Don’t Mess With The Thai Police

[billaaa777]

My good friend and contractor on many of my condo projects told about his week today and I thought I would pass it on. He is from Northern Thailand and dark skinned and it took quite a few questions from me to fully try and understand what he was saying in his broken English. But, as best as I can understand the following is what happened.

One of his workers is from Cambodia and has a valid passport, buy not for working. The Thai police picked him up and he called my friend. I asked him why the police picked up his worker and he did not know. The police asked for 6,000 Baht and they would let him go. But, my friend said he would not pay. So, he goes out to his truck to drive away and the police arrest him and take his truck. The police say they know he drove around the Cambodian in it and that’s against the law. They put the truck in the police compound and told him it was going to cost 30,000 to get his truck out. The moral of the story is to pay the Thai police their initial asking price; it only gets more expensive from there.

On our first job, a few years ago he tells me that one of our female painters had her husband killed by the police during the drug crackdown. A few jobs latter he tells me by accident that her husband was also his brother. And you wonder why the Thais hate the police.

When I first start working with him, he asks for a phone number of a wood contactor, but he specifically tells me “Not the Chinese one.” And over the next year or so, I would hear him say things like “No good Chinese” or “No like Chinese.” I finally come to the conclusion, he does like the Chinese Thai’s and ask him why. He tells me, and again as best as I can understand his broken English, they are always ripping him off. If he tells them the job cost 10,000 Baht, when if comes time to pay they only give him 5,000.

My kitchen, contactor who is Chinese Thai, tells me that the darker Thais are from a lower class, there fore should get paid less. All my other contractors are Chinese Thai’s and after watching this for almost two years now I can see there is very little communication between him and the other contractors. They try to make it hard on him, as best as I can understand.

Poor guy works his ass off and gets hit from every angle. We really don’t know the inter-workings of Thai society, but just operate on the fringes. Which is probably a good thing. Out of all my contractors he is my best one and the person I trust the most. Since he has been working for me he has gone from ridding a motor bike with a side car to a pick up truck and he bought a new house last week. I wish him the best and it is just too bad he has to put up with so much crap just to survive.