Do Issan people live in the real world.

[jamescollister]

New restaurant opened about 4 weeks ago, in a near by town, sign says open 9 am to midnight. Been to the local market 3 times, place was never open.

Get the wife to phone, open 4 pm, so today rock at 5 pm, don't open till 6 pm.
Window advertisement says hamburgers, pizza and beer, no hamburgers or pizza, menu says draft beer, don't have.

Think broke next month and shut up shop.

[Dragonfly]

yep, typical

[stroller]

Farang think too mut.

[HuangLao]

Isaan is the real world.

[NamPikToot]

So Jim what did you have?

[jamescollister]

So Jim what did you have?

Some Italian shit, pretty sure the guy went to the 7/11 2 doors down, micro waved it and stuck on the plate.

[uncle junior]

merda con formagio

[Maanaam]

Think broke next month and shut up shop.

If they are extraordinarily ambitious, they'll adjust the menu to try and revive business, try that out for a couple of weeks but still not operate the business sensibly, and then shut up shop.
They didn't happen to open up right next door to a restaurant selling hamburgers, pizza and beer, did they? That would be another common MO of prospective peasant entrepeneurs.

[bowie]

The "worthlessness" of the information found on signs isn't limited to Issan. Need something? ask the locals, they may, or may not, have correct information.

Quite experienced with the the Thai version of a "scavenger" hunt.

[Maanaam]

Quite experienced with the the Thai version of a "scavenger" hunt.

Giving directions is not a Thai strong point. And nobody seems to use street or road names, just "go to the 7 and go some more and there's a soi near a wat...it's that soi". No mention of left or right, north or south just one or two landmarks.
I posted a video on language on the Youtube thread which may go some way in explaining this.


A neighbour, who used to bake bready things every day and sell them wholesale stopped doing it. I don't know why. Anyway, he and his wife started a jok and kanom jeeb stall on the main road at the end of the soi. On the footpath, tucked behind some plants, they were invisible to the traffic and werren't getting much business. I suggested they invest in a sign to put out on the road so people could see and stop in time. He said he can't afford it yet and will get a sign once he's saved some money. Well, of course he never saved anything because he wasn't getting customers, so after a few weeks gave up. I doubt he recouped the investment in the steamer and gas ring.

I see it all the time. A business will open up with fanfare and usually too much stock, but fail to open consistantly, give poor or miserly service (eg I bought some cashews from a street vendor who had them in bulk and sold by the 1/4 kilo. I wanted a kilo and she measured it out on the scale, taking off at first 3, then one, then carefully one more chashew making very sure I didn't get even one cashew over the kilo. Her 6 or 7 bulk sacks of cashews will not be sold for months. They don't seem to realise that one or two cashews over to the customer makes no difference to the profit line but does make a difference to the customer's attitude towards the vendor.)
The other common thing is the copy cat shops opening in competition close to a once-successful shop, ending up with both going bust.

There's a fairly large complex near me. The main shop, a sort of variety store, has an inventory that boggles the mind. From the usual stationary, kitchen ware, clocks and umbrellas, they have a huge amount of really unusual stuff that may never sell. I'm always amused when I go there. Bottles of hydrochloric acid, ship's life rings, a guard dog trainers thick protective suit, odd laboratory glassware (the unusual things as seen in Frankensteins lab), some sort of dot matrix printer with a bed about a meter wide, lots of weird stuff I can't recognise. Why? Why would the store's buyer get these things in? This is Hatyai, remember, population of only 150,000 spread out over an area that makes Hatyai the 3rd biggest city in Thailand (apparently). Where's the customer base that will buy life buoys? We're 30 kms to the sea, there's no boat owners here. Dog handler's protective suits?

[bowie]

Giving directions is not a Thai strong point

Bingo on the above post - hitting the nail on the head

[Mozzbie47]

Farang think too mut.

[Neverna]

[Latindancer]

Bottles of hydrochloric acid, ship's life rings, a guard dog trainers thick protective suit, odd laboratory glassware (the unusual things as seen in Frankensteins lab), some sort of dot matrix printer with a bed about a meter wide, lots of weird stuff I can't recognise.

Classic !

But I wonder if they were somehow bought at some kind of really cut-price auction, and the store owner has had them there for years, just in case someone bought them ?

Why don't you just ask, through a Thai friend ?

[Maanaam]

And by the way, that kind of thing is not limited to Isaan. It's a Thai thing.

Isaan and the south, at least, but I'll easily take your word that it's nation-wide.

[Maanaam]

Classic !

But I wonder if they were somehow bought at some kind of really cut-price auction, and the store owner has had them there for years, just in case someone bought them ?

Why don't you just ask, through a Thai friend ?

I've been browsing the two floors of that shop for nigh on 6 years and unless I missed it, the dog protective suit is a recent addition. Some of the electronics are more than a decade old. The life buoys have been there from before my first day browsing. They've got scale model plastic human skeletons, the pen section has the biggest range of writing utensils I've ever seen anywhere in the world! Hatyai, FFS. It's not as if they would get a thousand shoppers a day, all looking for "something different to my Bic biro".
The place is owned and run by an old Chinese lady. She's a classic, too. Eagle eye on the cashiers for every transaction. She'll scuttle from one register to the next as a customer goes to pay at a different checkout to the one she's observing. My wife had a part time job there when she was a student. Loathes the old lady. Apparently a scrooge and a power-lorder. Will make demands of the staff simply to show her supreme power over them.
But, apparently very rich, so the old lady is doing something right. I just can't help feeling the business could be a lot more efficient.

[Luigi]

Genius, really.

Open up a crappy restaurant.

Stick up great adverts/signs for stuff they don't have.

Then not only do you get the normal customers for a crap restaurant. You get people coming in for the stuff on the signs, and when they're told they don't have it, they more often than not order some of the normal crap.


More customers than normal with no extra menu or dishes.


They are a clever lot.


Farangs can't see it, and think that they're stoopid.

[NamPikToot]

[QUOTE=Maanaam;3884993 The place is owned and run by an old Chinese lady. She's a classic, too. Eagle eye on the cashiers for every transaction. She'll scuttle from one register to the next as a customer goes to pay at a different checkout to the one she's observing. .[/QUOTE]

They should put the price up on everything then it'll all sail out the door, its a well know Thai retail fact. And if the first price rise doesn't attract the punters the next two price rises are a sure thing.

[Pragmatic]

Thais are dreamers .

[NamPikToot]

Thais are dreamers .

And magpies, they love shiny things....

[bowie]

[QUOTE=Luigi;3885050]Farangs can't see it, and think that they're stoopid.[/QUOTE

People are stupid - I do walk away when what is shown on the sign or menu is a "no have", and, they show me the "stuff" they do have. "Bait and Switch" you can only get away with it when the general population allows it. Family gets frustrated with me, they consider it normal. When I ask them why they put up with it? they draw a blank...

[jabir]

[QUOTE=bowie;3885081]

Farangs can't see it, and think that they're stoopid.[/QUOTE

People are stupid - I do walk away when what is shown on the sign or menu is a "no have", and, they show me the "stuff" they do have. "Bait and Switch" you can only get away with it when the general population allows it. Family gets frustrated with me, they consider it normal. When I ask them why they put up with it? they draw a blank...

To paraphrase a former gf, everything in Thailand is as it should be, or it would be different.

[jamescollister]

Go to a restaurant in the same town, Thai food once or every 2nd week, good place, been eating there for 6 or 7 years.

Won't be going back to a burger, pizza place that doesn't sell burgers or pizza, their lose not mine.

[NamPikToot]

Go to a restaurant in the same town, Thai food once or every 2nd week, good place, been eating there for 6 or 7 years. Won't be going back to a burger, pizza place that doesn't sell burgers or pizza, their lose not mine.

Thailand does throw up disappointments like that, especially where western food and the sticks is concerned. still Jim no need to emigrate as a result, chin up old chap.

[Neverna]