Exclusive: Inside the Mind of a Legal Interpreter

Exclusive: Inside the Mind of a Legal Interpreter

Often people wonder how Thai court cases are decided, time and again we see minor or none existent charges going to court, where there is often a decidedly negative outcome. As you may be aware PDN have assisted in a variety of cases over the years, with an outstanding success record to date.

None of these positive outcomes could have been achieved without the aid of PDN’s professional translator, who has worked closely with the same honest and reputable Thai lawyer for many years. The negative press that appears in the media in regards to the Thai judicial system is largely warranted; however it is PDN’s experience that with the aid of a good legal team and a strong argument, the chances of success are no better or worse than in any other country in the world. But it is clear that once involved in the judicial proceedings of a foreign country, aquiring the means to communicate accurately and clearly must be the highest priority. As in any other culture, Thai magistrates do not consider ignorance an excuse.

The following is a brief interview conducted with PDN’s translator, where we discover what it is like to work in the midst of the Thai judicial system, attempting to achieve a successful outcome, at times against extreme prejudice and corruption.

Do you ever get frustrated or disappointed when you’re assisting foreigners with their legal battles?
Yes! Many times – actually, all the cases. Have you ever imagined what it would be like to be the victim of a crime, or be accused of committing a crime? You don’t speak Thai, you don’t understand the legal system, and you’re trying to communicate as best you can with lawyers and police. Sounds like a nightmare. Once you have hired a lawyer, you seem to expect your lawyer or your interpreter to answer your phone, spare time for you 24 hrs, so this is what I call a “Nightmare” for me.

The reasons I get frustrated are:

1. The foreigner [involved in the case] hasn’t studied Thai law and even, in some cases, shows complete ignorance of the law in their own country. So they don’t know the procedures. They expect everything to be done quickly. They’re not aware that Pattaya is the busiest court in Thailand handling a large variety of foreign nationals. I also have to make sure that I don’t translate or explain to them incorrectly. For example, there were three different interpretations of the same thing; like when you say “I dont care” it has a much more aggressive meaning in Thai.

2. Our lawyer doesn’t speak any English at all, so most of the time they have to rely on the skill of the interpreter – which is me! Also, contrary to the generally accepted image, our lawyer is a relaxed character, who smiles a lot and is always polite. He is one of the best lawyers I have ever worked with. Sometimes his explanations to me, particularly on points of law, are not enough to convey the full meaning to our clients so I have had to learn to trust him - and so far so good.

3. The foreign clients fail to respect the rules of the court. On so many occasions I’ve had to tell them not to their cross legs, not to laugh or smile when they’re supposed to be sad, not to ask sarcastic questions, not to speak out of turn, not to try and educate the lawyer or the judge and, most importantly, not to act like some big shot farang.

Why don’t you work with an English speaking lawyer?

Because then they don’t need me. There are good and bad lawyers everywhere in the world. Many of those lawyers operating in Thailand who are fluent in English call themselves professional but have no idea of how the courts work. In Pattaya, there are many foreign victims who have heard about all the bad things that can happen to innocent people.

So if they are involved in a case and they have money, they just go straight to the so called “professionals” and they don’t mind paying a fortune, even if they don’t win the case.

The professional lawyer will manage to come up with a nice apology and sometimes persuade the client to continue the case at a higher level even though they know they will lose anyway.

I’m not saying there are no good lawyers in Pattaya. They do exist. The same goes for the court judges in Pattaya and Chonburi but it’s unfortunate we can’t publish the names of those who have shown genuine professionalism and integrity.

So you prefer to work with good lawyers who are smart, honest and dedicated to their work but don’t speak English, why?

Because at least then it’s easier for me to see if he’s greedy, over charges or unnecessarily prolongs the case just to make more money. He has to work with me as a team and he knows that I can never support such malpractices because my intention is to prove to foreigners that our Thai justice system is not that bad. There isn’t corruption everywhere all the time as is the general opinion. I think often the problem is all to do with poor communication.

Is your prime motive as an interpreter to make money?

No, not intentionally, just coincidently through my routine job as the owner and Editor of PDN. I try to improve on my work each day. I’d had enough of reporting the same things over and over again every year. All of our news comes from the same group of Thai reporters and we are all friends [except ones that they might not like us much because we upload news late and they cannot copy on time!]

I, myself have been cheated in a few cases and received unfair and bad treatment from the police and government officers just like every decent Thai who tries to survive in this town. I have been teaching English to Thais and vice versa. I have also become aware of the corruption and monopoly systems in this town, not to mention Thailand as a whole.

For example, I see poor people who rely on the tourist industry for their survival suffering each day. The rich and the powerful don’t seem to care. They just want to make as much money as fast as they can, including foreign investors.

The difference between locals and the visitors is that the visitors can leave anytime they choose, just as many are doing now, fed up with our political unrest, perceived high crime rate, corruption, global economics, gangsters, mafia, and whatever other problems there are. The investors are marching out of Thailand or Pattaya, that’s what we’re hearing now but I can see it from another point of view and I’m sure one day things will get better for Pattaya IF the officials spare more time to fix the really serious problems rather than spending so many resources on trying to promote the city like they are doing now.

I have changed my attitude a lot since helping people in the court. I am proud to say that we do have generous and fair judges. In the recent case with Barry, the female judge presiding was so straight and independent. She gave him a lot of opportunity to talk and even act out the events in his case even though most of it was irrelevant. I think she allowed it because she seemed to know that he was angry and disappointed. She calmly and patiently listened to him and I had to tell her I had to translate every word and act like him as well. She tried to hold her smile and said “okay, no need, I understand, tell him that the story he just told has nothing to do with the case so it won’t go on record.”

For me it has often been just like the “chicken and the egg.” Sometimes I don’t know what I should do first. My priorities are changing every day. Sometimes I have to drop my routine job and rush to interview a subject more interesting to me even though it won’t be published, but that’s just my nature.

These cases all involve a lot of running around but I also have to pay my bills too! Our income comes from our sponsors who have been growing in number each year. My lawyer normally charges a very reasonable fee by Thai standards. Barry nearly paid a lawyer in Bangkok 2 million baht after paying his first lawyer 200,000 baht up front, none of which was returned to him. We charged him only 100,000 baht. So it’s not about money, you know. Though I can’t say it’s for fun, either. These cases can involve a lot of homework and searching for and researching information. This incurs cost, both in time and effort, and at times we put ourselves at risk, so I suppose it’s only fair we should receive some funds for what we do.

The case of Barry And The Plastic KnifeHow did you meet Barry?He sent me an Email and his long story What did you think about his first Email?
I didn’t like it. Actually I forwarded it to one of my editors to correspond with him. He suggested in his email that he would be doing us a favour by letting us publish his story. Things may work that way in his home country, but not here. He even said in the mail that “we will let you publish my story for free, we won’t charge you for it!”

So why you decided to take his case?
It was interesting and I had a feeling Barry had something to hide and wasn’t telling me the whole truth.

After I looked at the documents and listened to the whole story and observed his acting showing me how it all happened, we then decided to have a meeting with my lawyer, who lives in Bangkok, on the next day in my office.

The lawyer read through the entire document and said immediately “easy case, take it!”

I couldn’t really tell Barry exactly what the lawyer said because he would shake his head and ask too many questions. I know I would run out of patience if I had to carefully explain to him. I just told Barry and his wife that we have never lost a case so far, not because we are that good or we have connections but because we only choose cases which we have more than an 80% chance of winning. In his case, he had been wrongly charged, which we cannot criticize here as it was due to his first lawyer. So Barry sent me all the emails of correspondence with his lawyer and I could see that there were some communication errors which had made Barry so frustrated.

What were the specific difficulties with this case?

1.Barry didn’t believe or trust us 100%. He expected us to report to him everyday what we were doing in his case, which is impossible. We had studied his case, and the main point was that we saw that we could win.

2. The original translation by his wife was good but we knew that the truth about what happened may be not useful in court. It was also difficult for me to tell him the judge would not take into account his background.

3. The strange thing was that Barry re-shaped the knife. He made it look different from the original pictures taken by his first lawyer. Even now, I don’t understand why he did this, but my lawyer said it didn’t matter. All we had to do was prove it wasn’t a case of attempted murder.

4. Most of the time they were expecting me to act like a machine, translating Thai into English word for word, both accurately and quickly without any breaks or problems “that’s just not the way it works.” I know if I get it wrong the consequences could be enormous on Barry’s life, this is why I had to handle every question and response with great delicacy. If such care is not taken in every case an innocently accused person might be found guilty, or a criminal might escape conviction. For example; Barry was asked a question by the prosecutor, which I interpreted for him. In a roundabout way he began to answer; however his answer was not directly in response to the question. I proceeded to whisper to him, “That’s not what they asked you,”before I interpreted only the relevant details back to the prosecution. Although it was the wrong thing to do, I was confident of Barry’s innocence and that he was aware that I was trying to present his case in the clearest possible way.

I chose not to publish his two part articles on PDN into Thai because it may affect his case. However, working with Barry was interesting. We turned out to be friends, especially with his wife Bee. I will join her for her next meditation. I would also like to thank Allan, Barry’s friend, who turned up to be his witness and also Bee – she did a pretty good job describing her husband’s character which almost made us burst out laughing in the court! And our goddess, the judge, my favourite judge, I owe her a bunch of flowers.

The most important thing that I must mention here is thank you both, Barry and Bee, for sticking with us till the end to prove that Thai justice is not that bad. You were good fighters and chose to do the right thing. I know of so many cases where the Thai wives have told their Farang husbands to give up and pay money under the table to drop the case.

Barry has now been found innocent and is free, but he has a record of assault and was fined 3750 baht. The judge did ask me to tell him : “Next time, don’t try to solve the problem yourself. You must inform the police.”

Allan’s case

How did you meet him?
By email.

Why did you decide to help him?
He had all the documents to back up his case. Each time I interviewed him, he never changed his story.

His lawyer could not communicate with him and also he [the lawyer] admitted that he was afraid of Mr. H [Allan’s defendant]

What were the specific difficulties with this case?

1. It involved government officials and powerful people within the Pattaya community. I’m sure that there are many brave interpreters here in Thailand, who are aware of the dangerous positions that we put ourselves in at times. In some cases these positions could be life-threatening, when the other members of the community around us don’t in fact understand what our role is.

2. After I started to get involved, I had to run around alone – I put “alone” here delibrately - in Pattaya to find more information while Allan did likewise in Bangkok. Okay, by doing that he did help quite a lot, but also it was quite risky to spread his plan around, which made me get even more frustrated.

3. He had 8 months to arrange a new lawyer but he didn’t contact me except to keep posting comments on the similar cases we were reporting in PDN, intending to inform the readers that he was facing big corrupted officials or mafia in the court case in Pattaya. The more he posted the more he put people off because it became tedious and nobody really cared to help anymore. This also included the likes of the DSI, the ministry of transportation, the previous Chonburi governor, etc. Everyone was busy and his case was never the first thing on their priorities anyway.

So what’s the situation now?

On the 3rd December, his previous lawyer had dropped the case and we found out that the case was actually out of date. I knew he was working in collusion with someone else, whose name I can’t mention here. But the judge was very understanding and wondered why the lawyer would do that. He said it wasn’t fair, so the judge let the case be postponed until May 2010. Allan now has a Thai lawyer friend who has volunteered to help him.

After the court, during our lunch, I talked to his new lawyer and we both knew his chances of winning were very slim. So I decided to take Allan to the Pattaya City Mayor’s office that afternoon.

This time, I called my reporter friends from all the national newspapers in Bangkok telling them that Allan would be holding a press conference about his court case related to the boat accident and the loss of his brother. Also, we had coincidentally reported about another boat accident 2 days before.

That afternoon, in Khun Ronnakit Ekasingse, the deputy mayor’s office, we printed out Allan’s stories both in Thai and English and took a video tape of his interview. I had noticed that none of those officers were interested in reading the one in English which was quite strongly worded. They had a quick look at the Thai version which contained some photos of the involved people.

We had to explain through many officials [ his secretaries, many involved deputy mayors including Mr. Sanit Boonmachai] and finally Khun Ittipon sat down casually to listen to us. Allan’s story had actually never been sent to the Mayor. Khun Ittiphol asked me, ”I have never heard this before, who is Mr. H, what does H stand for?”

I was really impressed to see his eyes gently looking at Allan and asked him some warm questions as to what he could do to help. I told him that 400,000 baht is nothing for Mr. H, but if he feels it’s too much, somehow the city or an organization must share the responsibilities.

Khun Ittipon promised us that within one week he would get back to us!
And I loved when he told us, “No one can be above the law!!”
We left the city hall with hope.

I’m going to fill my belly and have some money in my pocket again.

I've always been a great reader. You can completely loose yourself in books. I?ve got a broad range of interests, but I particularly like literature, politics and philosophy. I suppose I really developed my interest after my mother died of cancer when I was 10.

Being a well-known real estate developer, my father was always out, at meetings, visiting sites and travelling to see my uncle in Hong Kong. I had to occupy myself for much of the time and in those days, Thai TV wasn?t much to write home about, so I started reading in earnest.
I suppose you could say I was spoilt as a child. My father obviously felt sorry for me after my mother died, so he indulged me, buying me virtually everything I ever asked for.
As I was nearly 11 when my mother died, I didn?t have long to wait before transferring to my secondary school. I went to an international school because they had a strong languages department and my father wanted me not only to improve my Cantonese, which I already spoke, but also to learn Mandarin and English, of course. The teachers really appreciated me, partially because they felt sorry for me being motherless, but mainly because I was a really conscientious student. I always completed my assignments before the deadline and I was creative in my approach.
I romped through school, forming many friendships because I?m a likeable sort of person and was always ready to help if any of them ever had a problem. I had no trouble with the exams and passed my IGCEs with flying colours and embarked on my A level courses.
Half way through my second year, everything changed again. My father met a glamorous young lady called Rung from Chiang Mai like my mother, but her family was slightly higher up the social ladder. I had problems with her from the very start. I was always a bit of a Daddy?s girl even when my mother was alive and I suppose I resented the fact that my father?s new lady monopolised his time and thrust me into the background.
Things got even worse when they got married and whenever we were together you could cut the air with a knife. Rung was hyper-critical of me, but not to my face. She used to wait until I?d left the room before she complained to my father about me. I suppose I also resented no longer being the young lady of the house as I?d enjoyed that position for nearly 7 years. I wasn?t the only lady of course towards the end, because my father?s mother had come to live with us.
I was almost ready to take my A levels and had a tentative offer from the Bangkok university, so my father decided the best solution was to set me up in my own place in Nawanakorn. He was even more generous than usual, probably because he felt guilty. Apart from the lavish condo, he also bought me a BMW 323 and gave me a driver and a maid. There was one drawback, however, because I was still relatively young, nearly 18, Thai middle class custom dictated that I had to have a chaperone, so my father persuaded my grandmother to come and live with me.
I had passed my A levels with extremely good grades, so the university was pleased to offer me a place. We all moved into the condo in Nawanakorn just before I went to university and things settled down for a while.
The next development was that Rung had really wanted to start a family quickly to consolidate her position and nine months after she and my father got married, she had twin girls. That didn?t really put me out as I was considerably more mature by then. What really upset the applecart was that my father collapsed in the bathroom one day. He was rushed to hospital and, after tests, the doctor informed us that he?d had a stroke and his condition was serious. Later that day, he had another, which paralysed him and left him unable to communicate.

That was when the grim reality really began to dawn upon me. For the first time in my life, I was forced to catch public buses. A complete nightmare as I?d never even travelled on one before and had no idea even how to pay. The people on the bus were completely unsympathetic, assuming I was fresh from the most remote village in Esarn.
The next day, my world almost fell to pieces. It was 14th May 1997, the start of the East Asian Financial Crisis. Over the next few weeks, things went from bad to worse, until one day, my step-mother came round to my condo looking very grave. Apparently, my father?s assets had suffered a complete catastrophe. He was effectively bankrupt and all his developments were impounded. Rung, with tears in her eyes, told me that we would have to sell the car, the condo and virtually everything I owned.
The next week was my graduation, at least one thing had come right. Celebrating later that day with some of my friends, I looked into my purse to discover I only had 20 Baht. Going to the nearest ATM, I inserted my card and punched in my requirement of 5000 Baht. My card was rejected, I only had 2000 Baht in the account and that was the only money I had in the whole world!
We sold the condo the following week, but my step-mother took most of the money top pay my father?s medical bills. I was forced to borrow money from friends to pay the necessary 3 months? deposit on a very small condo in Ekkamai. The next few weeks were among the most unhappy of my life, until a ray of sunshine banished my gloom.
I received a phone call from my uncle in Hong Kong who had heard of my sad plight and as he had promised my father he would take care of me in the event of anything bad happening to me, he was eager for me to come to Hong Kong right away and he would give me a job in his company. He transferred enough money into my account to pay the airfare and buy some new clothes and off I went to start a new adventure.
Uncle met my plane at Hong Kong Airport and took me straight to a condo he?d rented for me. It was very nice, but no frills. As there was no maid service, for the first time in my life, I had to do my own laundry, clean my room, make my bed and basically live like ordinary people. My uncle said it would do me a power of good as I had been living in a dream world and needed to come down to earth. I started work with my uncle?s company full of optimism.
My luck had only marginally turned, however, and bad luck was still haunting me. I caught pneumonia which rapidly developed complications due to my depressed state, so much so that I had to return to Bangkok for treatment. Thankfully, my uncle paid all my expenses and medical bills. He gave me an allowance which allowed me to rent a small condo in Sukhumvit Soi 33 and even to hire a nurse to look after me while I recovered.
After a month, I had sufficiently recovered to contemplate going back to work in Hong Kong. The date was February16th 1998, I was about to phone a local travel agent to book my return flight and went over to turn down the TV where I had been watching CNN when a breaking news item caught my attention. China Airlines Flight 676 from Bali to Taiwan, carrying 182 passengers, had disappeared from the radar screens, presumed crashed. I don?t know why, but a chill dagger of fear ran down my spine. I couldn?t understand it. I didn?t know anyone who lived in either Bali or Taiwan. No inkling of the significance of the news registered, until later that evening my uncle?s secretary called me from Hong Kong and told me my uncle had been on the plane, returning from a business meeting in Bali. There were no survivors. My uncle was dead. The phone just dropped from my hand as I stood in stunned silence, the implications slowly sinking in.
That was the longest day of my life. I had lost everything: my favorite uncle, financial support, prospects for the future, effectively my whole life.
We attended the funeral, but it was one of the saddest occasions I have ever experienced. They didn?t even have a body to bury, just a photo. Uncle hadn?t included me in his will and I was left nothing. I had 20,000 Baht in the bank. I felt dreadful. Would nothing ever go right for me? Would this train of bad luck ever end?
I decided to go and visit my father in Chiang Mai. I felt the wings of the Angel of Death hovering and determined to get up there as soon as possible, before he died, too. When I got to my father?s house, I was astounded by the condition of the house and especially the state of my father. He looked pale and wan; his hair was lank and bedraggled. His clothes looked as though they hadn?t been changed for a week. Rung was really neglecting him. So much for true love, when the money went, so did Rung?s care and attentiveness.
My father?s nails were long, brittle and dirty. I decided the least I could do was cut them for him. When I started cutting and looked closer, I was appalled to see that at least half of my father?s nails were already dead. I turned to Rung and really laid into her, accusing her of being callous and uncaring. ?How could you leave my father in such a dreadful state? You?re just a gold digger, a heartless bitch,? I shouted at her. She for her part wasn?t about to take my criticism lying down and we started a full scale argument. Eventually, I just stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind me. Totally drained and despondent.
Still livid, I went back to Bangkok to my condo in Soi 33. When I got there I went straight into the bedroom and just collapsed on the bed and cried my eyes out. I was totally exhausted, no family, no money to talk of, and no-one to turn to. I had to stand on my own two feet. I had to get a job to support myself. I had a degree; it couldn?t be that difficult, could it? But it was. It was the aftermath of the financial crisis and no firms were hiring. I went from one interview to another, feeling worse after each one, until I was virtually suicidal. Then my luck turned, a friend told me about a PR job paying 12,000 Baht a month that was vacant at a hotel at PluenChit area. I telephoned and rushed over, feeling that this was my last chance.
As luck would have it, the interviewer was a farang in his late 40?s who didn?t seem at all interested in my qualifications; he just kept looking at me slyly from the corner of his eyes. He asked me to start the next morning and I went home feeling the happiest I?d felt for ages. My happiness didn?t last though. I worked for the first week all the time with the feeling that the boss?s eyes were boring into my back and mentally undressing me. He flirted outrageously. I had an awful time trying to stop him groping me at every opportunity. Then in the Friday after work, he asked me out to a nearby bar for a drink. My fist instinct was to decline gracefully, but in Thailand employees don?t refuse their bosses? requests, so what could I do but go?
I should have known better, but I was so naïve, never having drunk alcohol to any great extent before. My boss kept plying me with Marguerites, telling me they were slightly stronger than beer, when in fact they were loaded with tequila. By the end of the evening, I didn?t know whether I was coming or going. I couldn?t focus, slurred all my words, couldn?t think straight at all and could hardly stand up.

I woke up the next morning in his bed. I was shocked and blazingly angry. I had been taken total advantage of by an unscrupulous bastard. I had only had one steady boyfriend before when I was in the 2nd year at university. We?d had furtive sex a few times, always hurried and nervous about being discovered. I wasn?t a virgin, but I wasn?t a bad girl either. My boyfriend, however, didn?t stay the course; he beat a hasty retreat when he discovered my father was bankrupt. He said that he couldn?t cope with my depressions and all the problems I was having.
I?d always thought love was beautiful, probably from reading too many romantic classics, but now I don?t know what it is anymore. I was totally disillusioned at the time. But there was no love involved with my farang boss. He?d just raped me when I was incapable.
I quit the job that same day. The boss tried to find me to apologize. He wanted to be my regular boyfriend, he said. But I was having none of it, I could have taken him to the police for forced intoxication and rape, but I didn?t. I just wanted to forget he ever existed.
It was then that I started to drink and smoke. I?d never smoked before and I should have known better, but I just didn?t care. I just lazed around my condo for a week, watching TV half-heartedly, but not really taking anything in. I was in a real state. I woke up with 500 Baht in my pocket, the rent of 6000 Baht to pay and absolutely no means of paying it.
It was then that my friend Tammy, who worked in an escort agency, came to the rescue. She brought round a video called ?Madame Beverley Hills? about the life of high class hookers. I watched it twice and finally understood what was involved in Tammy?s job. It was an impressive movie, not in the least bit sleazy, quite a work of art, actually, even though it was essentially about prostitution.
Right, I said to myself, I?ll do it. I?d been shocked quite frankly when Tammy had told me what she did, but now my circumstances had radically changed, I was no longer a poor little rich girl toying with the perimeter of life. I decided to forgive myself for my naiveté and parochial attitude. I was beginning to appreciate Maslov?s theory. No food, no money, clothes, but no means of washing them. I couldn?t even afford washing powder. I?d had enough of poverty and destitution. No matter what I have to do, I?m going to fill my belly and have some money in my pocket again. And that was how my descent into the maelstrom began.

Story by: Snookie
Translated by: Warina

Point of View of a Bar Girl

We hear frequently about the farang’s experiences with Thai bar girls, but rarely hear about what things are like for the bar girls themselves, or hear the truth of their opinions of or life with farangs. I’d like to take this opportunity to enlighten all you farangs out there and show you that you aren’t too badly done by. The first story concerns a bar lady who was invited back to her farang client’s hotel room. As soon as she was ushered into the room, she saw 6 farangs sitting expectantly on the bed. Now she’d heard of such things with ladies who had been with Arabs, but never before with farangs. Her first reaction was to try and escape, but the farang client who had engaged her held onto her arm tightly. She was lucky to escape with minor bruising after effectively being gang raped by the 7 men. Hopefully, she’ll know better next time.

This incident also illustrates how trusting Thai ladies are. If it had been a Russian, or one of my minders in Dubai, checks would have been made at the start and finish of the proceedings and someone would have kept a watchful eye on the client, but here in Thailand such things are not commonplace. Which leads me onto the next story.
One sometimes hears of ladies being kidnapped by Thai taxi drivers in Bangkok and whisked off to foreign climes. The next incident concerns a lady who shared a taxi with a Russian. Sharing is not usual in Bangkok, but she was in a hurry and didn’t think twice about it. The Russian started speaking to the taxi driver in Russian and he apparently understood him. The next thing she knew was a cloth containing chloroform being put over her face and losing consciousness. The next thing she knew she was on a freighter on her way, it transpired, to Dubai. She was forced to work in a hotel as a sex-hostess for six months before she managed to escape with the help of one of her clients. Moral, don’t share a taxis with strange men.
Thai men have a bad reputation of sending out their wives and girlfriends to work in bars, but not usually farangs. The next story shows even the supposedly jai dee farangs are not always so. A farang had been living with a Thai lady for six months and all had gone well, initially. She had been treated well, gold and other presents bought for her, taken out to expensive restaurants and on day trips to various exciting tourist venues. Then one day, it all turned bad. The money ran out and the first thing was that her boyfriend asked her to sell all the gold he had bought her. Then he asked her to borrow money from her friends, who rapidly turned into enemies, as a result. Then her farang boyfriend forced her to go to a mafia money lender to borrow money at extortionate interest rates. She was lucky to escape with her life over that one, when they were unable to pay and her boyfriend went into hiding. He reappeared 3 weeks later and it was then that the inevitable happened. He forced her to go and work in the beer bars to support them.
If Thai guys have bad reputations, this particular farang was ten times worse. He was an absolute tyrant. He made her work all hours god sends and forced her to go on as many “offs” as possible. So much so that she was battered and bruised. Eventually, she wised up and found another lady for him to take her place. She was lucky to get off the hook.
The next story is equally bad. A farang was so jealous of his live-in Thai girlfriend after hearing stories of how Thai ladies have innumerable Thai boyfriends that he effectively kept her imprisoned in his room. When he was there he wouldn’t let her go out and when he himself went anywhere, he kept her chained up to the bed by a chain and padlock. Needless to say, she sought help one day, phoning one of her friends who brought the Tourist Police round to free the lady. A similar story concerns a Thai girl that her farang boyfriend knew smoked speed or “yah ba”. He, too, was hyper-jealous and to keep her contained threatened to phone the police and report her every time she wanted to go out. Thankfully, she managed to escape one day when he was out. He didn’t contact the police because she found out he was a wanted criminal in England and turned the tables on him.

Not all Thai-Farang Marriages do end up like the Cinderella Fairytale.

A Word of Advice for Those Thais thinking of Marrying a Foreigner There has been several reports from Mr Niyom Watthamawuthi, Director in charge of the Thai Embassy overseas for the Health and Welfare of Thai citizens who are residents overseas.

According to the reports there has been an increase in Thai women marrying foreign citizens. These women hold the belief and hope that once they are married to a foreigner, their life will be happier and more fulfilled. Besides, they will benefit financially, but contrary to that belief, not all Thai vs Foreigner marriages end up like that Cinderella Story. The report also suggested that most Thai women who are married to a foreigner and have given up home in Thailand, emigrated to join their partners in their chosen home will soon find that they are being taken advantage of in area such as doing the household chore, working like a slave in their marital home in order to satisfy their husbands, or their elderly parents. The money that their partners had promised to give them had all been forgotten about. In some worse case scenarios, the husbands become fed up with their Thai wives and abandon them. This was due to their inability to communicate and also the differences in culture also pose another problem to their marriage life. Such incidence occurs frequently among Thais marrying to Swedish nationals, one of the most popular countries Thais are married to.

According to Mr Niyom, the reasons why many Thais chose to marry Swedish nationals was because there was a Swedish national who resided in Thailand, had set up an Introduction Agency business to allow Thais who wish to find their ideal partners. The conditions being that they must register their details on the company’s website and pay the fees of 3,000-3,500 Baht. These applicants must also pay another fees which is 3,000-3,500 Baht should they receive an email from an interested party. According to the report, there are approximately 2000 Thais who have uprooted and emigrated to set up their new lives in Sweden during the year 2003. About 80 per cent of these applicants were women who have met their potential partners who made their holiday in Thailand. According to the Director in charge of the Health and Welfare of Thais overseas, at the Thai Embassy in Stockholm, he had received many telephone calls from many Thai women ringing in to tell the Embassy similar problems about them being mistreated, sometimes like slaves, or in the worst cases they have been abandoned by their husbands for several weeks on end. Many women who could not stand the treatments of their husbands’ bad behavior even left home to seek a temporary shelter and assistance from The Women and Children’s Institute.

According to the Department of Health and Welfare for women and children out of the 22 of these places in Sweden, they have handled and given assistance to women who had been such similar conditions in the past two years.

What is worse is the fact that many women have actually been brought into the country by the same man.

The majority of Thai women who marry a foreign national come from the eastern part of Thailand as they have limited level of education and above all they do not possess the ability to be able to communicate in English. They rely largely on their husbands as the main bread winner. When they are abandoned by their husbands, they are faced with the need to defend for themselves. A word of warning to our readers then that not all Thai-Farang marriages do actually end up like that of a Cinderella FairyTale!

Snookie'sLife Story Pt 2: Mamasanning

We lived happily together until Tom?s wife from England turned up one day at his condo. My Buddha! That was an experience. Talk about being a tigress! Tom?s wife went absolutely ballistic when she found me living with him. I had no option but to move out.

After Tom, I was at a loose end for some time. But one day I happened to meet a friend, John, who was a regular in Soi Cowboy, the beer and Go-Go bar locale off Soi Asok in Bangkok and he asked me to go with him to a beer-bar to give him my impressions of a new girl he fancied there. This I did, meeting John?s prospective new girlfriend, but I wasn?t impressed with her. I thought she was just a gold digger and told John so.
While we were in the beer bar, we got chatting to the boss, a farang called Jim. He asked me what I was doing at the moment, and when I told him I was between jobs, he asked if I would like to work as his cashier as the previous one had been sacked for ripping him off. I thought about it for a while and told him it would be OK as long as I didn?t have to go ?off? with any of the customers. He agreed to my terms and I started work the following day.
I?d only been working with him for a week when his Mamasan left after an argument. Jim asked me if I thought I?d be able to manage his ladies and when I replied yes, he asked me if I?d like to be his new Mamasan and I of course agreed to a month?s trial.
At first, the ladies were very apprehensive of me as I was older and of a higher class than they and from Chiang Mai, whereas they were all from Esarn. However, it wasn?t long before I was able to befriend them, because, basically, I?m a very friendly person and can get along with more or less anyone. It was low season and the girls weren?t in the best of spirits with so few customers.
My first crisis came when two of the girls fought over one particularly handsome young farang, British, as I remember. He was a bit of a sly dog, however, and played the two off against each other. His ultimate goal was to pay as little as possible and get one of the girls to live with him. It turned out that he had promised to take them both home to England and they used to continually taunt each other, making claims of being his favourite. Neither of them charged him any money; he had to pay the bar fine, obviously, but that was all. Eventually, he chose one of them, the most beautiful and we never saw either of them again.
My next crisis concerned a girl who was married to a Thai kick boxer that was incredibly jealous. One day, after making many threats, he came into the bar and assaulted one of the girl?s farang boyfriends, but he?d bitten off more than he could chew because this particular farang was a black belt karate expert. The farang beat the Thai guy to within an inch of his life. Needless to say, the Thai guy wasn?t humbled, but brought three of his friends to sort the farang out. The three managed to inflict some pain on the farang, but he too had friends and we had a really serious vendetta on our hands. The rivals used to stake out the bar, waiting for each other. I decided the best approach was to get the girl in question to persuade the farang to go to Pattaya with the promise of following him after a few days. Thankfully, I was successful otherwise I dread to think what would have happened, but certainly it would have spelled death for one or more of them. The girl did go to Pattaya for a couple of weekends, but then he found a new girlfriend and we never heard from him again, either.
The next problem concerned an American farang who was very reluctant to spend any money at all? Billy Ki Nok, we called him. He used to sit in the bar every night nursing one drink and never bought a lady drink. We tried every ploy in the book to persuade him to part with his money, but to no avail. That was, until he met Joy, a newcomer to the bar from Burriram. She completely won his heart and he changed into a completely different person. He?d obviously been waiting for the right person, He spared absolutely no expense, buying Joy expensive presents of gold and all the cuddly toys she could carry. The street seller of cuddly toys must have made a small fortune because Joy?s room was filled from floor to ceiling with bears, dogs, turtles and elephants; so much so that you couldn?t move for them ? just as well she liked cuddly toys! However, she sold them all and all her gold when Johnny-not-so-Ki-Nok returned to America. She made enough money that she was able to take a holiday in Burriram for three months.
My final bit of trouble at the particular bar we?re talking about ? sorry, no names ? involved a girl who fell madly in love with a farang customer. She had never really been in love before, and you know what they say, women only ever fall in love once in their lives. Well, this was definitely the one for her and for the month that her farang remained in Thailand, she was in heaven. When he returned to Germany, she was totally distraught. Moping about all day with a long face and refusing to entertain any other customer. One morning, we heard that she was in hospital having tried to commit suicide by slashing her wrists. Luckily, the paramedics had caught her in time and she recovered and returned to her home in Khon Kaen. I heard later that she?d recontacted her German boyfriend and was about to go and live with him in Germany.
About a week later, I asked my boss for a holiday as the previous 3 months had really taken it out of me. I never returned to his bar, but that?s another story. 

Story by Snookie
Translated by Warina

SNOOKI'S LIFE STORY Part 1

Many of you must be intrigued by now about my life and my family history, so my good friend,Warina or Khun May, the Editor of Pattaya Daily News, has asked me to give you the lowdown on my background. I?m normally quite a shy person and was reluctant to reveal my innermost secrets, but Pi May is very persuasive, so I relented and agreed.

My family is upper middle class, Thai Chinese, – ?Hi So? – as the Thais call it, from Chiang Mai. My father was a highly respected and successful property developer and a Baht millionaire, but he fell foul of the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and lost all his businesses. Thankfully, I had just finished my degree in Mass Communications and Journalism at a university in Bangkok, which explains my good English. I originally studied at an international school, topped up by lessons at the British Council, probably the best English language school in the world, and between them, they laid a really good foundation for my linguistic skills. Even so, my English isn?t perfect, but I get a helping hand from the PDN Editor, Khun May, who helps to correct any misspellings or grammatical mistakes I might make.
After graduating, I started by working for my uncle in his construction business in Hong Kong at his request, but suffered a bad attack of pneumonia almost as soon as I started, which laid me on my back for a month. I couldn?t go back to work for my uncle on my recovery as he had been tragically killed in an air crash, and the company was subsequently sold following his death, so I returned to Bangkok. However, the capital was still in the throes of recovery from Black Thursday and work was extremely difficult to find. It was then that I met my friend, Tammy, again, who had been at university with me.
We re-met in a Bangkok nightclub. She, too, had had great difficulty finding work and was working temporarily as a hostess for a high class escort agency that catered to rich Chinese, Japanese and Arab businessmen. Normally, of course, she would never have dreamed of working in such a profession, but times were hard for now poor, little rich girls, like us. She earned an absolute fortune from her ?servicing? of the foreign businessmen, who were extremely generous, taking her away for lavish holidays to Koh Samui and Phuket, apart from treating her to the best hotels and restaurants in Bangkok and buying her incredibly expensive presents.
What she told me made me not a little envious, as I had been completely broke for 3 months, and life was extremely hard. One day, she asked me if I would like to join the agency she worked for. Initially, I was shocked, as you can well imagine, coming from an extremely traditional and conservative family as I did. I fought a battle with my conscience for two days and then reluctantly agreed to become a Hi-So hostess after watching a very revealing movie about the escort business. My family would never have understood, but then they didn?t need to know, did they?
Things were made far easier because the escort agency had just signed a contract with a businessman in Dubai to send a number of hostesses to work in his nightclub, and I was among them. I won?t try to fool you that I was a virgin when I started work as I?d had an intimate relationships at university, but we told the Arab clientele that I was pure and intact. That earned me premium rates for a while, and I soon began to rake in a small fortune. The work wasn?t strenuous as we were a very exclusive club. I only had two clients a week and they tended to do the same as the businessmen in Bangkok had done, namely take me to high class establishments as their new fiancée; the Arabs are also extremely conservative, despite what they might get up to when they are abroad! This halcyon existence lasted for 6 months and then I returned to Bangkok; reluctantly, as it happens, because I had really enjoyed myself in Dubai, especially the trips to the Caribbean and Andalusia in Southern Spain that some of the rich clients had taken me on.


Work as a hostess at the Bangkok agency wasn?t nearly so good, so after another 6 months, I temporarily retired. After all, I now had a small fortune in the bank because I?d been extremely frugal and had conserved my money. Plus the fact that my Arab ?boyfriends? had been extremely generous as then I was still young and beautiful ? drop dead gorgeous, my English boyfriend, Tom, used to call me.
I met Tom soon after I left the escort agency in a restaurant off Sukhumvit, Soi 17, Crepes & Co; very expensive! It was love at first sight and before I knew it, we were an item, living together in his exclusive condo in Ekkamai. Tom was a university lecturer in English and he really honed my English skills, apart from other things!
We lived happily together until Tom?s wife from England turned up one day at his condo. My Buddha! That was an experience. Talk about being a tigress! Tom?s wife went absolutely ballistic when she found me living with him. I had no option but to move out

Story from Snookie
Translated by: Warina


Snookies Story Pt 2: Mamasanning
The Grim Realities Of Bar-Ownership In Pattaya

I’m going to fill my belly and have some money in my pocket again.

The Harrowing Tale of a Farang Betrayed

The following is a true account of and allegedly dishonest Thai sex-workers attempt to completely fleece her farang husband.

Both names have been withheld, but contact details will be passed on to interested parties who choose to communicate with PDN. The foreigner, who we will call John Roo, met the lady, who we will call Ying, apparently in Burriram. To cut a long story short, John fell in love with Ying and proposed marriage to her. As a consequence, he bought her a car, a motor bike and paid for the education of her 4 children over a period of 2 years. John says that he worked 8 hours a day to support and help this family that he considered his own and by whom he is still called ‘Papa’.
During some period of this time, Ying, at the insistance of her mother, went to Malaysia and Singapore. John only discovered when she was deported that she had, in fact, gone to work in these two locations as a prostitute. He also discovered that all the time he was with her she’d had several Thai boyfriends, at least one of whom had been driving the car he bought for her, and she had continued to work as a prostitute, all the while lying to him that he was her one and only.
John is currently stuck at her family’s house in Burriram, looking after her children while she is away, plying her trade in either Pattaya or Bangkok. Before she left, Ying gave John a signed IOU for Bt150,000, just before she stole another Bt25,000 (the cost of his airfare back to Australia), in addition to a further Bt300,000 that she stole previously. His embassy has told him they won’t help him out of his predicament, his friends and family have disowned him due to her and he is tired, scared and growing increasingly more desperate.
John made further discoveries about Ying, namely that she’d had 4 separate fathers for her children. In addition, she’s already had 4 abortions and is once again pregnant, which John assumes will also be aborted. She currently has genital herpies, all the while having practised unsafe sex, without a condom, and John is concerned that she will contract further STDs.

So others don’t fall into the same trap, we’re prepared to give several clues to Ying’s identity, namely that she is now 30 years old, has 3 distinctive tattoos: one on her lower back, a dark one on her right arm and a large dragon on her back. John says that she is a smooth talker and an habitual liar, who lies to Thais and farang alike. Most disturbingly John says she told everyone she had a rich farang boyfriend and borrowed money from all and sundry, telling them he will pay them back on her behalf. John currently has some members of the mafia looking for him, while other mafia members have found him and are putting pressure on him to do their dirty work by “doing (unspecified) things to her family”.

John says his neighbors can testify as to what type of person she is and that the whole town knows she did wrong by him. Apparently, she even attacked him and threatened him with knives when he asked her for some money back before she sneaked away with her mother’s help. He says he feels like a prisoner in their home with everyone treating him with contempt and pretending to care and be his friend. John says “my family gave them money to help and support them. I have nothing and no one now. I have lost everything. I have given them everything, my heart, my soul …. everything.”

Finally, John in utter desperation asks “Do they want me to kill myself before they are all happy…before they go out and do this to someone else?”These are the grim details of John’s heartrending story. If anyone cares enough to help him out of his dire predicament before he does something really desperate, please contact us and we will pass on John’s contact details.

Remarks:
The pictures are for illustrative purposes only. We hope to publish actual photos as we recieve them.
Warina Punyawan
editor.pdn@gmail.com

THE GRIM REALITIES OF BAR-OWNERSHIP IN PATTAYA

Snooki’s advice to aspirant bar owners

Have you ever wondered what it’s really like to own a beer-bar or Go-Go bar in Pattaya’s fair city? You have? Did you really talk to the people who run them and find out the true story?

            If you visit as a tourist and dream of being surrounded by idolising, willing ladies, dream on. The reality is somewhat different, especially in the low season, which seems to be most of the year these days. You’ll notice lots of bars up for sale on nearly all the notice boards in this Fun City. Ever wondered why? Ask yourself, if they’re such fun to run and so profitable, why are they always up for sale and why do you rarely see them advertised in real estate shops or publications. Could it be that they’re not so profitable and in reality, really difficult to run?
            Take the girls, for instance, do you think they’re as friendly as they appear when you’re a customer? If you do, you’re likely to be rudely awakened. Most of the girls seem to avoid work rather than welcome it. There’ll be squabbles, jealousy, groups of them leaving in droves. They’ll really stress you out; no doubt about it.
            And you’ll have to pay their salaries in the lean days, when your customers are few and the takings minimal. That’s if they haven’t already been pilfered by the unscrupulous members of the bar-girl fraternity. And don’t forget, for most bar-owners this is a 7 day a week enterprise, which is increasingly becoming a 6 day week as the girls wise up to their being exploited. Then, if you’re a concerned bar-owner, the girls have to be tested for sexually-transmitted diseases. And then you’ve got to get girls who will consistently be nice to the customers or will enthusiastically go out and “jap the farangs”.
            And then you may be afraid to take a welcome break for fear of all the girls leaving, or some unscrupulous, envious competitor reporting you to the immigration police for working. Don’t forget, you can’t lift a finger to help in the bar if you don’t have a work permit and few do! Then there’s ownership itself. Are you going to put the bar in your loved one’s name? If so, make sure she hasn’t got numerous Thai boyfriends, or a completely avaricious family with innumerable sick water buffalos, family members or younger siblings who seem to constantly need new mobile phones or motorcycles because they’re just lost or crashed them. You thought you were the one who wore the trousers, think again! It’s most definitely a risky game – Pattaya roulette, it’s called.
            Then there’s the lease. Make sure your bar isn’t too profitable; otherwise the lease is sure to rise as the landlord gets to hear of it. Or the competitors or the “boys in brown”, who will definitely be round for handouts. And so your profits vanish! There are those who do well, but very few. It’s often a question of prime locations, extremely able Mamasans, adept at keeping the girls, both in place and in line, (like me, until I gave it up and became freelance because it was too much hard work).
            And then there’s the noble art of knowing when to pull out or move on. And make sure you’re not tempted to sell cut price cigarettes from Cambodia or Viagra, for that matter. You need to have been here for a fair number of years to discover all the pitfalls, and you’ll hear many, many stories of failure – for the unwary, Thailand can indeed be the land of broken dreams, not just broken hearts. If you really want to own a bar, do some research. Check location, the competition, where to get stock, how much it will cost to redecorate, buy a new wide screen TV to keep up with your competitors, or a new pool table.
            Then there’s wages, how many employees to have. Think of the regulars, how to handle, freeloaders, or guys who play the girls or worse abuse them! Not an easy game bar-ownership, and don’t believe anyone who tells you it is.
Written by : Snookie
Translated by Warina

Private Dicks Spying on Bar Girls: Ladies Account

Let‘s consider the cases now of a bar girl who was hunted down by the private investigator for doing what comes naturally. I actually know people who were on both sides.

The first was an investigator who I’ll call Bert, who’d come to Thailand and had run out of money; largely having spent it in bars on booze and ladies. He was a cruiser of Bangkok venues like Nana Plaza, Thermae, Soi Cowboy, The Grace Hotel, Hard Rock Cafe, Novotel, Spazzo’s, Riva’s, The Soi 7 Beer Garden, and the beer and go-go bars in Patpong, so he was well versed in all the right places to find girls-on-the-game.
One day, bemoaning his lot, he was approached by a gay in a bar and asked if he’d like to spy on “errant girls” (his phrase) for their absent boyfriends who were sending money back to them from overseas. The idea was to find out if they’d kept their agreement not to return to the bars and if they went “off”. It was money for old rope, so obviously he agreed to become what he called a “ferret”, which is an animal that’s particularly good at hunting in secret places, so I’m told.
He apparently did 3 stages of checking-up. The first involved being equipped with a photo of the girl in question and then going around the bars she’d previously worked at and if she was found, actually visiting the girl’s bar in person to find out if she was bar-fineable. The investigator, let’s call him a Private Dick, goes back twice and takes photos with his phone to prove she’s working.
The second was for the Private Dick to actually pay the bar-fine and take the girl to a hotel. He told me they were supposed to make an excuse and leave before it came to sex, but quite often he did actually have sex. The Dick is also supposed to take photos inside the hotel, too.
The final stage was to discover whereabouts the girl lives and if she lived with anyone, not a friend which many do, but a Thai boyfriend, or even another farang. There are some around who are quite happy to live off the Thai girls and the money sent to them by the foreign lover, the same as Thai men. The Private Dick had a “whale of a time”, getting expenses, free drinks and sometimes getting sex for free by promising not to expose the girl to her foreign absentee boyfriend. He was doing what he’s always done, except this time he didn’t have to pay one baht. And he and the detective agency were ripping of their clients, charging on average about 15,000 baht a time. And they call Thai bar girls corrupt!
The next little story is about a very enterprising bar girl who had to “run the gauntlet” (a Private Dick’s phrase) of a private detective. Her name for this story is Daeng and she had a farang boyfriend from the US, Bill, who was sending her 25,000 baht a month to keep out of the bars, keep herself and send money home for her family. Daeng actually lived with a Thai man, Lek, who didn’t work himself, but lived off her earnings, any earnings. When her boyfriend Bill phoned her she’d make sure only she answered the phone and that Lek shut up when she was on the phone. However, Daeng had a heavy Yah Bah and Ice habit and effectively spent all her money, to the extent that she had to pawn her phone. Lek had already made her pawn all the gold that Bill had given her. Inevitably, when Bill couldn’t contact her, he started to get suspicious. She told him she’d lost her phone and would he mind sending her more money to buy a new one, which he did, but he then started to phone her at bar times from 7.30pm to 2am. Obviously, this was a slight problem, involving her having to go into a relatively quiet side room, put a blanket over her head and speak softly, making sure no one came in.
Daeng had heard of farang absentee boyfriends hiring private detectives to investigate the Thai girlfriends and she had a pretty shrewd idea of how they might operate. She happened to spy one, one night, thankfully he wasn’t looking for her, but he was very obvious. For a start he spoke very good Thai and was with a Thai lady that it was obvious wasn’t his girlfriend because they weren’t “lovey-dovey” at all. The Thai lady went round all the girls and kept showing the “victims” photo to all the girls, asking if they knew her. They all did because the girl in question was a favourite of them all, who wasn’t actually working at the bar that week because she’d gone to Koh Samui with another farang client. However, they were all loyal and didn’t give the game away.
Daeng began to take precautions in case Bill sent the ferrets out after her. She told all her sisters-in-charms not to speak to strangers about her and to tell her if anyone came in the bar asking after her. She even dyed her hair blonde, using a lot of make-up so she wouldn’t look like her photos that she knew Bill had of her because she’d given him several. Her life became a true ordeal where she had to interrogate all the guys that wanted to take her “off” to make sure they weren’t ferrets. If they were over-inquisitive, she just refused to go “off” with them. This meant her weekly average really declined and Lek started to get heavy, beating her up because she wasn’t bringing in enough money to support his drug habit. He’d already spent almost all the money Bill sent every month, leaving very little for Daeng to send home or live on. She tried to get rid of him, but he had all the characteristics of a leach, bloodsucking and was difficult to throw off; she didn’t attempt the tried and tested way, trying to burn him off with a cigarette-end though for fear of what he’d do to her.
One day, the inevitable happened and a guy came in the bar that actually looked like a ferret, so she knew right away he was a Private Dick. She tried hiding but the Mamasan told her to go out on the floor and despite the fact she’d tried to disguise herself, the ferret saw through her; there weren’t enough girls for her to hide effectively. She got a phone call from Bill two days after, accusing her, but after all the stress he’d put her through, she couldn’t maintain the pretence and told him the truth. Obviously, Bill dropped her, but then Daeng told me, there are plenty more fish in the sea, right?
Now you might be very righteous about bar girls who do this sort of thing, but you have to understand where they’re coming from. And Bert, the ferret, told me he’d also been hired to spy on farang men who were short timing around the favourite venues. They were total idiots when it came to trying to disguise their deceits. So, at the end of the day, let’s give them both, the bar girls and the straying farangs a bit of rope. They are only doing what comes naturally after all and if you’re foolish enough to lavish vast sums of money on bar-girls, what do you expect?
Written by Warina Punyawan