30 November
Today I taught Nong Amy. Her house is just around the corner from Pi At’s house so I arranged to see her and Pi Nun beforehand. Theirs is a very pleasant housing estate not far from Lad Phrao. It is surrounded by a moat and guarded at all four entrances by smart uniformed security men. The sois are lined with mango trees and bougainvilleas and no beggars or stray dogs are allowed. It would suit me just fine. I noticed one house near Pi At’s was for rent. 100,000 baht per month.
I arrived at Pi At’s house and she brought me fresh strawberry juice made from Chang Mai strawberries. We chatted for a while until her son arrived. He is studying Accounting at university and is very polite but shy. His mother encouraged him to speak English with me but it was a pretty one sided conversation.
After a while, he left to pick up his car from the garage and I showed Pi Nun a program on my laptop which I planned to use to teach her students at the temple school in Chachoengsao.
At a quarter to five, we walked to Amy’s house. Pi At tried to give me money for speaking to her in English, which I refused and then we said goodbye. I taught Amy for a couple of hours and helped her with her homework. Afterwards, her mother invited me to go to Siam Paragon with her and her eldest daughter to buy a guitar for her.
We set off in her SUV. The traffic was terrible – even by Bangkok standards. It was soon obvious that we would not get there before closing time. Amy’s mum decided to go to the Bangkok Motor Show instead.
The Bangkok Motor Show was held at the giant Impact Centre. Amy’s mum had VIP tickets – I guess it must be something to do with her work. We had a great time. The place was full of exotic cars and beautiful girls. For every car on display, there seemed to be two stunning girls on hand to smile for photographs, drape themselves gracefully on the bonnet or simply perform wriggling motions in time to music.
Amy’s mum seemed to know a lot of people there and was obviously an important person for them, judging by all the wais that she and I received. As I was with her, people naturally assumed that I too was a wealthy business person looking to invest. The manager at a Coffee World shop asked if I was interested in buying franchise. I thought of the sorry state of my bank balance, battered after an hedonist two months in Krabi and the South but smilingly told him that I was on holiday from England and was not looking to invest.
Amy’s elder sister was studying marketing and pointed out the various stands on show from a professional point of view. For example, the Alfa Romeo stand for the convertible Spyder with its circular stand surrounded by running water and with two beautiful models was stunning – but photographed badly because there was too much black. It would not look good in a magazine.
The stand for SsangYong featured its off road models on big ramps tilted at 45 degrees and with the wheels turning. There were also six big screens showing a short film with a SsangYong Rexton playing a tough Russell Crowe type while the soundtrack was from Gladiator. They even showed the Rexton driving in slow motion through a field of wheat.
The people from Lamborghini did not need to bother with such clever or sophisticated marketing tricks. All they had to do was to put a black Murcielago and a white convertible Gallardo. And the people came flocking to gawp and take photos. It struck me that Lamborghini’s marketing was the simplest and best. Simply design a totally impractical car that looks like nothing else on the road, drop in a suitably over the top engine behind the driver and people will come running.
There was, however, one car there which nearly stole the show from Lamborghini. The Bugatti Veyron. This car is so fast that, apparently, you could let a McLaren F1 accelerate to 120mph, and then start the Bugatti, and the Veyron would beat the McLaren to 200mph. Capable of 253 miles per hour (though not of course anywhere in Thailand) and priced at 165,000,000 baht… It looked good as well.
Today I taught Nong Amy. Her house is just around the corner from Pi At’s house so I arranged to see her and Pi Nun beforehand. Theirs is a very pleasant housing estate not far from Lad Phrao. It is surrounded by a moat and guarded at all four entrances by smart uniformed security men. The sois are lined with mango trees and bougainvilleas and no beggars or stray dogs are allowed. It would suit me just fine. I noticed one house near Pi At’s was for rent. 100,000 baht per month.
I arrived at Pi At’s house and she brought me fresh strawberry juice made from Chang Mai strawberries. We chatted for a while until her son arrived. He is studying Accounting at university and is very polite but shy. His mother encouraged him to speak English with me but it was a pretty one sided conversation.
After a while, he left to pick up his car from the garage and I showed Pi Nun a program on my laptop which I planned to use to teach her students at the temple school in Chachoengsao.
At a quarter to five, we walked to Amy’s house. Pi At tried to give me money for speaking to her in English, which I refused and then we said goodbye. I taught Amy for a couple of hours and helped her with her homework. Afterwards, her mother invited me to go to Siam Paragon with her and her eldest daughter to buy a guitar for her.
We set off in her SUV. The traffic was terrible – even by Bangkok standards. It was soon obvious that we would not get there before closing time. Amy’s mum decided to go to the Bangkok Motor Show instead.
The Bangkok Motor Show was held at the giant Impact Centre. Amy’s mum had VIP tickets – I guess it must be something to do with her work. We had a great time. The place was full of exotic cars and beautiful girls. For every car on display, there seemed to be two stunning girls on hand to smile for photographs, drape themselves gracefully on the bonnet or simply perform wriggling motions in time to music.
Amy’s mum seemed to know a lot of people there and was obviously an important person for them, judging by all the wais that she and I received. As I was with her, people naturally assumed that I too was a wealthy business person looking to invest. The manager at a Coffee World shop asked if I was interested in buying franchise. I thought of the sorry state of my bank balance, battered after an hedonist two months in Krabi and the South but smilingly told him that I was on holiday from England and was not looking to invest.
Amy’s elder sister was studying marketing and pointed out the various stands on show from a professional point of view. For example, the Alfa Romeo stand for the convertible Spyder with its circular stand surrounded by running water and with two beautiful models was stunning – but photographed badly because there was too much black. It would not look good in a magazine.
The stand for SsangYong featured its off road models on big ramps tilted at 45 degrees and with the wheels turning. There were also six big screens showing a short film with a SsangYong Rexton playing a tough Russell Crowe type while the soundtrack was from Gladiator. They even showed the Rexton driving in slow motion through a field of wheat.
The people from Lamborghini did not need to bother with such clever or sophisticated marketing tricks. All they had to do was to put a black Murcielago and a white convertible Gallardo. And the people came flocking to gawp and take photos. It struck me that Lamborghini’s marketing was the simplest and best. Simply design a totally impractical car that looks like nothing else on the road, drop in a suitably over the top engine behind the driver and people will come running.
There was, however, one car there which nearly stole the show from Lamborghini. The Bugatti Veyron. This car is so fast that, apparently, you could let a McLaren F1 accelerate to 120mph, and then start the Bugatti, and the Veyron would beat the McLaren to 200mph. Capable of 253 miles per hour (though not of course anywhere in Thailand) and priced at 165,000,000 baht… It looked good as well.
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