Pattaya A-Go-Go Staff Beat Up Foreign And Hi-So Customers

[Nisa]

I guess I should apologize for asking you twice. I was writing while you posted the previous answer. If you didn't know it I like having you post. I find your answers interesting and using news articles instead of experience is one way of responding to an issue that you believe in but don't have the experience to back up your beliefs. Your style is a bit harsh but no need to be overly polite. We are all used to Western women here. Fire away.

As you get older and accumulate more experiences it is easier to relate them instead of relying on the media to back up what you say.

I like personal anecdotes because I like reading a posters thoughts instead of some news man's thoughts that I don't know.

I know Thai people that I have worked in the last five years and their parents that I worked with 40 years ago. That may make some things I say more valid, some not. If you have been in Thailand for a year and confined to a family atmosphere never venturing out by yourself you would have a different opinion of the late night bar scene in Falang ghettos than a person who lived that life daily.

I know Pattaya pretty well because I lived and worked there for three years. I know the Thai bar scene pretty well because I don't go to Falang bars much anymore. I like coyote dancers better than go go dancers.

NP - I have no doubt you know Pattaya better than myself, However, I have been there a number of times as well as the Red Light Districts in BKK many times. Typically you can visit a half dozen bars in these places in one night and I have NEVER seen a bar fight in Thailand. However, if I visited 6 bars in one night in the US I am almost certain to see a fight or get there as one is ending or starting. My point was simply that I believe bars in the US (and other western countries) are more dangerous than those here. Grant it we are talking about the worst place in terms of this kind of think in Thailand but then to compare fairly we would need to compare it to the worst cities in a western country. Again I am sure you will find that people in these places are getting killed (not just fights) at a much higher rate than in Pattaya. Simple fights in US bars is common and rarely involve the police. When I was younger seeing somebody at work or a friend the next day with a black eye or some scrapes was nothing unusual. People in the same boat as these so-called male models wouldn't even go to the police after such an incident but I have a feeling they went here because they believed the police would see them as important as they likely see themselves as better than those Thais working in the bar.

Pattaya is what it is and I guess the other point was that I thought it silly to complain or act as if this place was worse than other cities with similar vices. Red Light districts tend to be where you also find drugs, crime and violence in all cities across the globe as well as a lower class of people frequenting these areas.

I too apologize for my tone. It was really from a shock stand point in terms of somebody denying that US bars are not more dangerous. I certainly could be wrong but I was shocked because I so strongly believe this is not the case and in my mind anyway it seems obvious. I hear you too in terms of personal experience but I believe far too many times (such as this incident) one or two personal experiences get related as being the norm and getting folks to condemn a whole country, city or people.

I guess the other thing is that I realize Pattaya is a dangerous city and odd things happen such as people committing suicide by shooting themselves numerous times in the back but I generally don't hear too many killings at bars. However, in the US this seems to be one of the most popular places to get killed, shot or stabbed. And although every country has its bad element, I also see the people of Thailand as being a much calmer and more willing to forgive or at least move on than most people in the US where simply bumping shoulders with somebody on the street can get you into a fist fight. Again I could be wrong but I do get defensive when people in my mind are overly slamming Thailand or its people in an unfair way. I think you actually made one minor generalization I didn't agree with along these lines but the conversation kind of went down a hole other path.

Bottom line is there is no real way or probably even fair comparison to know who is right or wrong and in fact our personal experiences will dictate if we are right or wrong. If I got robbed at knife point in a bar in Pattaya I would probably also be on the wagon saying how much more dangerous it is since this had never happened to me anywhere else .. and for me this would be true.

[happysanook]

I guess I should apologize for asking you twice. I was writing while you posted the previous answer. If you didn't know it I like having you post. I find your answers interesting and using news articles instead of experience is one way of responding to an issue that you believe in but don't have the experience to back up your beliefs. Your style is a bit harsh but no need to be overly polite. We are all used to Western women here. Fire away.

As you get older and accumulate more experiences it is easier to relate them instead of relying on the media to back up what you say.

I like personal anecdotes because I like reading a posters thoughts instead of some news man's thoughts that I don't know.

I know Thai people that I have worked in the last five years and their parents that I worked with 40 years ago. That may make some things I say more valid, some not. If you have been in Thailand for a year and confined to a family atmosphere never venturing out by yourself you would have a different opinion of the late night bar scene in Falang ghettos than a person who lived that life daily.

I know Pattaya pretty well because I lived and worked there for three years. I know the Thai bar scene pretty well because I don't go to Falang bars much anymore. I like coyote dancers better than go go dancers.

NP - I have no doubt you know Pattaya better than myself, However, I have been there a number of times as well as the Red Light Districts in BKK many times. Typically you can visit a half dozen bars in these places in one night and I have NEVER seen a bar fight in Thailand. However, if I visited 6 bars in one night in the US I am almost certain to see a fight or get there as one is ending or starting. My point was simply that I believe bars in the US (and other western countries) are more dangerous than those here. Grant it we are talking about the worst place in terms of this kind of think in Thailand but then to compare fairly we would need to compare it to the worst cities in a western country. Again I am sure you will find that people in these places are getting killed (not just fights) at a much higher rate than in Pattaya. Simple fights in US bars is common and rarely involve the police. When I was younger seeing somebody at work or a friend the next day with a black eye or some scrapes was nothing unusual. People in the same boat as these so-called male models wouldn't even go to the police after such an incident but I have a feeling they went here because they believed the police would see them as important as they likely see themselves as better than those Thais working in the bar.

Pattaya is what it is and I guess the other point was that I thought it silly to complain or act as if this place was worse than other cities with similar vices. Red Light districts tend to be where you also find drugs, crime and violence in all cities across the globe as well as a lower class of people frequenting these areas.

I too apologize for my tone. It was really from a shock stand point in terms of somebody denying that US bars are not more dangerous. I certainly could be wrong but I was shocked because I so strongly believe this is not the case and in my mind anyway it seems obvious. I hear you too in terms of personal experience but I believe far too many times (such as this incident) one or two personal experiences get related as being the norm and getting folks to condemn a whole country, city or people.

I guess the other thing is that I realize Pattaya is a dangerous city and odd things happen such as people committing suicide by shooting themselves numerous times in the back but I generally don't hear too many killings at bars. However, in the US this seems to be one of the most popular places to get killed, shot or stabbed. And although every country has its bad element, I also see the people of Thailand as being a much calmer and more willing to forgive or at least move on than most people in the US where simply bumping shoulders with somebody on the street can get you into a fist fight. Again I could be wrong but I do get defensive when people in my mind are overly slamming Thailand or its people in an unfair way. I think you actually made one minor generalization I didn't agree with along these lines but the conversation kind of went down a hole other path.

Bottom line is there is no real way or probably even fair comparison to know who is right or wrong and in fact our personal experiences will dictate if we are right or wrong. If I got robbed at knife point in a bar in Pattaya I would probably also be on the wagon saying how much more dangerous it is since this had never happened to me anywhere else .. and for me this would be true.

not sure what type of bars/clubs you've been hanging out at... but i've seen far more fights and horrendous beat downs in my 4 years in thailand than 25 years in the states...

FIRST 3 hours in thailand 4 years back i saw 15 restaurant workers attack and beat a farang up and down the street over a disagreement on the bill.

Edited February 14, 2011 by happysanook

[Tolley]

I have never had any touble personally in the thousands of bars I have visited and drunk in for over thirty years in Thailand and for that matter anywhere else in the world.

Nonetheless you would have to be blind freddy not to realise that things can unravel very quickly in clubs, bars etc in Thailand.

Group beatings by Thais on hapless foreigners for minor indiscretions or no indiscretion at all is far too common.(and no I don't have statistics but I have seen or heard of far too many instances to be blind to the problem).

One of the big problems in Thailand and in Pattaya in particular is that the staff know that there is very little chance of any consequences should they happen to maim or kill a foreigner.

So if they are in a bad mood and an opportunity comes to bash a foreigner there are no compelling reasons not to.

[Nisa]

not sure what type of bars/clubs you've been hanging out at... but i've seen far more fights and horrendous beat downs in my 4 years in thailand than 25 years in the states...

FIRST 3 hours in thailand 4 years back i saw 15 restaurant workers attack and beat a farang across the street over a disagreement on the bill.

In 3-years I have never seen one and the closest I have come to seeing one was because of something I was the aggressor and it was with another farang during Songkran a couple years ago when I shot his lady with a water gun (repeatedly). I have been blind drunk on occasions at Thai bars/clubs and farang clubs/bars and have never had an issue with anybody. If anything the staff has always been good at taking care of me. My first 1 or 2 spent here I went out a lot but don't drink too much anymore but in my experience I have never not felt safe. My first couple months here I stayed right down from Soi Cowboy and never saw a fight each night I went there. I also cannot recall (might have happened but I cannot recall) a bouncer removing anybody from these places here but in a club in the US this is done almost nightly. I have talked to numerous people (especially Australians) who are shocked by the lack of fights in bars here. I think a lot has to do with this not being our country and the way we behave as clients. As another poster mentioned here ,,, if you act like an a@@ in any bar anywhere it is not uncommon for you to get a little roughed up.

Edit: I have also not held back complaints when going to bars here and have pointed out problems with the bill and sent back drinks. In fact I usually have to send back a the first drink in more than half the places I visit as there is something about Thais not understanding the word Tonic when I say Vodka Tonic or they finally understand Tonic but then don't add Vodka.

I was in Patpong in Silom once and had the waitress bring me to the bartender once to show me them putting Vodka in the drink because I was sure there was no alcohol in my last drink but she assured me there was. These folks barely understood English but the end result was me telling them their Vodka was sh@t (that word) and there was no problem what-so-ever. We had a laugh and I moved on to another bar after the last drink.

I guess one thing I have never done is going into a bar in a foreign country and treat the staff as if i am better than them. I suppose that would result in my getting my a@@ kicked in any bar.

Edited February 14, 2011 by Nisa

[Nisa]

One of the big problems in Thailand and in Pattaya in particular is that the staff know that there is very little chance of any consequences should they happen to maim or kill a foreigner.

So if they are in a bad mood and an opportunity comes to bash a foreigner there are no compelling reasons not to.

Wow, I guess without a doubt this should take any doubt out of anybody's mind that the bars in Pattaya are the most dangerous place on the planet staffed with the most dangerous psychopaths in the world. In other parts of the world people generally tend to be a little grumpy when they go to work in a bad mood and not result to homicide if they believe they can get away with it.

[Pi Sek]

I feel much safer anywhere in Thailand than I do in many places in England. Really, including Pattaya, which I despise by the way (so it might be fair to add that I'll never give its "better" side a chance).

However, I think it would be naive to expect that confrontations are less frequent than other places. Many bars in Thailand are owned by those who feel the need to show their "influence". Many customers of bars don't know the particulars of local etiquette. Many drinkers consume more than the amount they are used to. In many bars aimed at Thai clientele, guns and bottles of Black Label are considered status symbols.

[dbTraveler]

I have problem with Thai man at Nightclub in Pattaya. He said i was looking at his girlfriend. I really not look at her. But he wanted to fight...i walk away.

[canine79]

I woke up this morning with really smelly and brownish finger....

Imp Lesson learned " he who goes bed with itchy ass wakes up with smelly finger"

[metisdead]

Off topic posts and replies have been removed. Comments regarding Pattaya A-Go-Go Staff Beat Up Foreign And Hi-So Customers are on topic to this thread. Discussion of crime statistics regarding violence in bars in the US, UK, and other countries would be another topic altogether.

[smedly]

I think our resident expert on everything NISA seems to be missing some understanding between assaults and reported assaults. The figures from Thailand will be very skewed considering the polices desire to not take any reports from victims of crime unless palms are crossed with silver, whereas in the UK, US and Australia reports are taken by the police for every report made.

the boys in blue near enough assault everyone they arrest so you can add that to the stats, how do you think they get all those confessions lol

[fredtitmus]

Another heart warming Pattaya story

is there any harm warming stories that come from pattaya? i have heard a few people say that pattaya is not a part of thailand anymore.

[fredtitmus]

Can someone give me one or 2 good stories about Pattaya that will erase the millions of negatives. They will have to be bloody tho. Almost everyday Pattaya throws up another negative never anything nice to be heard of this place.

Earlier I gave a link to Twelve Wonders of Pattaya so if you had been paying attention you would have found 12 excellent positives about Pattaya.

My personal experiences with both Super Girls and its sister club, Super Babes have been excellent--so much so that I would have put these clubs about dead last for stooping to beat up its customers. In an earlier post I also described how a German customer was ganged and hospitalized in a Naklua Bar right after I had left. The owner had led the beating. And I have always felt this owner is one of the best bar owners in Naklua. So the fact that I otherwise regard this owner highly and still feel Super Girls and Super Babes are the best go go bars in town tells me this. It's the mentality here combined with the authorities not doing their job to enforce the law that makes such gang beatings so commonplace. And believe me, they are. The only thing i missed the night the German customer got beat up was the narrow sliver of time the beating actually took place. Then there was the time I bailed out one of our fellow condo owners at 6 a.m. His face was just as bad one week after his beating as the morning I took him home. He refused to pay for a drink an ex girlfriend ordered on his bin after he refused to buy her a drink. Wound up in a fight with two guys which turned into three guys and at some point he went unconscious. He woke up in the middle of Soi 7 just as the police were arriving. He was the only one to go to jail. Customer wrong, Bar right. Police condones the gang beating. Get the picture? Abby normal in Western countries; normal procedure here.

In fact you yourself along with a few others here encourage these very beatings by being such abject apologists for Thai bad behavior.

i agree innocent guys do get beaten and the behavior of the staff in the go-go bars is out of order sometimes but nobody is talking about the bad behavior of the falang in pattaya,afterall who started this whole circus off in the 1st place????The thais have had 50 years of drunken falang abusing the girls and staff.When you have rude,arrogant,abusive customers who think they are always right and look down on you cos they think they are better than you,how do you want them to behave!

Think about what they have to put up with night in and night out! And then put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself !!!! would this change me for the worst?

[mark45y]

Can someone give me one or 2 good stories about Pattaya that will erase the millions of negatives. They will have to be bloody tho. Almost everyday Pattaya throws up another negative never anything nice to be heard of this place.

Earlier I gave a link to Twelve Wonders of Pattaya so if you had been paying attention you would have found 12 excellent positives about Pattaya.

My personal experiences with both Super Girls and its sister club, Super Babes have been excellent--so much so that I would have put these clubs about dead last for stooping to beat up its customers. In an earlier post I also described how a German customer was ganged and hospitalized in a Naklua Bar right after I had left. The owner had led the beating. And I have always felt this owner is one of the best bar owners in Naklua. So the fact that I otherwise regard this owner highly and still feel Super Girls and Super Babes are the best go go bars in town tells me this. It's the mentality here combined with the authorities not doing their job to enforce the law that makes such gang beatings so commonplace. And believe me, they are. The only thing i missed the night the German customer got beat up was the narrow sliver of time the beating actually took place. Then there was the time I bailed out one of our fellow condo owners at 6 a.m. His face was just as bad one week after his beating as the morning I took him home. He refused to pay for a drink an ex girlfriend ordered on his bin after he refused to buy her a drink. Wound up in a fight with two guys which turned into three guys and at some point he went unconscious. He woke up in the middle of Soi 7 just as the police were arriving. He was the only one to go to jail. Customer wrong, Bar right. Police condones the gang beating. Get the picture? Abby normal in Western countries; normal procedure here.

In fact you yourself along with a few others here encourage these very beatings by being such abject apologists for Thai bad behavior.

i agree innocent guys do get beaten and the behavior of the staff in the go-go bars is out of order sometimes but nobody is talking about the bad behavior of the falang in pattaya,afterall who started this whole circus off in the 1st place????The thais have had 50 years of drunken falang abusing the girls and staff.When you have rude,arrogant,abusive customers who think they are always right and look down on you cos they think they are better than you,how do you want them to behave!

Think about what they have to put up with night in and night out! And then put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself !!!! would this change me for the worst?

Naw, that's what you get paid for. I have worked in bars and restaurants and hotels in tourist areas most of my life. You get used to it. Canadians come to Florida on vacation. Americans tip 15 to 20%, Canadians don't tip. In 20 years I only had one waiter refuse to wait on Canadians.

The girls at those clubs make big money. Japanese tip and spend 400% more than a Brit and those girls are decked out and plastic surgeries, eyes and chest for the Japanese customer. They make as much as the average doctor in Thailand and they tip the bouncers accordingly. People get paid to work because it is not all fun. If it was fun they would work for free. Worst job I ever saw was a nurse in a children's burn ward. But I guess you can get used to anything. There are nice customers too. Most are actually nice even in scum bag joints.

Having said that I really see no reason to have bouncers in a Thai bar. In my experience the ladies can take care of themselves and with less macho rooster posturing.

The great majority of bars in Pattaya don't have bouncers and do just fine. Male managers, piss boys, Dj's, bouncers and shill guys outside are a waste of time and money and only create problems.

They hassle the ladies and extort sexual favors and are in general scum bag blood suckers who offer nothing positive to the environment. Dj's play music none of the customers like and threaten bar owners with death if they are fired. Men don't come to go go's to hear music or get a towel from a creep in the toilet. Men employees in lady go go bars are parasites and create nothing but problems. Fire them all and the place runs better.

[mark45y]

Another heart warming Pattaya story

is there any harm warming stories that come from pattaya? i have heard a few people say that pattaya is not a part of thailand anymore.

Pattaya is a part of Issan. I would tell you some heart warming stories about Pattaya but there are too many jerks on Thai Visa that make fun of cripples or handicapped people because they are different than themselves.

[meom]

Men don't come to go go's to hear music or get a towel from a creep in the toilet.

I used to go into TQ's for the music

[jackcorbett]

i agree innocent guys do get beaten and the behavior of the staff in the go-go bars is out of order sometimes but nobody is talking about the bad behavior of the falang in pattaya,afterall who started this whole circus off in the 1st place????The thais have had 50 years of drunken falang abusing the girls and staff.When you have rude,arrogant,abusive customers who think they are always right and look down on you cos they think they are better than you,how do you want them to behave!

Think about what they have to put up with night in and night out! And then put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself !!!! would this change me for the worst?

Once again.....the customer is always right. Or at least that's the ideal even though we can argue against this point by using say an extreme example of a customer walking into a place and shooting it up with a gun.

Here's just one real life example of the opposite. Next door to our condo building there's a four star hotel. Our condo has an agreement with this hotel that all its residents can use the swimming pools there, its sauna, its towel service, health club, chairs down on the beach etc and for this we have been paying 120,000 baht a year. I've been going to the health club and pool area for four years now and for four years we've all had to put up with one Thai male employee who works in the physical fitness swimming pool area. For four years this employee has never given me or anyone else that I've seen as much as a sawadi krap. A few months ago, I was straddling one of the exercise machines talking to a couple of my fellow condo residents. I had not begun exercising yet and was not even touching the machine. Well, apparently there was a crack in the casing of the machine's undercarriage. No one put a sign on the machine to warn people about the crack. The Thai man came into the exercise room and started yelling and screaming at me in front of my two friends, my girlfriend and two Thai girlfriends of my two friends. Then he went back into the towel service area but he came back a couple minutes later and asked me for the hotel admittance card that residents normally get from our condo security guard. Well...guys such as myself who are seen several times a week by the hotel staff have not been asked to produce these cards because the hotel staff knows us pretty well by now and would prefer not to be dealing with these cards. But not this time. Apparently someone's been checking out towels and not returning them.

I typed out a formal complaint to the hotel and gave it to our condo manager but upon giving her the letter I advised her to take it to someone who is VERY HIGH UP in the hotel organization..the owner if possible since I felt this employee's behavior was so consistently atrocious that he's being protected by one of the hotel managers. My two fellow condo co-owners completely backed me up with our manager. Now in this letter I stated that the employee had been consistently unfriendly over a four year period and that his unfriendly attitude was costing the hotel a lot of money from all the bad PR he was causing and that this hotel employee should not be employed where he comes into contact with the hotel guests and should be employed doing something he could handle such as washing the dishes. Our manager filed my complaint with someone she felt she could trust and who was high up in the hotel organization. By this time several weeks had passed. There was one particular Thai male employee in the health club area who speaks good English and who does go out of his way to be friendly to the guests using the fitness area. Our friend informed me that one of the managers had come down to the fitness area where he assembled all the employees in a small group and that this manager then read my letter to everyone. (I never told him I had written a letter).

Meanwhile our condo manager had informed me that normal operating procedure is to issue 1. A verbal warning to an employee, 2. To issue a written warning and 3. Dismissal on the third strike. She suggested to me that she felt this employee's behavior will change. So what happened? The good guy, the friendly Thai who treats nearly all guests with respect and goes out of his way to be friendly to them got a job at another hotel about one to two months later. It's rumored that he was bullied by the unfriendly employee and ostracized by some of the other employees. And of course the unfriendly employee still won't say hello to any of the hotel guests even if the guest says hello to him first.

Now.......according to your rationale that very bad behavior towards customers is excusable on the grounds that so many customers are abusive might have a lot of merit in this case. You see, I'd say about 80 % of all this hotel's guests are Russians and I will say that most of these Russians have very bad manners. So I suppose it's okay for this man to consistently treat the hotel guests like prison inmates because so many Russian guests are ill behaved. And of course it's okay for the hotel management to tolerate its employee's consistent rudeness to all its customers? I disagree with you and all the other apologists for THai bad behavior. The truth is this one incident is only the tip of the iceberg. Far too often the customer is not valued here. The motorcycle mafia is valued far more, or the baht taxi driver who consistently allows pickpocketing to go on in his vehicle, and most certainly the surly employee (because he/she is Thai) is routinely given far greater status than the customer.

Edited February 15, 2011 by jackcorbett

[mark45y]

Men don't come to go go's to hear music or get a towel from a creep in the toilet.

I used to go into TQ's for the music

Gotta admit TQ had good music, especially in the daytime. Where else did the mens room double as a changing room for the dancers? TQ also had mandatory STD checks before they would hire a dancer, good for them as not many check. As small and as crowded as that place was I never ran into trouble there. Maybe there were bouncers there but I don't remember seeing one. It was usually too crowded to throw a punch. The boots cost 5000 baht and the ladies had to purchase their own boots. If my memory is correct TQ was not Thai owned.

Have not been since the fire, don't know if it is the same. It was so crowded it was hard enough to walk out of the place. I can't imagine how someone would have been thrown out. It would have been a show. I think you would have to haul the offending punter up on stage and have the dancers pass him hand over hand out the door.

[meom]

Men don't come to go go's to hear music or get a towel from a creep in the toilet.

I used to go into TQ's for the music

Gotta admit TQ had good music, especially in the daytime. Where else did the mens room double as a changing room for the dancers? TQ also had mandatory STD checks before they would hire a dancer, good for them as not many check. As small and as crowded as that place was I never ran into trouble there. Maybe there were bouncers there but I don't remember seeing one. It was usually too crowded to throw a punch. The boots cost 5000 baht and the ladies had to purchase their own boots. If my memory is correct TQ was not Thai owned.

Have not been since the fire, don't know if it is the same. It was so crowded it was hard enough to walk out of the place. I can't imagine how someone would have been thrown out. It would have been a show. I think you would have to haul the offending punter up on stage and have the dancers pass him hand over hand out the door.

I nearly got thrown out once.

One of the girls at the time (1996) was named Pa, meaning forest or jungle so I asked her how did she come up with a nick name like this and wouldn’t bush be a more fitting nick name.

She took offense to this and we got into a heated argument which was sussed eventually by me requesting the bar to play Tina Turner’s Nut Bush City Limits and buying drinks for everybody.

In those days it was probably one of the better gogo's.

Edited February 15, 2011 by meom

[spidermike007]

Apparently, according to the actual article in the paper, the correct name of the go-go bar in question is SUPER GIRLS A GO-GO. Let's avoid this establishment like the bubonic plague. Let's work real hard to put these fools out of business. I am going to put the word out to my entire network. If everyone who reads these posts does the same, we may be able to dramatically reduce their business, and deny these "wanna be thugs" a livelihood. Now, wouldn't that be gratifying. I would like to make my main purpose in life the ability to deny the Thai mafia a livelihood. That would be fun.

It's not just Super Girls that beats up on its customers. The root cause of this are the Pattaya politicians and police since apparently many Thais feel it's open season on customers or falang who displease them. Bottom line is the authorities don't do jack shit to the culprits. If they severely punished any Thais who gang their victims and/or bars that beat their customers this kind of nonsense would stop. It's the same thing with traffic lights. Perhaps as many as half the Thais in Pattaya run red lights routinely. Why? Because they can. There is a bar not far from where I live which beat up a German I had been drinking with two years ago during Songkran. Its owner had gone out of her way on many occasions to help out a guy who used to rent a condo in my building. The last time he got so drunk he couldn't get off the toilet. One of her girls went inside and cleaned him up and then she provided her car and a driver so he could be delivered safe and sound to his hotel. And yet, during Songkran this German guy apparently slapped a young male relative of the owner. I missed this one by only one hour as the German had been drinking with our little group, we had all been to the bar together, and then the incident happened while one of my friends and I were down the street at another bar. One of my other friends came into the bar and told us what had happened and that the German customer had to be taken to the hospital. I had my last beer back at the guilty bar and while there I asked many questions. Nearly every woman in the bar including the owner were proud of themselves for putting the German customer in the hospital.

As for Super Girls, there's two reasons why you, we cannot make the slightest dent in its business. First......I'd have to say that most of the Walking Street go go bar customers are tourists and therefore do not frequent boards such as this one. The second reason is this. Both Super Girls and its sister club across the street cater to a Japanese and Korean clientele. Especially in Super Girls the girls are trained not to smile at their customers and not to put on a lively dancing show whatsoever. I'd say your typical Japanese or Korean guy prefers a woman who is demure and not very aggressive. More so at Super Girls than Super Babes I'd say one third to one half of the girls have these barbie doll haircuts that apparently these Korean and Japanese customers like. Oftentimes I'd be sitting in Super Girls or Super Babes only to have my drinking buddy remark..."Look around, we are the only two white guys in here." So, even if you convinced every Westerner who comes to Pattaya to boycott these two places, neither of them would even notice.

Thank you Jack Corbett. You make some very good points. And you are probably right about not putting a dent in their business. But, you and I can make it a point to NEVER go into these pissholes, that are owned by these "wanna be mafia insects", and maybe in our own little way we can take something away from these low life forms. Besides, the reality is, we cannot compete with the Japanese or Korean tourists, so why even try.

[jackcorbett]

Thank you Jack Corbett. You make some very good points. And you are probably right about not putting a dent in their business. But, you and I can make it a point to NEVER go into these pissholes, that are owned by these "wanna be mafia insects", and maybe in our own little way we can take something away from these low life forms. Besides, the reality is, we cannot compete with the Japanese or Korean tourists, so why even try.

Spidermake007-------------I certainly agree with you as to your wanting to be true to your convictions. In fact the night the German was hospitalized by the entire bar including the bar owner, an American friend of mine kept calling me to get me to come to the bar. They had food there he told me on the phone. Now this guy, who we called Saint Thomas, was so loyal to this bar that in a one year period of time he bar fined over twenty girls at this bar alone. He'd come in from the U.S. with his bag still in the taxi and have the taxi deposit him directly at the bar before he'd even check into his hotel room. By the time I got there that night all the food was gone, but when I inquired about it the owner went into the back of the bar and had a couple of the women working there scrap up some food for me. This bar owner has a policy of having her girls go sit with the customers even if the customers aren't buying them drinks. When most other beer bars were starting to charge 300 baht bar fines she kept hers down to 200 even during Christmas--New Years. In spite of our all having great experiences with her for one year I boycotted her bar due to their beating the German customer up. So what happened? My friends and neighbors in my condo building kept going there. It would get to the point that my next door neighbor would be drinking with friends at this bar while I went to the next door bar to drink alone or with my girlfriend, etc.

So when I get critical of all "These apologists" for bad Thai behavior I think you will appreciate what I mean now. I can show actual video footage of the German victim an hour or two before his beating when he was cutting up with my friends at a neighboring bar and then tell the story about what happened to him and still, people will continue to go into the bar who have now had a complete briefing on what occurred there. I think a lot of these people behave despicably because we keep apologizing for them or for ourselves when we should take a stand but find it convenient not to do so. And of course, they know the police will either side with them over tourists and expats or simply ignore all these beatings while shrugging their shoulders saying..."This is Thailand."

Edited February 15, 2011 by jackcorbett

[fredtitmus]

i agree innocent guys do get beaten and the behavior of the staff in the go-go bars is out of order sometimes but nobody is talking about the bad behavior of the falang in pattaya,afterall who started this whole circus off in the 1st place????The thais have had 50 years of drunken falang abusing the girls and staff.When you have rude,arrogant,abusive customers who think they are always right and look down on you cos they think they are better than you,how do you want them to behave!

Think about what they have to put up with night in and night out! And then put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself !!!! would this change me for the worst?

Once again.....the customer is always right. Or at least that's the ideal even though we can argue against this point by using say an extreme example of a customer walking into a place and shooting it up with a gun.

Here's just one real life example of the opposite. Next door to our condo building there's a four star hotel. Our condo has an agreement with this hotel that all its residents can use the swimming pools there, its sauna, its towel service, health club, chairs down on the beach etc and for this we have been paying 120,000 baht a year. I've been going to the health club and pool area for four years now and for four years we've all had to put up with one Thai male employee who works in the physical fitness swimming pool area. For four years this employee has never given me or anyone else that I've seen as much as a sawadi krap. A few months ago, I was straddling one of the exercise machines talking to a couple of my fellow condo residents. I had not begun exercising yet and was not even touching the machine. Well, apparently there was a crack in the casing of the machine's undercarriage. No one put a sign on the machine to warn people about the crack. The Thai man came into the exercise room and started yelling and screaming at me in front of my two friends, my girlfriend and two Thai girlfriends of my two friends. Then he went back into the towel service area but he came back a couple minutes later and asked me for the hotel admittance card that residents normally get from our condo security guard. Well...guys such as myself who are seen several times a week by the hotel staff have not been asked to produce these cards because the hotel staff knows us pretty well by now and would prefer not to be dealing with these cards. But not this time. Apparently someone's been checking out towels and not returning them.

I typed out a formal complaint to the hotel and gave it to our condo manager but upon giving her the letter I advised her to take it to someone who is VERY HIGH UP in the hotel organization..the owner if possible since I felt this employee's behavior was so consistently atrocious that he's being protected by one of the hotel managers. My two fellow condo co-owners completely backed me up with our manager. Now in this letter I stated that the employee had been consistently unfriendly over a four year period and that his unfriendly attitude was costing the hotel a lot of money from all the bad PR he was causing and that this hotel employee should not be employed where he comes into contact with the hotel guests and should be employed doing something he could handle such as washing the dishes. Our manager filed my complaint with someone she felt she could trust and who was high up in the hotel organization. By this time several weeks had passed. There was one particular Thai male employee in the health club area who speaks good English and who does go out of his way to be friendly to the guests using the fitness area. Our friend informed me that one of the managers had come down to the fitness area where he assembled all the employees in a small group and that this manager then read my letter to everyone. (I never told him I had written a letter).

Meanwhile our condo manager had informed me that normal operating procedure is to issue 1. A verbal warning to an employee, 2. To issue a written warning and 3. Dismissal on the third strike. She suggested to me that she felt this employee's behavior will change. So what happened? The good guy, the friendly Thai who treats nearly all guests with respect and goes out of his way to be friendly to them got a job at another hotel about one to two months later. It's rumored that he was bullied by the unfriendly employee and ostracized by some of the other employees. And of course the unfriendly employee still won't say hello to any of the hotel guests even if the guest says hello to him first.

Now.......according to your rationale that very bad behavior towards customers is excusable on the grounds that so many customers are abusive might have a lot of merit in this case. You see, I'd say about 80 % of all this hotel's guests are Russians and I will say that most of these Russians have very bad manners. So I suppose it's okay for this man to consistently treat the hotel guests like prison inmates because so many Russian guests are ill behaved. And of course it's okay for the hotel management to tolerate its employee's consistent rudeness to all its customers? I disagree with you and all the other apologists for THai bad behavior. The truth is this one incident is only the tip of the iceberg. Far too often the customer is not valued here. The motorcycle mafia is valued far more, or the baht taxi driver who consistently allows pickpocketing to go on in his vehicle, and most certainly the surly employee (because he/she is Thai) is routinely given far greater status than the customer.

im not being funny jack but maybe you should move,pattaya is a magnet for lowlifes all over the world,i heard on the news a few months back that when the FBI cant find a criminal they go looking in 3 places las vegus,bangkok and PATTAYA.Im not saying your like this,you are probably a good fellow and i know there are plenty of good guys down there but the service you get is not the same as in other parts of thailand.I live in khon Kaen(isaan) and they know how to treat there customers,i have also spent time in other places in the north/north east and its the same not like Pattaya.I was talking to a thai friend the other day about pattaya and she said its not part of thailand anymore and thai people bypass it,if i say i have been there they look at me differantly so i dont tell thai people anymore.My tgf wont go there that is why we are going to Hua Hin for our beach holiday.

I personally dont hate Pattaya and i had some good times there with my mates and would go there again but i know the service is differant and if any mates from England want to go into the go-go bars,i will give them a good briefing before we go in but i wouldnt spend much time in there and get back to a bar near our hotel.

I think if those Hi-so girls and the models had been in dancing club in Khon Kaen it would have been handled differantly and they wouldnt have got beaten up because the mentality is totally differant,im not saying that thai people give the best service in the world but i dont have no complaints up here.

[agord]

If you act like a stupid, arrogant, drunken ass,

you can get in trouble in any bar, anywhere in the world.

Sheboygan or Pattaya. Oshkosh or London.

End of story.

Thank You!!

"Trouble" what's your definition of trouble? Trouble here means a beating and trip to the emergency room. I don't think that's what trouble means in any civilized country or you would be the new owner of the bar and the staff would be behind bars.

[jackcorbett]

i agree innocent guys do get beaten and the behavior of the staff in the go-go bars is out of order sometimes but nobody is talking about the bad behavior of the falang in pattaya,afterall who started this whole circus off in the 1st place????The thais have had 50 years of drunken falang abusing the girls and staff.When you have rude,arrogant,abusive customers who think they are always right and look down on you cos they think they are better than you,how do you want them to behave!

Think about what they have to put up with night in and night out! And then put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself !!!! would this change me for the worst?

Once again.....the customer is always right. Or at least that's the ideal even though we can argue against this point by using say an extreme example of a customer walking into a place and shooting it up with a gun.

Here's just one real life example of the opposite. Next door to our condo building there's a four star hotel. Our condo has an agreement with this hotel that all its residents can use the swimming pools there, its sauna, its towel service, health club, chairs down on the beach etc and for this we have been paying 120,000 baht a year. I've been going to the health club and pool area for four years now and for four years we've all had to put up with one Thai male employee who works in the physical fitness swimming pool area. For four years this employee has never given me or anyone else that I've seen as much as a sawadi krap. A few months ago, I was straddling one of the exercise machines talking to a couple of my fellow condo residents. I had not begun exercising yet and was not even touching the machine. Well, apparently there was a crack in the casing of the machine's undercarriage. No one put a sign on the machine to warn people about the crack. The Thai man came into the exercise room and started yelling and screaming at me in front of my two friends, my girlfriend and two Thai girlfriends of my two friends. Then he went back into the towel service area but he came back a couple minutes later and asked me for the hotel admittance card that residents normally get from our condo security guard. Well...guys such as myself who are seen several times a week by the hotel staff have not been asked to produce these cards because the hotel staff knows us pretty well by now and would prefer not to be dealing with these cards. But not this time. Apparently someone's been checking out towels and not returning them.

I typed out a formal complaint to the hotel and gave it to our condo manager but upon giving her the letter I advised her to take it to someone who is VERY HIGH UP in the hotel organization..the owner if possible since I felt this employee's behavior was so consistently atrocious that he's being protected by one of the hotel managers. My two fellow condo co-owners completely backed me up with our manager. Now in this letter I stated that the employee had been consistently unfriendly over a four year period and that his unfriendly attitude was costing the hotel a lot of money from all the bad PR he was causing and that this hotel employee should not be employed where he comes into contact with the hotel guests and should be employed doing something he could handle such as washing the dishes. Our manager filed my complaint with someone she felt she could trust and who was high up in the hotel organization. By this time several weeks had passed. There was one particular Thai male employee in the health club area who speaks good English and who does go out of his way to be friendly to the guests using the fitness area. Our friend informed me that one of the managers had come down to the fitness area where he assembled all the employees in a small group and that this manager then read my letter to everyone. (I never told him I had written a letter).

Meanwhile our condo manager had informed me that normal operating procedure is to issue 1. A verbal warning to an employee, 2. To issue a written warning and 3. Dismissal on the third strike. She suggested to me that she felt this employee's behavior will change. So what happened? The good guy, the friendly Thai who treats nearly all guests with respect and goes out of his way to be friendly to them got a job at another hotel about one to two months later. It's rumored that he was bullied by the unfriendly employee and ostracized by some of the other employees. And of course the unfriendly employee still won't say hello to any of the hotel guests even if the guest says hello to him first.

Now.......according to your rationale that very bad behavior towards customers is excusable on the grounds that so many customers are abusive might have a lot of merit in this case. You see, I'd say about 80 % of all this hotel's guests are Russians and I will say that most of these Russians have very bad manners. So I suppose it's okay for this man to consistently treat the hotel guests like prison inmates because so many Russian guests are ill behaved. And of course it's okay for the hotel management to tolerate its employee's consistent rudeness to all its customers? I disagree with you and all the other apologists for THai bad behavior. The truth is this one incident is only the tip of the iceberg. Far too often the customer is not valued here. The motorcycle mafia is valued far more, or the baht taxi driver who consistently allows pickpocketing to go on in his vehicle, and most certainly the surly employee (because he/she is Thai) is routinely given far greater status than the customer.

im not being funny jack but maybe you should move,pattaya is a magnet for lowlifes all over the world,i heard on the news a few months back that when the FBI cant find a criminal they go looking in 3 places las vegus,bangkok and PATTAYA.Im not saying your like this,you are probably a good fellow and i know there are plenty of good guys down there but the service you get is not the same as in other parts of thailand.I live in khon Kaen(isaan) and they know how to treat there customers,i have also spent time in other places in the north/north east and its the same not like Pattaya.I was talking to a thai friend the other day about pattaya and she said its not part of thailand anymore and thai people bypass it,if i say i have been there they look at me differantly so i dont tell thai people anymore.My tgf wont go there that is why we are going to Hua Hin for our beach holiday.

I personally dont hate Pattaya and i had some good times there with my mates and would go there again but i know the service is differant and if any mates from England want to go into the go-go bars,i will give them a good briefing before we go in but i wouldnt spend much time in there and get back to a bar near our hotel.

I think if those Hi-so girls and the models had been in dancing club in Khon Kaen it would have been handled differantly and they wouldnt have got beaten up because the mentality is totally differant,im not saying that thai people give the best service in the world but i dont have no complaints up here.

Well thank god I get great service from my girlfriend. All kidding aside, I will have to agree with you. Pattaya is not Thailand. I'm heading for Krabi and Phi Phi for ten days at Songkran to get out of the mainstream and I was comparing notes with one of the German residents here who is thinking of getting a serviced apartment at Ao Nang Beach. He loves swimming and beaches and so do I and this beach although close to our condos is not fit for swimming. In fact I've put it to a few people pretty much the same way you put it here.....in my words, however, "Pattaya because it is what it is attracts the worse from everywhere, Thais, Europeans, Americans etc". However as idyllic as the Krabi area seems one needs to consider the pluses of this area, starting out with the medical care at Bangkok Hospital, Pattaya. I'm still working on Jack Corbett's 12 Wonders of Pattaya so there's a lot more there. The infrastructure is pretty good here with reasonably fast internet service for example. And I've recently heard that CAT will be offering very high speed fiber optics internet and Pattaya is to be the first city to get it. There's some excellent bookstores, great shopping, lots of great restaurants, we are just one hour from a great international airport, and although I've been stating here that the customer is not number one much of the time, I do get excellent service at most of the places I frequent. Most important would be the service I personally get here at our condo from the staff. So all in all in spite of its PROMINENT warts, the package as a whole is better than about anywhere else I can think of including Krabi. That being said the place still is a Sodom and Gomorrah. We must be objective about that and not paint the place in lily white colors. Or excuse bad behavior such as beating up one's customers or the police behaving as predators instead of serving and protecting.

Edited February 15, 2011 by jackcorbett

[agord]

After giving this some thought, I have come to the staggering conclusion that these bars are so hooked up with the police ,that they do not fear them in the slightest. Therefore they can do whatever they want. Now I can understand cracking bottles over the heads of farangs who have a bill dispute, this has been going on for years. But even I am amazed at them kicking ass on hiso Thai women... Has some fundamental change occured ??

... fundamental change? ... perhaps we've reached the tipping point ... Thais now realise that they are perfectly safe to target foreign visitors to Thailand, without fear of legal repercusions.

... is there now developing an "open season" on foreigners in Thailand? ... (think Jamaica ... once a beautiful tourist destination ... now a dump)

We will most likely see Vietnam pass up Thailand for tourism and I think the Thais will only have themselves to blame. Vietnam has laws in place to stop any kind of violence against tourists and they don't play around when one of their own crosses the line unlike here where Thais are never wrong. Having traveled through Vietnam and spending some time there I would have to say that the customer service is much better as well. Customer service in Thailand is abysmal period.

From what I read in the article these people did nothing to warrant physical violence.

[Nisa]

If you act like a stupid, arrogant, drunken ass,

you can get in trouble in any bar, anywhere in the world.

Sheboygan or Pattaya. Oshkosh or London.

End of story.

Thank You!!

"Trouble" what's your definition of trouble? Trouble here means a beating and trip to the emergency room. I don't think that's what trouble means in any civilized country or you would be the new owner of the bar and the staff would be behind bars.

Good thing there is a rule about speaking English on the forum and not "Pattaya" as it could cause a lot of confusion

[agord]

If you act like a stupid, arrogant, drunken ass,

you can get in trouble in any bar, anywhere in the world.

Sheboygan or Pattaya. Oshkosh or London.

End of story.

Thank You!!

"Trouble" what's your definition of trouble? Trouble here means a beating and trip to the emergency room. I don't think that's what trouble means in any civilized country or you would be the new owner of the bar and the staff would be behind bars.

Good thing there is a rule about speaking English on the forum and not "Pattaya" as it could cause a lot of confusion

Speaking of confusion...what are you talking about? "goo thing there is a rule about speaking English on the forum and not "Pattaya"????????????? what

[agord]

An awful lot of attention is being made out of a bar fight where nobody was seriously injured. Are we really going to pretend this doesn't happen all the time in the west or that bouncers/employees don't rough up customers who show disrespect? Bar fights like this would never make the news back home and if they were foreigners who got the beating (or girls on girls fights) it is doubtful the police would put much work into the case. But once again let us pretend Thailand and its people are so terrible.

Pattaya is like a 7 day a week Mardi Gras with probably more bars per square kilometer than most any other place. What makes this story so strange is that it is not an an occurrence that happens multiple times a day..

There are pile ons where the victim is ganged but in my experience this is very unusual. Bouncers do strike their customers at times in the U.S. but it is common knowledge that they shouldn't do it. And there are both criminal and civil penalties in the U.S. and they are enforced.

There are civil penalties here to as well as criminal that ARE enforced in Thailand. In fact if you have a police report of an incident and you believe they are not doing anything then bring it to the prosecutor office and they are bound by law to take action.

Pile on fights happen A HELL OF A LOT MORE IN THE US than in Thailand. Not just because it is a bigger country either. Outsiders are often jumped by bar staff, groups of a hiso crowd (actor, musician ...) or a particular gang. The times in makes the papers is only when somebody is killed or word gets out because a famous person was involved.

I think just this week alone Jamie Foxx and Shia LaBeouf were both in bar fights with multiple people involved and nobody went to jail or got arrested. This is just 2 incidents I have heard about because these two happen to be Hollywood stars and their were photogs at both bars who brought it to TMZ's attention.

But please let us not pretend that people don't stick up for their peers against outsiders which farangs are. Also, I am not going back to the original story but the folks who got their behind's kick numbers like 7 right? So, I guess in another fight the bar staff would all keep calm except for 7 to make sure that it was an equal and fair fight taking place in their establishment.

Yes if they were not such pussies.

[jackcorbett]

After giving this some thought, I have come to the staggering conclusion that these bars are so hooked up with the police ,that they do not fear them in the slightest. Therefore they can do whatever they want. Now I can understand cracking bottles over the heads of farangs who have a bill dispute, this has been going on for years. But even I am amazed at them kicking ass on hiso Thai women... Has some fundamental change occured ??

... fundamental change? ... perhaps we've reached the tipping point ... Thais now realise that they are perfectly safe to target foreign visitors to Thailand, without fear of legal repercusions.

... is there now developing an "open season" on foreigners in Thailand? ... (think Jamaica ... once a beautiful tourist destination ... now a dump)

We will most likely see Vietnam pass up Thailand for tourism and I think the Thais will only have themselves to blame. Vietnam has laws in place to stop any kind of violence against tourists and they don't play around when one of their own crosses the line unlike here where Thais are never wrong. Having traveled through Vietnam and spending some time there I would have to say that the customer service is much better as well. Customer service in Thailand is abysmal period.

From what I read in the article these people did nothing to warrant physical violence.

Been to Vietnam four times in the past three years and I most definitely agree with you. I've dealt with two hotels, one in Ho Chi Minh City and the other in Hanoi and I can go on and on about their customer service. Vietnam adopts the long term point of view (which served them well to get we Americans out in the early 1970's) and now it appears they are using the same kind of long term strategic planning on getting Americans, back or any country they can develop a relationship with that will result in greater trade and tourism. Have also found their tour guides to be extremely well qualified and willing to go beyond the call of duty. I am totally amazed as back in 1969 I came within a hair of getting drafted and quite possibly being sent over there to fight Communists and then on this last visit find that in many cases prices are given in American dollars before they are given out in Vietnamese dong, can drink Budweisser beer in the pubs there (but can't get it here in Thailand), see far fewer Russians there than in Thailand, and see lots of evidence of Western investment and goods. Yes...Vietnam will be a very interesting country to watch.

[Nisa]

"Trouble" what's your definition of trouble? Trouble here means a beating and trip to the emergency room. I don't think that's what trouble means in any civilized country or you would be the new owner of the bar and the staff would be behind bars.

Good thing there is a rule about speaking English on the forum and not "Pattaya" as it could cause a lot of confusion

Speaking of confusion...what are you talking about? "goo thing there is a rule about speaking English on the forum and not "Pattaya"????????????? what

If the joke/sarcasm went above your head ... reread what you wrote and my response.

[fredtitmus]

Another heart warming Pattaya story

is there any harm warming stories that come from pattaya? i have heard a few people say that pattaya is not a part of thailand anymore.

Pattaya is a part of Issan. I would tell you some heart warming stories about Pattaya but there are too many jerks on Thai Visa that make fun of cripples or handicapped people because they are different than themselves.

dont know where you get your info from but pattaya is NOT a part of issan.