" You want a nice girl?” the attractive and smartly dressed young woman said softly as I slowed for the traffic before crossing the street. This was the third time I had been asked the same question in the few minutes it had taken me to walk the 400 yards back from dinner with friends to my hotel. And just where do you suppose this was? It wasn’t Piccadilly, it wasn’t Patpong or the Pigalle, it wasn’t even Times Square, nor any of the other red light or entertainment areas of major cities you might normally associate with the world’s oldest profession. It was Singapore and I was on a visa run.
Singapore certainly has changed from those prudish days back in the 60’s and 70’s when the immigration would give you a choice of moving on or having a free haircut and Bugis Street got closed, sanitised and re-invented. Over the succeeding decades, whether I’m living in Hong Kong, Thailand or Indonesia I always enjoyed the sheer efficiency and municipal “can do’ness” of the place, la. Where else in the world has urban gardening and forestry been taken to an art form. Why, Singapore’s Head Gardener must surely be a cabinet post! Just look at the noble, now matured tree-lined freeways, particularly to the airport. It’s only when you fly over the place and you look down that you see what a sham it really is. A bosky trompe l’oeil covering an island of souless housing estates and light industrial zones. Still it’s really nice to relax into a Bandwidth Society, see some inmates and get some shopping done. But after a week or so the sheer circumspection of the place gets to me and I’m more than happy to return to messier more human climes.
In an Opaque Land....
Ah, The Visa Run! That curious activity that expats in the more “opaque” countries of SE Asia like Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia are so prone to perform from time to time. It doesn’t happen that much in the more ordered countries of the region. In Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan or even Australia, rules are rules and unless you are a known undesirable it is relatively easy to regularise your status, particularly if you are there for business purposes. At least you know where you stand and there’s a kind of logic to the process. In the more, how shall I put it, “opaque” countries it doesn’t quite work like this. A Byzantine bureaucracy appears to govern things, working at many, mostly cross purposes, all designed to baffle you and, if you are not careful, you can easily fall foul of a number of official bodies from the police, the labour department or immigration. Indeed the more cynical amongst us might think that the situation is specifically designed so the unfortunate foreigner is always in the wrong somewhere, with someone for something. But I don’t believe that for one second. That may be the effect, but it is much more haphazard than that. Being at fault in some undefined way goes with the territory. Get used to it!
No, what I reckon’s going on is a much more muddied and complex mish mash of conflicting beliefs and emotions that has never quite translated into anything as formal as a uniform official policy. Welcomed graciously as tourists, the attitude becomes a lot more complex if we stick around. We say we are bringing business and expertise to the country, we are employing local people, and for the most part it’s true. The danger is we can become the guest who stayed too long, particularly if you are conspicuously successful. In any accident or dispute you are not necessarily in the wrong, it’s just that you have no standing whatsoever. If you weren’t here in the first place, there wouldn’t be a problem. Right? Who says there’s no logic? Guests do not have rights, period. And paying lodgers, very few.
Kicking Against the Pricks
If you are a Westerner you start at a philosophic disadvantage. We actually believe we have a God-given right to do anything we want provided there is no law against it. In large swathes of the world it’s not like that at all. In OpaqueLandia you have no right to do anything, unless there’s a specific law that says you can. In effect that means more or less anyone with some official position can come and ask you if you have permission or a license to do this, that or the other. That approach doesn’t necessarily stop things getting done, it’s just another way of doing things, but for most Westerners it can require radical re-thinking of some of our basic assumptions. One thing it means for sure, is that to sit comfortably in such foreign waters we have to establish relationships with almost everyone who comes across our transom. That’s not always easy for some of us.
It’s a particularly tough one to handle when you’ve slaved away to get a business off the ground and your local partner reckons he or she’s now got the hang of it all and doesn’t really need you around anymore. Small consolation that the business goes down the tubes in no time at all after you’re gone. In such circumstances I’d say there’s been a failure of communication along the line somewhere and the onus for it inevitably falls on you. It’s up to you to foresee and prevent a falling out. Unfortunately it is a rare local businessman or woman who actually understands the real knack is to get the foreigner to work their butt off for them, while they sit back and get rich. There are however a few of these wise and astute souls and you may recognise them by their wealth.
It’s also a brave man or woman who looks to the law for clarification when the going gets rough. Lawyers are an expensive luxury anywhere, but in “OpaqueLandia” they become, as often as not, an unwelcome third party playing their own game, which you not only have to fund, but cut them into the eventual settlement as well. Ministries and government departments will all have their own interpretations of what the regulations say, which tend to contradict each other anyway, so you and they can each take your pick and see who wins.
Firefight on the Tarmac
Sometimes these differences of interpretation can turn into fierce turf wars. Not so many years ago I recall an actual firefight breaking out at Dom Muang, Bangkok’s International Airport, between elements of the Royal Thai Army and Royal Thai Airforce, in support of their fiefdoms, in this case the customs and the Airport Authority respectively. On another, less lethal occasion, I was instrumental in bringing a major conference and exhibition to Thailand. The Tourism Authority of Thailand had gone way out on a limb to win this business for the nation and promised the moon. Absolutely, exhibitors would have no problems bringing in their exhibits. However, the event just happened to be the 1st AsiaPacific Duty Free Show and since most of the exhibits were booze, cigarettes, perfumes, watches and so on you can imagine the Pavlovian reaction of the Thai customs, who right on cue frothed at the mouth and charged like wounded buffaloes.
Even at an Annual PATA Conference, possibly the premier travel event in the world, held in Bangkok recently the Thai customs in their wisdom wanted to levy a swinging duty on such important yet prosaic items as promotional brochures, T-shirts, plastic bags etc. Meetings are one of the highest yield sectors in the travel business and such antics are not calculated to impress the movers and shakers in the industry. In fact it can kill a destination stone dead. Which is a pity if you’ve just squandered US$20 million to promote your country in the international media as a meetings destination.
Cross Cultural Fun
In OpaqueLandia enlightened self-interest or the long term collective good doesn’t go very far and the win/win situation remains an alien concept. Self, family and a few hundred bucks right now sure beats out a bundle of boodle down the pike. And who’s to say that’s so wrong? In the West we could do with a bit more family cohesion and putting a rather more civil, if not friendly, gloss on our daily interactions with acquaintances and strangers might be nice.
Three hundred years ago in Europe our society and government were structured pretty much like OpaqueLandia today and we have certainly paid prices for the liberties and wealth, such as they are, that we enjoy today. If it took a few hundred years for us to get to here from there, why shouldn’t the “opaque” societies take a decade or three and just come along that path as far as it suits them? That might be a more human solution, mightn’t it?
In the final analysis tho’, the expat tendency to grizzle about their host nation (as opposed to the absurd affectation of seeing sunshine coming out of simply everywhere.....) boots us nothing and we should resist the indulgence. As they say, we really don’t have to be here if we don’t like it. The truth is, we are being afforded the most marvelous opportunity to accept things as they are and the learning that to effect change, if we ever can, can only come through changing ourselves and the quality of our relating. As someone here once observed to me, “You don’t sue people in Bali, you put a spell on them.....”.
Insert Quote :
“ ....since most of the exhibits were booze, cigarettes, perfumes, watches you can imagine the Pavlovian reaction of the Thai customs, who right on cue frothed at the mouth and charged like wounded buffaloes.....”
