Stumpy, I was referring to senior management roles in blue chip companies manufacturing globally branded products in Thailand. None is Thai, according to my experience, and that encompasses American, German and Antipodean companies. Not your piddling niche produced stuff. The Japs keep it in house too not least because they have a brand to protect.
And shooting the breeze in that Godawful banal way Seppos so cherish in the course of navigating an anodyne day does not constitute friendship, A- Hole, you boring tit. Similarly, pseudo bonding in a bar before the inevitable polarity kicks in and everyone separates back into ethnic groups ain’t being friends, Armstrong. You can be friendly without any true notion of friendship.

But really, friends are but enemies in disguise, in most cases.