8 ms·

I'm a foreign CTO working in Bangkok and being fully fluent in Thai showed me that it's exactly the same practice in SEA regions: Got to close a deal with a gov

I'm a foreign CTO working in Bangkok and being fully fluent in Thai showed me that it's exactly the same practice in SEA regions: Got to close a deal with a government official? They'll head to the "bathtub massage" area Huai Kwang. Need to bond with a local Business man? Deal closes there as well. Bond with male work mates? On to the bathtub place! Everyone knows it, there's jokes about it and this particular business has licences to run legally, even though prostitution is normally illegal in Thailand. I turned down several invites to such activities and got the usual gay jokes behind my back.

taneq 8y ago
> I turned down several invites to such activities and got the usual gay jokes behind my back. I'm surprised they didn't just invite you to a place that caters for both.
- sanderjd 8y ago
  I think you missed the point; he didn't turn down the invites because he's gay, they called him gay because he turned down the invites...
  - Teeer 8y ago
    I think you missed the obvious joke
    - mistermann 8y ago
      If you've been to Thailand, there's no reason for it to be said jokingly, at all.
      - taneq 8y ago
        Yeah, I didn't mean it disparagingly or jokingly. Some places in Thailand quite openly cater to all proclivities. (Once when I was backpacking there, some guy came out of a side alley and approached me saying "young girls, beautiful girls!" and when I said no thank you, immediately switched to "young boys, beautiful boys?")
  - musage 8y ago
    They're the clowns paying for sex, they can have all the delusions they need as far as I'm concerned.
duxup 8y ago
Heck in the US 20 years ago, a coworker of mine was assigned to a job where his first account was some old school east coast bank. One night dude calls "OMG man we are at dinner and the sales guy didn't show up so it's just me and them and they want to hit the strip clubs a couple blocks away after this." I had no good advice as I was a n00b too so I told him to call his boss. He was told "keep them happy" so he spent thousands on dinner, drinks, and strippers for most of the night on the corporate card (cash for the strippers...). He was sure he would get fired or something. The following Monday his boss told him he heard that everyone had a great time, gave him a pat on the back and noted "I probabbly should have told you they party pretty hard."
- hackits 8y ago
  You do know that this is normal don't you? Very tame by any stretch of the imagination.
  - duxup 8y ago
    I don't know. After we were bought by a west coast company the stories like that stopped. While I worked with sales teams, I also worked with engineering teams so I wasn't on the front lines in that way. Did the events end, I don't know.
    - tjr225 8y ago
      God bless the best coast.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ct520 8y ago
    Extremely normal for sales (in my experience)
    - 3131s 8y ago
      Totally. My dad worked in sales at IBM and it seemed like a regular occurrence to take clients to strip clubs. This all happened on huge 10-100+ million dollar contracts and of course was all charged to the company credit card.
hackits 8y ago
Then why the hell are you in Thailand and SEA for that matter? I'm not surprised you got gay jokes behind your back because you neither saved your face or your guest face by turning down the request? Honestly you should get the hell out of SEA and go back home if aren't going to embrace the culture and be part of it. You're just making it more difficult for other people who want to integrate into that type of culture and that exchange.
- hackits 8y ago
  Oh look a neg vote! This place is a echo camber of white knights. Here is the thing Asia isn't the West. Go back home if you want the West. Live a little bit and open your minds that people have differing view points of sex, sexual relationships and Business.
- cm2012 8y ago
  I'm not OP, but how about I live where I want, and do what I think is right? The good people in these countries are moving away from this stuff for a reason. If your hosts were abusing kids, would you join in?
  - hackits 8y ago
    Oh the `good` people of these `countries`. By what yard stick do you measure `good`. These `good` people considering it normal. I think you need to stop bringing your naive viewpoint of the West to Asia.
    - lovich 8y ago
      I know a lot of Thai people and the men might be fine with this but none of their wives or girlfriends are. You don't have to accept something that you think is immoral just because it's in someone else's culture
      - hackits 8y ago
        The point I was making is you're making a moral judgement based on your upbringing to a different culture that has different cultural normal around sex and Business. In essence you're putting your moral judgement above the men you're associating with. Do you really believe their wives and girlfriends are princesses who are innocent little delicate snowflakes that need your manly protection? You're getting played my friend with the oldest trick in the book.
wallace_f 8y ago
FWIW there is much disapproval in East Asia of these antics, and the guanxi culture emanating from China. Sadly American business culture seems to be also drinking these guanxi- and gravitas-obsessed kool aids, and less disapproving (from what I have seen) than East Asia. Others who are more connected and experienced would know more than I do.
- stone-monkey 8y ago
  Isn't this pretty common in East Asia though? I've heard similar stories about South Korea, and the salaryman culture there is supposed to be pretty bad.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- coldtea 8y ago
  >FWIW there is much disapproval in East Asia of these antics, and the guanxi culture emanating from China. "Disapproval" in the same way that some groups were for tee-totalling in the US. Some small minority is against the practices, but they are extremely prevalent all across Asia (and China has little to do with it, besides being the new big customer in lots of those cases -- Japanese do the same kind of stuff, Koreans, etc.).
  - wallace_f 8y ago
    I don't know, corruption and prostitution is pretty easy to find in SEA and China, even in SG, but it's not that way in East Asia in my experience. Even in Hong Kong I find you're likely to run into people who say something like: "Mainlanders just want to be successful through making some deals with their friends, we aren't like that."
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >Even in Hong Kong I find you're likely to run into people who say something like: "Mainlanders just want to be successful through making some deals with their friends, we aren't like that." Isn't Hong Kong known for it's prostitution scene? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Hong_Kong#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Hong_Kong#Hist... I think what those HKese wanted was to distinguish themselves from their more uncultivated mainlanders (like a yankee vs redneck thing, but with being an ex-British Colony thrown in). Otherwise, HK has long before uniting with China been known as a haven for prostitution, smuggling, drugs, and so on. The archetypical "seedy harbor town". I doubt very much has changed since... Then there's the westerners there, that could be even worse: "The first time I walked down the main drag in Wan Chai in Hong Kong, I couldn't believe what I saw; all the mama bars there and prostitutes openly in the street outside trying to get guys to go in. Within the first week I'd already been offered cocaine, though I didn't take it at that stage. When I did, it was easy to get. I know 100 guys between the ages of 20 and 50, and I'd say around 30 of them were regular cocaine users. Not all were working in banking, but most were, of the ones I knew. They were all Westerners." https://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/03/world/asia/hong-kong-banker-drugs/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/03/world/asia/hong-kong-bank...
kaybe 8y ago
So this automatically excludes any woman, I guess?
- cm2187 8y ago
  Anecdotally not the only dodgy business practice that excludes women. In Europe some companies (often state-owned) or public administrations are known to be free-masonry strongholds, and being a member of the right lodge is pretty much a necessary step to progress a career. Problem: despite pretending to be progressive, most lodges are either men or women only.

taneq 8y ago

> I turned down several invites to such activities and got the usual gay jokes behind my back. I'm surprised they didn't just invite you to a place that caters for both.

sanderjd 8y ago
I think you missed the point; he didn't turn down the invites because he's gay, they called him gay because he turned down the invites...
- Teeer 8y ago
  I think you missed the obvious joke
  - mistermann 8y ago
    If you've been to Thailand, there's no reason for it to be said jokingly, at all.
    - taneq 8y ago
      Yeah, I didn't mean it disparagingly or jokingly. Some places in Thailand quite openly cater to all proclivities. (Once when I was backpacking there, some guy came out of a side alley and approached me saying "young girls, beautiful girls!" and when I said no thank you, immediately switched to "young boys, beautiful boys?")
- musage 8y ago
  They're the clowns paying for sex, they can have all the delusions they need as far as I'm concerned.

duxup 8y ago

Heck in the US 20 years ago, a coworker of mine was assigned to a job where his first account was some old school east coast bank. One night dude calls "OMG man we are at dinner and the sales guy didn't show up so it's just me and them and they want to hit the strip clubs a couple blocks away after this." I had no good advice as I was a n00b too so I told him to call his boss. He was told "keep them happy" so he spent thousands on dinner, drinks, and strippers for most of the night on the corporate card (cash for the strippers...). He was sure he would get fired or something. The following Monday his boss told him he heard that everyone had a great time, gave him a pat on the back and noted "I probabbly should have told you they party pretty hard."

hackits 8y ago
You do know that this is normal don't you? Very tame by any stretch of the imagination.
- duxup 8y ago
  I don't know. After we were bought by a west coast company the stories like that stopped. While I worked with sales teams, I also worked with engineering teams so I wasn't on the front lines in that way. Did the events end, I don't know.
  - tjr225 8y ago
    God bless the best coast.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ct520 8y ago
  Extremely normal for sales (in my experience)
  - 3131s 8y ago
    Totally. My dad worked in sales at IBM and it seemed like a regular occurrence to take clients to strip clubs. This all happened on huge 10-100+ million dollar contracts and of course was all charged to the company credit card.

hackits 8y ago

Then why the hell are you in Thailand and SEA for that matter? I'm not surprised you got gay jokes behind your back because you neither saved your face or your guest face by turning down the request? Honestly you should get the hell out of SEA and go back home if aren't going to embrace the culture and be part of it. You're just making it more difficult for other people who want to integrate into that type of culture and that exchange.

hackits 8y ago
Oh look a neg vote! This place is a echo camber of white knights. Here is the thing Asia isn't the West. Go back home if you want the West. Live a little bit and open your minds that people have differing view points of sex, sexual relationships and Business.
cm2012 8y ago
I'm not OP, but how about I live where I want, and do what I think is right? The good people in these countries are moving away from this stuff for a reason. If your hosts were abusing kids, would you join in?
- hackits 8y ago
  Oh the `good` people of these `countries`. By what yard stick do you measure `good`. These `good` people considering it normal. I think you need to stop bringing your naive viewpoint of the West to Asia.
  - lovich 8y ago
    I know a lot of Thai people and the men might be fine with this but none of their wives or girlfriends are. You don't have to accept something that you think is immoral just because it's in someone else's culture
    - hackits 8y ago
      The point I was making is you're making a moral judgement based on your upbringing to a different culture that has different cultural normal around sex and Business. In essence you're putting your moral judgement above the men you're associating with. Do you really believe their wives and girlfriends are princesses who are innocent little delicate snowflakes that need your manly protection? You're getting played my friend with the oldest trick in the book.

wallace_f 8y ago

FWIW there is much disapproval in East Asia of these antics, and the guanxi culture emanating from China. Sadly American business culture seems to be also drinking these guanxi- and gravitas-obsessed kool aids, and less disapproving (from what I have seen) than East Asia. Others who are more connected and experienced would know more than I do.

stone-monkey 8y ago
Isn't this pretty common in East Asia though? I've heard similar stories about South Korea, and the salaryman culture there is supposed to be pretty bad.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
coldtea 8y ago
>FWIW there is much disapproval in East Asia of these antics, and the guanxi culture emanating from China. "Disapproval" in the same way that some groups were for tee-totalling in the US. Some small minority is against the practices, but they are extremely prevalent all across Asia (and China has little to do with it, besides being the new big customer in lots of those cases -- Japanese do the same kind of stuff, Koreans, etc.).
- wallace_f 8y ago
  I don't know, corruption and prostitution is pretty easy to find in SEA and China, even in SG, but it's not that way in East Asia in my experience. Even in Hong Kong I find you're likely to run into people who say something like: "Mainlanders just want to be successful through making some deals with their friends, we aren't like that."
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >Even in Hong Kong I find you're likely to run into people who say something like: "Mainlanders just want to be successful through making some deals with their friends, we aren't like that." Isn't Hong Kong known for it's prostitution scene? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Hong_Kong#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Hong_Kong#Hist... I think what those HKese wanted was to distinguish themselves from their more uncultivated mainlanders (like a yankee vs redneck thing, but with being an ex-British Colony thrown in). Otherwise, HK has long before uniting with China been known as a haven for prostitution, smuggling, drugs, and so on. The archetypical "seedy harbor town". I doubt very much has changed since... Then there's the westerners there, that could be even worse: "The first time I walked down the main drag in Wan Chai in Hong Kong, I couldn't believe what I saw; all the mama bars there and prostitutes openly in the street outside trying to get guys to go in. Within the first week I'd already been offered cocaine, though I didn't take it at that stage. When I did, it was easy to get. I know 100 guys between the ages of 20 and 50, and I'd say around 30 of them were regular cocaine users. Not all were working in banking, but most were, of the ones I knew. They were all Westerners." https://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/03/world/asia/hong-kong-banker-drugs/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/03/world/asia/hong-kong-bank...

kaybe 8y ago

So this automatically excludes any woman, I guess?

cm2187 8y ago
Anecdotally not the only dodgy business practice that excludes women. In Europe some companies (often state-owned) or public administrations are known to be free-masonry strongholds, and being a member of the right lodge is pretty much a necessary step to progress a career. Problem: despite pretending to be progressive, most lodges are either men or women only.