by Alex Gunn
Nowhere in England would you be able to find this. It felt special, and I felt privileged to be part of it all with my two little English boys who were going to become big international boys, and it suddenly made me unexpectedly and unbelievably happy.
For a fleeting moment it all made sense and the damp fields of Devon and the extensive root network didn’t seem so important. We could grow a whole new forest, we could do whatever we wanted.
Suddenly it was important to make all this work. For the first time it all seemed a bit clearer. I wanted to make our business successful, to be an international Dad, to have friends who were other international Dads, who had international wives who shopped in Bangkok and Paris and all live a kind of Pepsi Cola multi-cultural, feel good life. I would get a big shiny truck, and talk to the other shiny parents about whether their children would go to university in Australia, or London or Singapore or New York because the world was our oyster and we were the successful international people. Then I realized my son was crying.
His little hand was squeezing mine very tightly. “Hey what’s the matter,” I asked stupidly, caught out by my own day dreams. “Don’t worry I’ll take you both in and be here at 3.15” as if that would suddenly make the first day at a completely different school in a completely different country all okay.
“I can’t do it, I can’t go in” said a very small, very thin, little voice, as if speaking to himself. “Hey listen don’t worry” I said trying to buy time. My mind was racing and my Pepsi Cola international feel good life was evaporating as quickly as all the big shiny trucks were disappearing down the road.
And then suddenly into my brain came unexpected words; words that felt like they were placed there by someone else. Maybe they were there all along, perhaps words that were said to me once and had long been obscured by worries about money, work, mortgages, careers, deadlines and all that other grown up nonsense. I crouched down next to my little boy and wiped a tear from his soft cheek. I found myself saying calmly and confidently, as though I had been rehearsing all night, “listen, all you have to do is sit there and do what the teacher says. It’s the teacher who should be nervous because they are the ones who have to think of what to do, all you have to do is do it”. I may have even got close to sounding like my Grandfather.
There was a long silence. He sniffed and looked at me. “Why don’t you say helpful things like that all the time, that’s really good, its true isn’t it.” He has, as I’ve said before, a very accusatory manner, as if I could always say magic words that make everything better but just can’t be bothered. He perked up no end, took my hand and said cheerily, “C’mon Daddy lets go”.
My older son was way beyond holding my hand and just looked scared and suspicious. He eyed every other child as though they might at any moment whip out a knife and attack him, which, if we were attending the first year of secondary school back England wouldn’t have been a million miles away from reality.
The bell went and we walked into the school office. “I have two new students, ready to start their new school” I said as brightly and positively as I could muster. Office staff appeared, along with two ultra friendly students who were going to look after my beautiful boys on their first day at school.
I handed over the youngest to an amazingly bright and perky little blonde haired boy from Finland who assured me that this was the best school “in the whole wide world…even Finland”. They both waved goodbye, and I waved back. Then a wonderfully cheerful Indian boy bowled over and shook my hand. It took me quite by surprise and was the first time that anyone had greeted me with a hand shake since I arrived in Thailand. It’s surprising how quickly you forget things that you take for granted and I thought how warm and welcoming a western handshake is.
“Does your son play cricket” asked the Indian boy as if from a film script. He really was as confident and friendly as you can possibly imagine, “I’m sure he will” I said looking uncertainly at Jack who looked ready to defend himself from a knife attack. He then went on to explain to me how his last school in Dubai had been okay but it wasn’t as good as this one. He went on to outline the rapid building programme that has been adopted in Dubai, and described in detail the size of his last schools car park. He went on, and on. He was so friendly and talkative and naturally interested in almost everything that was going on in the world, that in the end we had to be rescued by the School Principal. He came out of his office holding some papers and suggested with a twinkle in his special kind eyes that important learning was going on and my enthusiastic Indian friend and Jack had better hurry to catch it before it all ran out. The Principal waved cheerily at me as he disappeared into another office, and the two boys left the office and disappeared down the corridor, and that, as they say, was that. Our lovely children had started a new school, in a new country, in our new life. It all suddenly felt very real. It was, thankfully a billion miles away from the deranged Miss Benewith.
I drove back home along the infamous Hang Dong Road with a head full of thoughts and a heart full of emotion. For the first time since we got here I realized that we had to make this crazy idea work. It wasn’t a holiday, it wasn’t a rehearsal, it was our new life and I really, really wanted to make it all work.
Chapter 7
Finding Our Son
After the screaming success of “The Medical” and procurement of the medical certificate for the unbelievable bargain price of 72 Baht (the price of a small bottle of mineral water back home, in case you had forgotten) the next projects, on the never ending list of things you have to do to set up a Thai business, was to organize a trip to our company office from the City Hall Work Permit Inspectors and finally, finally, to employ a Thai national.
The process of starting a business did seem to be taking for ever and the photocopying really was relentless. I realized that I was engaged in a strange game where every few days or so I would go to see our attorney who would start every meeting with the phrase “and now you have to…” It’s a Thai variation of the deeply un-popular children’s game Simon Says but goes on for much longer. It involves an attorney telling you what you must do, and you doing it. It’s quite a boring game and does go on for a surprisingly long time, but you get there in the end. You can play it as well if you want. You could even be the attorney and help dopey foreigners set up businesses (of which apparently an alarming 70% fail, or so I was cheerily informed the other day by a smiley lady in the attorneys office) as long as the second part of the sentence ends with phrases like; “…get a medical certificate,” “…talk to the accountant,” “…talk to the accountant again,” “…counter sign a thousand bits of paper,” “…go to the bank with the accountant,” “…go to immigration,” “…deposit all your money in a Thai bank account,” “…go to City Hall to organize a visit to your office,” “…employ some Thai people,” and various other miscellaneous activities.
This morning we had got as far as the last two commands; “and now you have to organize a visit from the Work Permit People at City Hall” and “and now you have to employ a Thai national.”
“Employ a Thai national to do what?” I asked. “I don’t know Khun Alex, it’s your company” replied our attorney.
Actually Khun Krit, our attorney is an extremely nice man and made all the company set up as easy for us as possible. Most of our initial conversation was about football, and what we both thought of various players and managers. He’s a Tottenham Hotspur FC supporter and my team, Arsenal FC are their sworn enemies. I’m not sure if the intense rivalry (read hatred) extends all the way to Chiang Mai. I hoped it didn’t otherwise I would certainly be in trouble before very long, especially if Arsenal finished above them in the league.
We left the office sulkily wondering where we were going to get a Thai national from, and what we would employ them to do?
We did have a little bit of time to find somebody as our office had to first pass the mysterious City Hall
Work Permit Inspection.
Before you can open your business and before you are issued with a work permit an inspector has to visit your office to ensure that you are actually a business ready to start trading and not some fraudster about to start frauding.
Part of the deal is that it is an un-announced visit; a spot check. I was a little worried about this as our office was a room in our home and didn’t exactly look like a hive of activity, unless I was in it swearing at a computer trying to get the internet to work or having got the internet to work, swearing at the recent football results. I hoped the inspectors wouldn’t materialize when my swearing hit its zenith otherwise we would certainly be refused a work permit and probably deported. Although I’m not a violent person I could represent Britain in a swearing competition, especially when the football’s on.
Khun Krit played the whole visit thing down saying that they would just want to have a look around, see a few computers and some stationary and the odd desk, “you know,” he said casually “they just want to see you doing your work”. Unless they visited along with a person who wanted to change their life through the wonders of motivational psychotherapy, that, I explained, would be nigh on impossible. He didn’t really pay much attention to this.
What he did do though, was to send round a woman from his office with the name of our company typed out in big letters on a sheet of A4 paper which she crudely taped to our garden gate before taking a photo of it. “They will need to see this” she said grimly, referring to the pending inspection. I wasn’t sure if she meant the photo or the actual sign itself. I left the paper sign on the gate, flapping in the wind.
I tried to put myself in the position of a Thai Work Permit Inspector and looked at the paper sign. Would I think, “here’s the head quarters of a successful looking company, I better issue an all important Work Permit”, or would I think “here lives a fraudster with a crappy company sign made from a piece of paper and sticky tape.” Perhaps the flimsiness of the sign was meant to give the impression that we were so rushed off our feet with legitimate business that we didn’t even have time to put up a proper sign, but none the less did need some kind of sign as we were clearly an important business. The various combinations of possibilities began to make me feel a bit dizzy, so I tried hard to forget all about the sign and the imminent visit from the inspector. Unfortunately, I tried a little too hard and forgot about it completely.
A week or so after this I was bounding downstairs early one morning with just a towel wrapped round my waist having just got out of the shower and hunting for clothes on the drier in the second kitchen, when to my horror there on the sofa were two young Thai ladies in business suits holding clip boards; the City Hall Inspectors.
I stood in the middle of the living room dripping slightly and petrified with horror. It was 8am and we must have been the first call of the day, either that or it was the last call of the night shift. Either way I was completely and utterly unprepared and my brain would not work.
They must have just let themselves in, as one would a shop, or proper business office and sat there waiting. How long had they had been sitting there, 5 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour? Had they listened to me singing in the shower? They stood up on my arrival and we greeted each other as though everything was normal and I wasn’t standing in the middle of the room with nothing on except a towel.
I excused myself the best I could, which was nowhere near my best as I was super flustered, and belted back upstairs to find some clothes. My wife was sitting up in bed, “there here” I yelled in a whispering way like they do in bad comedy sit coms, “the government inspectors are down bloody stairs, they’re here”.
I put on some jeans and an expensive shirt and tie, and rushed back down stairs. The nice ladies had found their way from the white plastic sofa to the enormous side room that we were using as an office.
This quiet drifting about was unsettling. Where would they drift next? They were like free floating Amoebas but with clip boards and obviously a lot bigger and with the power to issue or refuse work permits.
I showed them my lap top and a desk top computer, some stationary and a pen. I realized that we really did have precious little in the room to convince them we were operating a legitimate business. I also realized they were probably used to visiting proper businesses that normal foreigners set up, things like Pizza restaurants, bars, export businesses, bakeries and other western style shops and things that make sense. I simultaneously realized I was realizing all this far too late.
They took out their phones and started taking photos of the nearly empty room. I sat at the desk and they took a photo of me with my best Paul Smith shirt and a Marks and Spencer’s tie pretending to write something, but in actual fact all I was thinking was “the government inspectors have seen me dressed in just a towel and we don’t have a proper business.”
They bowed and saluted and silently drifted out of the room on a warm air current and departed as mysteriously as they had arrived. They floated, free form, along the road on a warm air current and drifted with their clip boards and mobile phones into the next business to be inspected.
It would be safe to say that the office inspection hadn’t exactly gone to plan. Even if the plan involved doing everything wrong it would still have been way off beam. I emailed Khun Krit in a panic who assured me that all would be well and didn’t seem at all worried. I still wasn’t so sure.
The following week an email arrived to say that we had passed the inspection! What on earth would you have to do to fail? Perhaps you would have to be standing, totally naked, with the word “fraudster” tattooed on your chest, in a completely empty office.
With this obstacle out of the way we were clear to go ahead with the last part of the company set up and hire our first employee
The most sensible option would have been a nice quiet Thai lady to answer the buzzing, or soon to be buzzing phones and emails, so we ended up getting a driver and tour guide.
I mentioned our staffing dilemma to the only person we had kind of got to know in Chiang Mai; Paul the manager of the Rachamankha Boutique Hotel.
When we first got to Chiang Mai we contacted a number of small boutique hotels that might accommodate our strange sounding business. One of the only few to respond was surprisingly one of the top boutique hotels in Chiang Mai. We were invited to a meeting with a very odd middle aged Thai man who introduced himself as the manager. Throughout the meeting he seemed very distracted and just agreed to everything that we said, “yes, certainly.” When I said, in an attempt to clarify what I thought was going on, “so we can base our business in your hotel” he looked very vague, stared out of the window and said “yes, certainly.”
When we returned some weeks later we were told that there was a new manager called Paul as the other chap had left suddenly after suffering a nervous breakdown. I hoped it wasn’t the result of our meeting. We met with Paul, a big friendly man from the midlands in England who had been side tracked some years ago when he was back packing around the world. He got as far as Chiang Mai and stopped and hasn’t put his back pack on since. Although very friendly, he told us very clearly that he would certainly not have agreed to any such arrangement as we had outlined, but as his predecessor had already agreed, he was prepared to give it a go, “as long as there wont be mad people falling about and crying all over the place.” We assured him there wouldn’t be (much).
After that we got along great. When I mentioned our “hiring a Thai national” dilemma to him, he laughed, as he does a lot, and made a joke, as he does a lot. Paul’s great as he’s one of those people, who never seem fazed.
After some thought Paul suggested we meet up with a driver and guide who occasionally worked for him, and who also ran a coffee shop and a restaurant in town. I phoned a number and spoke to a man and agreed a meeting to talk about some work.
The next day the sound of a large diesel engine rumbled into our h
ouse, and an impressively gleaming seven seater people carrier pulled into our drive and Khun Sonthaya walked into our lives. Son, as everyone calls him, is an amazing man.
Firstly we would not have survived the first year without him. There is simply no question about that. Secondly, Son is the kindest man on Earth. Born in neighbouring Chiang Rai and having grown up in and around Chiang Mai, he is an authority on the area and has witnessed incredible change in this city since he was a small boy.
Quite unusually though, his life changed dramatically when he moved to America when he was 8 years old. He lived in Hawaii and Los Angeles and had to adjust from life in a sleepy Thai town to the bigness and bustle of America. After he graduated High School he joined the US Army as a mechanic and travelled the world. Since then he has lived all over the place and done all kinds of things, but eventually decided to come home to Chiang Mai, take it easy and set up an American style coffee shop and restaurant.
He was interested but also troubled by why we were here. He asked me several times if we were here working as Christian missionaries (which lots of foreigners like us are), if we were connected to some kind of NGO that had posted us here or if we were somehow part of the university or an international school. When he was sure that we were in fact here, completely on our own, with no contacts or connections and two young children he looked visibly shocked, “you need someone to look after you, there are plenty of people in Chiang Mai who will take you to the laundry.”
From that moment Son has looked after us and tried his best to protect us from the laundry and the people who take you there. He has helped us in more ways than he can possibly know. He even came over late one evening and fixed one of the five toilets that would not stop flushing, much to the delight and intrigue of our youngest son.