needless to say, it wasn't a happy establishment, and struggled along mostly making a loss.

So back to the novice Pattaya bar owner, and his desperate search for ladies. One wonders who his Thai partners are, assuming he has one or more that are active in the business. Has he found a bar girl himself as a companion, somewhat inexperienced in the business? Or did he first arrive with this kind of attitude, as posted on another website by a different farang?:

"I recently discovered your website which I found interesting.

I was particularly interested in the section regarding starting up a business in Thailand, and with the greatest respect I don't believe that you have a clue what you are talking about.

I am a UK citizen (British), recently retired, and although I have only been to Thailand a couple of times I really love the country.

I have no Thai wife/girlfriend/lover - whatever.

I plan to move to the country soon and start up my own business - deep sea fishing in Phuket, which is my passion.

And let me tell you something my friend(s). I will run MY business, on MY terms, MY way, and I will NOT allow ANY Thai, no matter how "well-connected" he may be, to f**k me around.
I will NOT pay any "tea money" to anyone. I will hire who I want, on my terms, and I will run my business in accordance with strict Western values.

I could not give a rat's arse who I p*** off - I will NOT be intimidated by some Asian upstart pr**k.
In short, these people will march to the sound of MY drum. If they don't like it - tough.

These people need to be put in their place, and your pusillanamous attitude - "oh, it's THEIR country, we have to let them do things THEIR way," p***es me off.

Well I will NOT do things THEIR way. I will do things MY way. I will run MY company for Western tourists, and I couldn't give a flying f**k what any Thai arsehole has to say about it.

Regards

name removed"

When I first saw this I thought it had to be a wind-up. After all, no one could be that naive, could they? But who knows, one comes across enough cocky Westerners who treat the Thais as if they are some kind of ignorant sub-species. They'll learn - and quite probably the hard way. So how long is this guy going to last in Thailand I wonder! Place your bets...

Some readers will recall my posting this blog a while back. It is 100 per cent accurate. How many naive Westerners lose their shirts, and more, thinking they can run a business in LOS in the same way as they would in the US or in Europe?