BIZ BUZZ
English scary for Thais

BANGKOK: -- Want to hurt your competitors' recruitment efforts? Perhaps, just spreading a rumour that the rival company strictly demands fluent English language skills may be enough.

Artirat Charukitpipat, chief human resources officer at Bumrungrad International Hospital, told a recent seminar organised by the Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration that Thailand's leading hospital group used to consider setting a minimum TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) score for candidates like some other leading Thai companies in other industries. But it had to abandon the idea. The reason?

"Some candidates were scared to apply for jobs at Bumrungrad. Because they had heard that we had TOEIC requirements. The rumours perhaps came from our competitors," said Artirat, smiling at his apparent joke.

To counter the "rumours", Bumrungrad has redefined its recruitment communication to let candidates know that if they work with the hospital, they will be provided English training.

SCB and year of the goat

In the Year of Goat, bad luck is expected for those born in the years of Ox, Goat, Dragon and Dog. Well, is that going to affect Siam Commercial Bank too, after the promotion of two top executives.

Arthid Nanthawithyam, 47, and Yol Phokasub, 53, senior executive vice presidents, were named as the next deputy executive chairman and president, pending the approval of shareholders in April.

Born in the Year of Goat and Ox, respectively, both have experienced strong currents even before taking over their new responsibilities - the embezzlement scandal at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL) and the recent fire at the bank's headquarters. The incidents affected Arthid more than Yol.

Fires at the bank's headquarters are rare, given that they are the offices of top executives and home to systems that ensure smooth nationwide operations. Worse, SCB's headquarters has been considered an intelligent building, expected to have a good fire-prevention system.

Originating on the 10th floor, the fire eventually damaged the ceiling of an office on the 9th floor. Yes, the office belongs to Arthid.

The banker admitted that he should have heeded the notion that this year could be bad for him. A Chinese fortune-teller had earlier advised him to avoid bad luck by moving his office to an upper floor. Another advice is he must not be in Thailand during the Chinese New Year, which falls on February 19.

He could heed the first advice easily. With his promotion, he would secure an office on the 32nd floor.

He is also looking at a place to visit as the Chinese New Year arrives. Well, it will have to be somewhere close to Thailand, as he is now the bank's spokesman responsible for updating the media.

After the two incidents, he may not dare to ignore the fortune-teller's advice.

Contributed by Sucheera Pinijparakarn and Pichaya Changsorn

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/English-scary-for-Thais-30254160.html


-- The Nation 2015-02-16

Exactly who I want to handle my money: a banker who makes his decisions based on his horoscope.

"The banker admitted that he should have heeded the notion that this year could be bad for him. A Chinese fortune-teller had earlier advised him to avoid bad luck by moving his office to an upper floor. Another advice is he must not be in Thailand during the Chinese New Year, which falls on February 19."

ooooooooooookkkkkkkkkkkkaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Time to change banks.

What did this article just go completely whack right after the hospital story....

This is a typically conflicted Thai article. Starts off discussing the paranoia associated with Thai hires needing English skills. Then quickly subverts itself by centering on the bad luck of certain Chinese animals and SCB's president's office fire. Typical disjointed Thai newspaper writing. A story not worthy of front page news.

Anything that comes from outside of Thailand is scary to them. That is why they will always be proud of their tuk tuk and I will be proud of my space station.

Why nees por supeak Ungit, falang come to my cundy chous supeak Thai, dit id my home.Supeak Ungit welly difficoont.

Year of the ox, goat, and dragon. Do people really believe this stupid mumbo-jumbo promoted by weaselly charlatans?

So rest assured folks that when you go to a certain self proclaimed international standard medical facility if your needs are spoken about in English you may well come out of that facility in a more serious condition than when you went in,you may even come out as a cadaver you know. !!!

Medical tourism hub

English not spoken here, no TOEIC needed, one dreads to think what other languages are also somewhat lacking,

How can they dare to put down the KMITL scam to "bad luck"? TIT

Fatfather

How can they dare to put down the KMITL scam to "bad luck"?

Bad luck that they didn't get away with that scam?

What did this article just go completely whack right after the hospital story....

Because they merged two non related articles to fill the space.

English scary for Thais

BANGKOK: -- Want to hurt your competitors' recruitment efforts? Perhaps, just spreading a rumour that the rival company strictly demands fluent English language skills may be enough.

Artirat Charukitpipat, chief human resources officer at Bumrungrad International Hospital, [...]

SCB and year of the goat

In the Year of Goat, bad luck is expected for those born in the years of Ox, Goat, Dragon and Dog.

Correct formatting.

http://boingboing.net/2015/01/03/your-scientifically-accurate-h.html

What is with all the crap about Chinese horoscopes and fortune tellers? What does that have to do with English?

I believe TOEIC isn't recognised in UK at present - funnily enough, due to corruption in the passing process.....should fit Thailand down to the ground then?

Strange how these people, so proud of being Thai, take notice of Chinese mumbo-jumbo.

He meant Year of the Scapegoat surely???

Anything that comes from outside of Thailand is scary to them. That is why they will always be proud of their tuk tuk and I will be proud of my space station.

Tuk tuks are from India.

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Strange how these people, so proud of being Thai, take notice of Chinese mumbo-jumbo.

Chinese Thais run the place. Thailand has been racially colonised by the Chinese. They're insidious and have been quite successful at it in many other countries.

Not strange at all.

Odd how they say the year of the Goat will be unlucky.. And then list events that have happened in the year of the Horse..

This is a typically conflicted Thai article. Starts off discussing the paranoia associated with Thai hires needing English skills. Then quickly subverts itself by centering on the bad luck of certain Chinese animals and SCB's president's office fire. Typical disjointed Thai newspaper writing. A story not worthy of front page news.

And that is one of the reasons why Thais are scared to learn English!

I Thai the structure and the way people are used to communication makes it easy to wobble around chaining irrelevant issues circumventing the initial subject, in English you're forced to stay on the subject.

He meant Year of the Scapegoat surely???

Indeed, witty for this time on a monday

Just another masterpiece of "Thai journalism". My glass bowl says: If Sucheera Pinijparakarn and Pichaya Changsorn continue to contribute crap like this they may be unemployed before the year of the goat ends.

Btw. how about a headline like: Learning scary for Thais

...Thais are afraid of English...? If they don't speak it, why are they afraid of learning it? Shocking report. Asia has 4 billion people currently more or less, just how many speak English? Europe has 778 millon people. How many speak English?

O.K., stupid questions.

This is a typically conflicted Thai article. Starts off discussing the paranoia associated with Thai hires needing English skills. Then quickly subverts itself by centering on the bad luck of certain Chinese animals and SCB's president's office fire. Typical disjointed Thai newspaper writing. A story not worthy of front page news.

And that is one of the reasons why Thais are scared to learn English!

I Thai the structure and the way people are used to communication makes it easy to wobble around chaining irrelevant issues circumventing the initial subject, in English you're forced to stay on the subject.

I expect the news writers get paid by the number of words they write...more words, more money....doesn't really matter if the words make sense because it's English...only farangs will be reading the story which is in English so who really cares. So, just throw a bunch of stuff (related or unrelated) into a news article and then go get paid.

English is easy. Just watch this video...

What nonsense!!! Trying to make it acceptable to not require English language skills as a job qualification requisite. I've been in HR almost 10 years in Thailand now. No employer that I have worked for accepts anything less than confidence in English, both written and verbal. Not just Thais, but any foreign national as well. Frankly, a candidate who doesn't have the ability to properly communicate in English is worthless to an MNC, except at the manual labor skill level.

Exactly who I want to handle my money: a banker who makes his decisions based on his horoscope.

How about those that believe in a guy that was crucified and came back to life. I find that even more unbelieving then taking advice from a horoscope.

On topics like this only atheist should be able to comment because religious people per definition are bias and always think that their kind of crazy is normal.

Thais are pretty scared to do anything "new" which falls outside of the solipsistic and inward looking/self-insulating comfort zone they have.

They will also tell you that Thailand has never been invaded, although in 1941 they just let the japs walk right in (or land in boats) so that they could get to Singapore via Malaya. Wasn't the Railway of Death something else that the japs were allowed to make, using Allied troops as well as Chinese and Thai labour?

Now, Thais look at me with horror when I say I can only use Taxi-Thai and how much I loathe most of the junk which passes for Thai food ("the best food in the world from the most fabulous and smiling country in the universe").

What a crock of @@@@.

I have seen some really poor articles from The Nation recently and this is up there with the worst. Are they using local students to write articles for them as part of the dissertations?

Neither of the two totally unconnected elements of the article are newsworthy.

What is going on at this newspaper? Filling it with articles that won't upset the junta?