The ATM is complaining

Dear Hillary,

Can you help me please. Every time I get serious with one of these Thai girls, the relationship goes sour in about three months - sometime shorter. I am not a stingy person, pay the girlfriends well (30,000 baht a month salary), and after a couple of months the hand is out for more and if I don’t cough up then they’re off. What should you do with these girls? It costs money to buy them out of the bar and then it’s money, money, money. Don’t they think of anything else? I find it all very disappointing. I look after them and in the end they just kick me in the teeth. Are they all like this?

ATM

Dear ATM,

I don’t know what you are complaining about, Petal. You jump into the lion’s den and then whinge about being bitten. Let me ask you - what are you paying them a “salary” for? What “work” are they doing for this “salary”? And do they pay tax on it? While you have a price on everything, they will treat you like the ATM you volunteered to be. Look for a girlfriend away from the bars, ATM. You should be a wake-up to that scene by now. There’s enough books written on the subject. Try reading some instead of throwing good money after bad. However, if you have this dreadful need to lavish money on people, some champagne and chocolates will be very well accepted at this end. Make sure they are addressed to me, so that the boss’ son doesn’t think they are his.

Visa wanted

Dear Hillary,

I’ve just arrived from Australia on holidays and have met this rather gorgeous woman who works in Bangkok in a bank. She says she is 35, which is good for me as I’m just 30. She took the week off work, after meeting me, so she must feel like I do. I would really like to take her back to Australia after my holiday runs out in a couple of weeks, but my mates tell me there’s a problem with visas so she can’t get in. This isn’t fair if that’s the case. I got in here with a no fuss visa, so why are the Aussies so biased against Thai girls?

Visa Wanted

Dear Visa Wanted,

Talk about rushing things! Do you have some sort of terminal disease, Petal, and have to do everything today as there is no tomorrow? You’ve just got here, you’ve just met the girl of your dreams probably yesterday, or was it the day before? Now you want to take her to Australia with you, where you can both settle down and raise puppies. Pedro the Swift has nothing on you.

Now sit down and start looking at the real situation. You hardly know this woman, and if she says she is 35, then she’s probably 45 and old enough to be your mother. Why should Australia give you (her) a visa when your relationship will very quickly go sour. How do I know that? Well, relationships built on a week of passion in Thailand and then transplanted to a foreign country just don’t work, Petal. Thai women get bored and lonely very quickly when in a foreign country and away from all their kinfolk and khao tom. Enjoy your time here, but it’s a holiday romance and treat it as that. You say you are just 30 - somehow I think you are fibbing. 20 would be closer to the mark.

Stocks and Shares problems

Dear Hillary,

The stock market is falling. The SET is going down. The bars will be closed for the elections. Some party will win and another party will lose and Thailand will become unstable again. Earthquakes everywhere. What with all the doom and gloom internationally about the world going into a recession again, rice prices through the roof, petrol becoming a luxury, do you think this will produce an increase in costs in the red light areas in Thailand? Will this affect tourism and make things even worse? What is the answer?

Check Bin

Dear Check Bin,

I have to admit you’ve got me a little confused here. I am not sure what you mean, Petal. “Red light areas”? Do you mean the areas under the traffic lights, but they also go orange and green and are ignored by all road users as being unimportant, so I presume that wasn’t what you meant. If you mean the bar areas, then you should be more specific, Bin. With rice, the staple food in Thailand doubling in price, one must expect that beer, the staple drink in the bar areas, will also be going up in price. I cannot think of any other costs in the bar areas, as prostitution is against the law, and therefore does not happen. Perhaps donations to one’s favorite Buffalo Rehabilitation Unit (BRU) may have to be increased, but this I am not sure of. I suggest discreet questions to the Mamasans might yield better results than asking me, after all, I don’t really follow the international stocks and share indices.