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Fan mail from the Aloha State
Aloha Pattaya Mail Editor and Publisher,
Quite simply, this is a fan letter to you, Pattaya Mail and your excellent
staff. As a resident of Hawaii, but who visits Pattaya, Thailand 3-4 times
each year, I want you to know how much I miss reading your newspaper each
week. What I wouldn’t give right now to be sitting outside Le Cafe Royale
sipping wine and reading the latest edition of Pattaya Mail!
Friends returning from Pattaya just last week brought me a gift of the 31
Jan. - 6 Feb., and 7 Feb. - 13 Feb. editions of Pattaya Mail. Each was read
and savored column by column - even the classifieds - to my immense
enjoyment.
Grapevine is always fun - as is the hilarious cartoon - and I have to add a
special note of congratulations to Noel (Tippler) Thomas who had me on the
floor with “A Taxi Driver’s Tale.” A brilliant comic piece!
But more than that, you obviously take pride in Pattaya and the well-being
of the growing community - and I applaud you. You could read The Bangkok
Post until you’re blue in the face and would never get the full, in-depth
coverage of real life in Pattaya that Pattaya Mail provides so well to
residents and visitors alike.
I will be returning once again to Pattaya for several weeks during the
months of April/May. The first thing I will do is purchase of copy of your
newspaper to get caught up on what I have missed, look for new restaurants,
Shopping and Services, Newcomer’s Note-book and things to do in Pattaya.
Then I will make haste to your offices to purchase a copy of “Pattaya Mail
Business Directory.” What an excellent idea! I know it will prove to be
in-dispensable. I will also inquire if I can obtain a yearly subscription to
Pattaya Mail and have it sent to Hawaii. I looked for a “subscription ad” in
the newspapers, but perhaps at this time you do not offer that service. But
I will check when I arrive.
Lastly, today is the 23rd of February and I note that Pattaya Mail will be
featured today on “Hot Property Asia” on the CNBC Business Network. Yes,
indeed - Pattaya Mail is growing and achieving the fame it deserves. I look
forward to seeing the interview.
I send you best wishes and a warm greeting of Aloha.
Sincerely,
Mr. Michael Keller
Honolulu, Hawaii
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Dress code at Pattaya Park coffee shop
Dear Sir,
Have you ever before heard about anyone (sober) to have been denied a meal
in a coffee shop? I have been.
After a long day on the beach, I told my family about the beautiful view
from the coffee shop beside the parking area at Pattaya Park. I drove my car
and our maid drove with my motorbike, altogether we were 11 persons.
10 of them entered the coffee shop, but I went to the shower to clean the
sand off my feet. When I entered the coffee shop, they screamed “Out!” No
entrance because I only had my swimming trousers on me.
Of course we all left, and had a nice afternoon at Rual Thai.
There were only 3 tables occupied at Pattaya Park.
Land of the smile?
Hilsen,
Tore Sande
Child labour and UNICEF
Dear Editor;
In its State of the World’s Children Report, 1997, UNICEF has called for six
steps eliminating the abominable evil of child labour. Chief among these
steps are legal action to prevent child labour in hazardous occupations and
provision of free and compulsory education. What is unfortunate, however, is
that none of the steps relate to the creation of jobs that are essential for
achieving this task. Without such job creation, these steps, as advocated by
UNICEF, will lead to worse forms of child labour, not their elimination.
While discussing the roots of child labour, the Report says that “the most
powerful force driving children into hazardous, debilitating labour is the
exploitation of poverty”. It quotes from a study of Latin America that
“without the income of working children aged 13-17, the incidence of poverty
would rise by between 10 and 20 percent.” In other words, child labour and
poverty are inextricably inter-linked.
This is supported by the experience of almost all the continents. In
South-East Asia, the Report says, the proportion of child labour is
declining “as per capita income increases...” In Latin America, the
proportion of children working has increased “partly due to the economic
crisis of the 1980s.” In Central and Eastern Europe child labour has
increased substantially “as a result of the abrupt switch from centrally
planned to market economies.” In the industrial countries, child labour was
sharply reduced, among others, by “a rise in family incomes and
technological improvements that made children’s labour less useful to
employers.”
The conclusion is obvious. If child labour has to be eliminated, as it must
be, ways have to be found to increase the demand for educated adult labour.
That would make it beneficial for the families to invest in the education of
the children rather than putting them to work at a tender age.
UNICEF itself admits that the results of intentional pressure and
legislative action without such an economic complement is more harmful to
the cause. It points out that in 1992, the Harkin Bill was introduced in the
US Congress which would prohibit the import of products made by child labour
into the US. Although the Bill had yet to reach the statute books, mere
threat of such action led the garment industry in Bangladesh to summarily
dismiss the child workers, most of them girls. In a subsequent study some of
them were found working in more hazardous situations, in unsafe workshops
where they were paid less, or in prostitution. Good motives of elimination
child labour, without proper economic fall back arrangements, led to a
worsening of the situation.
Similarly, it quotes a mother from India, herself a sweeper, who sent her
daughter to clean lavatories rather than to school. She explained, “Why
should I waste me time and money on sending my daughter to school where she
will learn nothing of use? My elder girl will be married soon. Her
mother-in-law will put her to cleaning latrines somewhere. Too much
schooling will only give girls big ideas, and then they will be beaten up by
their husbands or abused by their in-laws.”
The point is that unless education leads to a better job, it can even become
detrimental to the psyche. A 15 year old boy in a tribal area of India
engaged in stone cutting was asked why did his parents not send him to
school? His reply was revealing; his parents indeed wanted him to go to
school. But what would be the purpose of doing so, he asked. Another lad in
his village had passed school but he had not got a “good” job. Moreover,
being educated, he now considered stone cutting to be below his standard. So
he stayed at home doing nothing. He was despised by his family and others as
well. He did not want to become like that, he said. He himself preferred to
go to work. At least, when he returned from work, he could have a cup of tea
at the tea shop and be respected and welcomed in his home. He could even
hope to get a good wife.
The point is simple. Families make a benefit-cost analysis of education. If
the investment in education led to greater benefits in terms of incomes,
they would certainly go at it. But, if it meant only an investment with
negative returns, they might as well go without it. The crux of the problem
of child labour is to increase the returns to education by generating jobs
and opportunities of self-employment. Education with-out jobs, therefore,
created dissonance rather than liberation. This is the message that comes
out loud and clear from a plain reading of the Report.
The strange part is that the six steps recommended by UNICEF ignore the
issue of jobs altogether. The specific actions that are said to be urgently
needed are the following: (1) elimination of hazardous child labour; (2)
provision of free and com-pulsory education; (3) wider legal protection; (4)
birth registration; (5) data collection and monitoring; (6) Multi-national
corporations must not procure goods produced with child labour. The Report
repeatedly stresses that no progress is possible without improving the
economic demand for educated labour, yet in the end UNICEF jettisons
economics totally and settles for the same old clichés of providing
education and strengthening legal action that have been utterly useless till
now.
UNICEF needs to be condemned because if legal prohibition, compulsory
education and prohibition on procurement as recommended by it are
implemented; and little is done to employ the adults and provide economic
remuneration to those children that are displaced, then it will only worsen
the situation as has happened in Bangladesh. What we need is a
re-exami-nation of present strategy of globalization which is pushing our
scarce capital into capital intensive industries and leaving labour
intensive sec-tors to languish. The primary requirement is to increase the
opportunities of self-em-ployment and demand for skilled labour so that it
becomes economical for the families to invest in education of their
children. It is unfortunate that an invisible hand seems to prevent UNICEF
from giving such straight forward conclusions.
Dr. Bharat Jhunjhunwala,
Political Economist and Writer
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Happy about cinema listings
Dear Sir,
Just a note to say thank you for including a listing of the two cinemas in
Pattaya that show English language films. I hope very much that you will
include these listings in future editions of the Pattaya Mail as it greatly
enhances the value of the paper for me and no doubt many other readers as
well.
Yours sincerely,
William A. Nevins
Crossword troubles
Dear Editor,
We are a group of ten academics from the UK, visiting Thailand for the fist
time. Amongst our doctorates we can count PH. Ds in Cybernetics, Information
Technology, English Language and Literature, Mathematics, Law, Political
Science, Economics and Cryptography.
We were most astonished that our joint efforts failed to produce a solution
to your crossword number 185 (Pattaya Mail, 21-27 February, 1997).
Our compliments to your compiler! Keep up the good work!
David Tanton
A ROADBUILDER’S TALE
by Noel (Tippler) Thmas
I am a Thai national and have more than enough qualifications and
contacts to do the job that I actually do. I am, by title, a road-builder,
although I could pay the fifty baht for a certificate that will say that I
am a fully qualified Civil Engineer. But I am not dishonest.
Funnily enough, my company spends little time actually building roads as the
the boom business is repairing roads. Suffice it to say that my shrewd
business skills ensure that if I build one road then I am guaranteed to have
the repair work contracts as a matter of course. May I formally state to any
sceptics out there that this situation has nothing to do with the fact that
my father is Clerk of Works for this province and that my three brothers run
my uncle’s quarry. Some sick people would possibly argue that my wife’s
father who is a Senior General in the Thai Army can bring influence to bear
in the allocation of contracts, but any rational thinking Thai of substance
would simply dismiss such an accusation as complete rubbish. Someone who has
no idea of the way the system works might even be naïve enough to suggest
that corruption prevails within the Thai business community. It really is
quite astonishing to hear these ridiculous charges but, in a full fledged
democracy such as Thailand, one has to listen and then discard their
nonsense with the disdain that it deserves.
Sometimes the verbal attacks that we receive are really most irritating.
Last month I felt compelled to curb a few tongues, but with the price of
ammunition growing ever higher there is only so much you can do and still
keep within the business plan’s financial limits. I find it distasteful to
use other more socially acceptable methods of keeping order, especially
since the cost of baseball bats shot up by fifty per cent last year. These
days it really is hard to make an honest crust, believe me.
Now it is the Christmas period and so it is no great surprise to find that
work for my mainstream business is somewhat slack. It certainly was a stroke
of luck to land the contract to build a network of needless super-highways
for the sole benefit of one extremely well-appointed lady. This contract was
clearly a sign from Buddha designed to reassure me that I was most
definitely traveling down the correct road in life. That is probably the
only road that I will never have to repair, given that it is a one-way
street.
Now, I do not know if you are familiar with Pattaya, but briefly said there
is something of a circuit which loops around the busiest area, half of which
is known as the Beach Road. It could be something to do with the fact that
the road runs parallel to the beach that decided the name, but who can
accurately tell in Thailand? Regardless, the Beach Road is very important to
me and I effectively have a monopoly on its repair.
Last September it happened to rain for a good three minutes and the Beach
Road was covered in a temporary film of moisture, soon to evaporate within
less than ten minutes. In less than five minutes the whole expanse of road
was pitted with pot-holes. The up-side to this situation was that thirteen
motorcyclists were killed, twelve of them being obese, loud-mouthed Germans.
Perhaps this was the work of the covert Thai Underground Immigration
Department or, more likely, divine justice being meted out so as to cheer
people up. The bystanders could hardly disguise their grief when they saw
the body of the one-legged Thai leper being loaded onto the pick-up truck
(oddly enough with the Pattaya Crocodile Farm logo emblazoned on the side of
the vehicle). Conversely, the removal of the other corpses caused much
laughter and general celebration.
Naturally my mobile telephone rang within seconds of the event. This was
clearly an important if not crucial project that had to be undertaken
without delay so as to afford the business people and visitors to Pattaya
the minimum amount of inconvenience. I gave my solemn undertaking that I
would do everything in my power to ensure that the road would be resurfaced
at my best expedition. Given that we were only a couple of clicks away from
the golf course at the time, I decided to deal with the matter on the
following day.
Next morning, I was up with the lark: 11.00 a.m. precisely. Once I commit to
something of such importance you will never see me shirking responsibility,
that’s for sure.
As I arrived at the office I was astonished to see how many people were
already there. Some of them looked as if they had been in for a good while
already. Was there a crisis of which I was unaware? Maybe they were simply a
bunch of insomniacs.
I summoned my Purchasing Manager although no response was the confirmed
reply. I decided to pop along to his office and was pleased to see that he
was indeed at work. I looked with pride at his unconscious bulk snoring away
in his chair. The almost empty bottle of five star brandy on the desk in
front of him proved to me that this guy was unquestionably executive
material and I gave myself a mental pat on the back for having had the
wisdom to personally recruit him some months previous. I flicked his legs
off the desk which had the desired effect of restoring him to the land of
the living, although it took him a few moments to understand exactly where
he was. It was also clear that he could not fathom as to why I was in the
office at such an unearthly hour. Indeed, I was wondering the same myself.
After a stiff ‘in lieu of breakfast’ brandy, I fully briefed him on the job
at hand and discussed our in depth strategy. This was an important project
and so the meeting lasted a full ninety seconds. I was leaving not a stone
unturned, so to speak, although I knew from experience that my road-repair
crew would not be quite as thorough. If they actually managed to turn one
stone over I would be surprised. We went through an elaborate costing
exercise which involved calculating 10% of the required price as advised to
us by the Clerk of Works. That 10% was therefore the amount available for
materials, wages and sundry overheads: the balance of 90%, in line with
normal Thai business practices, was our profit. Naturally, we required all
monies up-front. I was very pleased with the situation, as it proved that my
business strategy (I will expand below) was working well.
Business had been brisk of late although there had been some contracts that
caused me grief. Take the Soi 17 resurfacing contract for example. I am very
familiar with this soi as we have resurfaced it twenty three times in the
last three years and so I know the exact standard to which it should be
repaired. You would not believe my rage when I discovered that the newly
recruited foreman had ordered the gang to lay a top surface of 2mm as
opposed to the company standard of 1mm of the black stuff. This meant that
not only was I out of pocket for the additional materials, the road would
probably not need resurfacing again for at least a month. I sacked him on
the spot and sent him back to the rice paddy where I found him the week
before.
As I intimated above, one of my most lucrative and recurring contracts is
for repairing the Beach Road, although I have to keep on my toes to keep it
so. On average the road used to fall apart after two good rainstorms, but
when the speed boat proprietors were stopped from using the slip-way on
Beach Road, the bloody road held good for at least four storms. This
situation gave me great cause for concern as it was seriously damaging the
growth of my pension and holiday funds. This was clearly a desperate
situation and so desperate measures were called for. I had to lay out some
capital to address the issue, namely to cover the cost of one diversion sign
and one Police Officer’s uniform, but time has proven it to be a most
worthwhile investment.
The way I now control the frequency at which Beach Road has to be repaired
is simply by controlling the number of heavy goods vehicles that hammer down
it. When I observe that the rate of deterioration to the road is slowing
down, I get one of my employees to dress up in full Police uniform and
dispatch him off to the North Pattaya Road / Sukhumvit Road junction at five
o’clock in the morning, along with a purpose built diversion sign. He then
ensures that all heavy goods vehicles heading south are diverted down North
Pattaya road and are then forced to travel along the Beach Road, tearing up
the surface in the process. The system works perfectly.
Now and again we have a problem with the local Constabulary, but the slush
fund I supply to my employee always ensures that any problems are soon
resolved.
You certainly have to have your wits about you in this business, otherwise
up-standing entrepreneurs such as myself could be driven out of business. If
that were to happen, I would not pay any tax and so where would the money
come from to keep Pattaya’s roads up to standard?
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