I’ve just returned from a holiday with my family in Thailand. We spent it mostly in and around Bangkok and had a great, if somewhat exhausting time traipsing around the many tourist attractions in the 40 degree heat and excessively high humidity.
It’s an impressive city, but in my opinion, not in the same way as Hong Kong which seems to neatly delineate between its ultra-modern present (mostly on Central) and its more ancient Chinese heritage (Kowloon) or Singapore between its futuristic architecture and its pristinely preserved colonial buildings. Bangkok has all of these things but in my view, rather like a child’s toy box, it’s all mixed up and spread around. Ultra-modern glass buildings surrounded by what looked like shanty towns, luxury hotels and their lush tropical gardens in the midst of densely packed housing, world class shopping malls adjacent to a maze of market stalls and the Sky Train…a modern, clean, air-conditioned refuge gliding a few metres above the grid-locked mania of Bangkok’s streets. It’s a real bustling city, heaving with eleven million inhabitants and amazingly, most of them retaining the smile and friendly demeanor for which Thais are renowned.
One of the aspects of Bangkok life that struck me the most is just how entrepreneurial everyone seems to be. Most of the big international businesses seem to be appropriately represented with giant signage adorning the glitzy towers, but tucked away in every conceivable nook and cranny at ground level is someone selling, preparing or repairing something. And where it seems the budget doesn’t stretch to a covered stand, a corner of a garage seems to do. Where that’s not available, a box under an umbrella becomes a makeshift shop and failing that, the shade of a tree will do.
Every day, on the thin cracked pavement on the way to the train station, barely a few inches from speeding tuk tuks, mopeds, cars and trucks, we would pass an old lady sat on a stool with nothing more than a small bag of old tools, strips of leather and heavy duty thread, repairing old trainers and shoes. She would have had a pile of at least twenty assorted shoes at her feet so business seemed to be thriving.
Further along where the pavement widened slightly, someone was selling peeled and cut fruit on a bed of ice from a tricycle converted into a makeshift counter. A few feet away was a similar bike, but this one contained two deep fat fryers for selling early morning commuters their breakfast.
Under the high rise office buildings, on the marble stairs leading to the lobby, and under the shade provided by the protruding upper floor there was more sellers…t-shirts, dresses, kitchenware, toys, stationery…you name it!
At night the same thin strip of pavement occupied on the way in by the breakfast and fruit sellers had been turned by someone else into a makeshift eight-seat restaurant offering two or three noodle dishes to mainly local clientele. In fairness, we weren’t enticed into the establishment that evening…I didn’t have the stomach for it…not so much the food but the thought of leaning back in my chair and being run over by a passing vehicle!
The taxi driver taking us to from the airport to our apartment enquired how long we were staying, whether we were planning on seeing this or that site and at the end of the journey handed us his business card, offering to take us should we want to go further afield. Not pushy, but just making sure that if we wanted to go somewhere else during our stay that he got the job. We did and he was there, on time, to drive us down to a coastal town a few hundred kilometres south. We stayed a few days and he insisted on making the return journey to collect us. And before the cynics amongst you say it, I checked what he had asked us to pay was reasonable and it was considerably cheaper than what the concierge was able to arrange.
I’m sure that many of you will have travelled to places where these descriptions conjure up images of sinister looking people harassing you to buy a worthless trinket or lucky charm, but this was not our experience in Thailand. Stallholders / sellers were always proactive in trying to get our attention to show us their goods and offer a deal but never in a threatening way and always with a warm and genuine smile. Even some of the department stores in the main shopping malls showed signs of a similar spirit with one or two witty signs that caught my attention – “Buy one shoe, get one free” and “Buy one, get one”.
I’m ignorant of the law in Thailand but can only assume that laws in Australia prevent or severely curtail the kind of trading that seems commonplace in Thailand. I wonder if we as a nation lose something as a result. For Thailand there must be something positive that comes from having this thriving ‘industry’ of mostly mobile small business owners operating with such simple business models and so connected with delivering what their customers want and need.
Most large businesses spend much time trying to re-find and re-ignite their often entrepreneurial origins (how many of you remember the many business books talking about finding and nurturing the ‘intrepreneurs’ in your business?) but for most they are long gone and replaced by the momentum that sheer scale delivers. The distance between the customer and the business owner is too distant for the customer to truly influence an outcome. In Bangkok the connection seems much stronger.
Regards
Renato Mazza
CEO St Andrew's Australia