Make no mistake about it, the dentist was no fun.  It's a twice-yearly thing I do in Thailand.  It's a lot like doing fitness classes:  the pain at the time sucks but in the long run you know it's good for you.

I have now gravitated to Thai Nakirin hospital as the go-to place for all healthcare needs including doctor and dentist.  They even helped fix a collarbone injury in 2015.  There are so many choices for healthcare in Bangkok it's absurd, so in the end your best course of action is to just pick something and stay with it year after year.  This hospital was recommded by the guesthouse owner over a decade ago and hasn't disappointed.

The reception knows me by now and the lead guy said yesterday after I rocked up in the afternoon, "If you want to do a health checkup, don't book an appointment.  Just show up the day you want at 8am we'll take care of you.  As a brother, I'm saying to you just pick the cheapest package at 3900 baht.  All the others are for marketing purposes.  You're what like 30 years old or something?"  I told him I was 45 and he said, "Well you don't  look it.  Those more expensive packages are for people in their 50s and 60s and they check stuff you don't need to at your age."

This guy was a rock star, really.  He said, "So if you want to see the dentist today let's see if there's a way to swing you in.  You're not in a hurry right?"  I told him "No hurry, if we can do today or tomorrow or any time there's a slot I'm fine."  He asked around said, "We got you in half an hour, just have a seat."  Somebody had apparently late cancelled.  There was general teeth cleaning,  fillings, then checking progress on a front tooth that got smashed two years ago after the fucking covid lockdown when I fell off a bicycle drunk as a coping mechanism.

The good news is the dentist couldn't even tell there had been tooth trauma, things had healed that well.  I was quite astonished, and will certainly get a second opinion later. 

After that it was time for my fitness class but I knew was going to be late.  I explained to the front desk and they said, "No worries brother, just check in on the tablet so the system thinks you're here, then show up for the later class."  People were proving to be very nice and accomodating today!

Next up was another social event, organized by a friend of the Russian woman I had met earlier at Internations.  The organizer was a Thai local entrepreneur.  She had basically thrown everything into this recent business that involved running daily social events.  The way she explained it, "My mother thought I was crazy for doing this.  At the time I was a marketing manager and making sick pay, top of the career.  But I gave it all up for this.  I don't want to work for a boss.  Six months later, this investment is starting to turn around.  Events planning is what I'm passionate about so that's what I do."

I told her, "That is amazing, and what you're doing is quite unique because almost nobody I see runs daily social events.  At most they might do an event every week or two weeks like Internations.  But there's a big demand for daily events.  Lots of people get bored in Bangkok and they want something to do without waiting for the weekend."

She said, "Yes, absolutely, that's why we do this."

Heart

0

Comment

0

Link

Log in to comment or reply

While this was happening, another entrepreneur (we'll call him Joe) was drinking his whisky.  He told her something similar.  They went back and forth and then Joe said to me, "You know what, people are so scared to take risks.  They are afraid of the adventure into the unknown.  I transitioned from a typical 9-5 career in the US to be an entrepreneur in Bangkok almost 20 years ago.  In my 20s I said, 'You know what?  It's time to sell everything.  Sell the house, sell the car I never drive anyway, garage sale for everything else and just hop on a fucking plane.  One way ticket to Bangkok and we'll figure shit out next."

He went on to say "Over 20 years, I gradually learned fluent Thai and then started a car wash business.  I saw early on that Thai people were obsessed with cars.  You look at the traffic obviously, and you realize the ones complaining about it while driving are part of the problem, not the solution.  So I figured why not capitalize on this.  They surely want American style car washes, and I started one with my team.  It's fully automated, has AI for everyting.  We sunk in over 40 million baht on this project and are now making a killing.  The investment paid for itself ages ago.  The main car wash we have in Minburi does 1000 cars a day, and just today we signed a deal for franchising.  We'll soon have one out in Chonburi and then Pattaya next."

After all that, he asked me, "So what do you do?"

I said, "I'm just a poor teacher."

He laughed and said, "No really, is that all you do?"

I explained more and said, "I teach math in Shanghai China and have done it for over 20 years.  Twice a year I come to Bangkok more or less.  Recently I learned how to trade stocks and options.  I am making more money doing that than teaching.  Now I wonder why I didn't do this earlier."

He said, "I knew there was something.  A guy like you can and should be spending more time in Bangkok.  Just come to these events and keep on meeting more people like me.  You could easily quit your job and do something like what I do." 

I said, "If only it were that simple."

He said, "What's stopping you bo?  The sky's the limit.  With your skills speaking both English and Chinese, do you realize how much money you could make in the import export business?  People want to learn both languages and you can speak both?  Dude, get on this.  The parts I need to order for my carwash mainly come from China.  As you certainly know, Thailand and China have a free trade agreement.  I did some shopping around on Chinese websites and found out the parts I could get directly from China are 1/10th of the price of what the Thais jack them up for.  The only thing is my language skills aren't quite up to the task.  But I'm working on it."

While this was going on a group of others joined the conversation and we called ourselves the China table.  One of the key takeaways was from a New Yorker who started a Latino restaraunt down the road.  After I went on a short version of all the political problems in China he said, "You know what?  People like that leader of yours who want all this control end up getting none of it.  The paradox is the more he tries to "lead" by force like this, the more people won't follow.  They'll say what he wants to hear to give face, then they'll do the opposite behind his back.  When the Chinese people had something good and it was taken away from them, they don't react well."  He was mainly referring to the past glory years.

When it comes to "leaders" like this, they set themselves up to fail.

The real leader at the event, Joe then said, "Nice talking to you guys, I'm going to move around the room and talk to more people."  He did exactly that and was mingling with one person after another with finesse.  I observed his style and then realized I needed to do more of this.  So I made a somewhat different transition and the event organizer invited me to sit down at a different table.

This time I met a young 21 year old, we'll call him Toby, who just completed his Marines training.  As he explained it, "I chose to join when I was 17 years old and this was in the middle of covid.  It was a simple choice for me really.  It was either go through all this mask wearing and social distance bullshit that everyone else was doing, or else join the Marines.  Pandemic or not, our country still needs an active military.  Imagine if everyone were to do these lockdowns and stay at home.  How could stand up to our enemies?  What kind of a country responds like that to a flu?  I signed up in a heartbeat because nobody else wanted to join the military."

I asked, "What about the initiation?  Wasn't it scary?"

He said, "Looking back at all that, it was funny.  But yes at the time, scary.  It's just something you have to go through.  It builds disclipine.  Look at it this way, would you rather have someone yell in your face for a short time during taining, or would you social distance for years like all those wimps did during covid?  That will ruin your mental health for life.  Look at me, I got through training ok and have way better mental health for it.  Aside from that, they paid free room and board, I made lots of great friends.  Ironically most of our training was in the California desert where nobody we knew got covid.  Almost all of what we did was drills.  There was no active combat."

He continued by saying, "The best part is that I got stationed in Okinawa and had an absolute blast.  It was there that I met my Bangkok Thai girlfriend who was there on exchange."  She was with us at the table all along and she loved to hear all that.  It confirmed what I thought that Japan-Thailand relations were excellent and the cultures are very similar.

He finished by saying, "Not only this, but the military gave me the option to pay for a 4-year university degree of my choosing, and I can do this at any time in life.  At this point I'm not sure what I want to do next and am figuring it out here in Bangkok."

I gave him a handful of options for what to do next.  One of my suggestions was for him to open a bank account in Hong Kong, start trading stocks, then live in Shenzhen for a year across the border.  I said, "It's just one option out of many.  You could make a killing combining that with teaching over there if you wanted."

He wasn't too keen on the idea.   He said, "The two best options I can think of for now are either Taiwan or Japan with my girlfriend who wants to learn Japanese."

He then told me, "Taiwan would be a great option for you.  It's so close to China and you can speak the language too, it would be easy."

I responded in a similar way he did.  Then I went on the short version of my midlife crisis and said, "If there was a time machine, I would go back to my 20s and learn stock trading then as well as join the Marines or whatever they have in Canada that's equivalent."  

He laughed and said, "Wow dude, I thought I was facing a crisis until listening to you.  And wow you talk about women problems, all I can say is women are 99 problems and I ain't one."

That was the quote of the evening.  We talked some more and it was quite inspirational for both of us.

Later a bunch of girls wanted to know all about my trip and what I was doing in Bangkok.  I tried to explain that I travel all over Thailand regularly then started dropping the names of all the cities I had visited on previous bike trips.  One of them said, "You've seen the entire country!  Really, you know more about this place than Thai people."

I didn't want to brag but I said, "Yeah well I even saw the reclining Buddha in Yala where they say it is dangerous and nobody should go due to the insurgency."

This one girl said, "Wow, I'm from Yala!  And yes what you say is true, it is too scary to go, I haven't been there yet to see the reclining Buddha.  But it is famous all over the country."  

Someone else then said, "Why you don't go to Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, blah blah blah instead always Thailand?"

I said, "It's because the Thai people are so nice and friendly and I'm not making this up, it's true.  I have been to those other countries occasionally and there are always problems I meet.  For example last trip in Cambodia they stole my phone right from my hands and the police were useless to help get it back."

They were all positively beaming at that point.  She said, "That's really nice of you to say but you should also be careful in Thailand."

I then started talking Chinese with another one of the girls who had been to Yunnan province and the entire table couldn't believe that she could speak Chinese as well as the fact I could.

It all made for an awesome night and four hours passed like four minutes.  Eventually it was time to get back to the guesthouse.  It was quite late, and somehow I still managed to get the last local bus.