But isn’t there something just, well, humanly unacceptable about this level of corruption?
”Enron,” Somchai says admiringly. ”WorldCom. Now that’s corruption.” A frown and a shake of the head: ”But it’s not democratic. A small businessman like me can’t buy a tax inspector over there. Only big business can do that. It’s terribly unfair.”
I take my leave to get my hair cut at Su’s. Su was plucked from her go-go bar one night and whisked off to Zurich by a wealthy Swiss. The relationship failed after a couple of years, mostly because Su was bored out of her mind (loathes skiing, hates snow, happy if she never sees a mountain, or Zurich, again), but her paramour gave her the seed money for her thriving business, which happens to be right next to the ugly urban gap that is all that is left of Sukhumvit Square.
So what does she think about the bulldozing? It is part of the great charm of Thai people that they so rarely indulge in outrage. Su looks sad and says a few words in Thai that mean that she feels bad whenever she thinks about it; after all, her own business started out there; she could have been ruined herself.
”That would never have happened in Zurich,” I say, provocatively. Her answer is too fast for me to catch, so she translates: The Thai system is no good, but it’s better than cuckoo clocks.

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