| Q |
Dave, you started your
EFL career in Thailand in the early 1990s (about the same time as me in
fact) There wasn't that much work about in those days was there mate
compared to now? |
| A |
Enough poorly paid work but not much cream, I guess. I
got by for fifteen months on a diet of Japanese privates and the odd Thai
company managed by Japanese, which I got through recommendations. |
| Q |
A diet of
Japanese privates. I know where you're coming from. What was your private
teaching set up like? Was it a room in your own town-house or lessons at a
corner table in a fast-food restaurant? |
| A |
In those days I just wanted to get by so I didn't have
a gruelling schedule or anything, but most of my work was in Japanese
apartments in lower Sukhumvit. Mainly primary kids after school, with okasan
hovering in the background with cookies and elaborately served tea. I
started off for two weeks in ECC but quit that drudgery as soon as the
privates started trickling in. |
| Q |
How much did you charge private
students in those days for an hour of your time? |
| A |
I think about two fifty to three hundred baht an hour,
although one Thai secondary boy's parents paid seven hundred for two hours
five nights a week (because of the travelling distance: they were in
Thonburi). To put this in context, my rent at the time was 2,500 baht a
month (my share of a three bedroom house in Phaholyothin which we rented for
7,500 in total). My average earnings throughout 1990 were 25,000 baht a
month. My best earnings were at a company called Luckytex in Samut Prakarn,
netting me 750 baht an hour. But the ride up there having to scrape the
pollution off my face before greeting the employees explains that
seemingly high fee. |
| Q |
According to your email to me, you gave
up teaching in order to write. Write what exactly? |
| A |
I wrote a collection of short stories about Bangkok, a
novel about a London taxi driver who came to Thailand to find a wife through
a marriage agency (The Amorous Cabby) and one about a Polish survivor of
Majdanek death camp who marries a Thai and takes her to see where he'd been
imprisoned as a child (Peculiar Flames: their complete incompatibility
surfaces as a result). |
| Q |
You said, and I quote, 'it nearly came
off.' So what happened? Or rather didn't happen? |
| A |
Faber read all of my work, wrote back encouragingly at
different stages then finally decided none of it was quite right for them;
Hodder and Stoughton rang me up and asked for a rewrite of the cabby novel's
first three chapters, then decided the same thing as Faber.
Many agents read my work but none finally took me on. I spent two years on
these books, full time. At the end I was emotionally drained and decided
enough was enough (at least for a good few years). The main thing is that I
got some way beyond the slosh pile; that still makes me feel good. But if,
these days, I hear anyone idly saying that they could write a novel my grin
and silent mockery go into overdrive. |
| Q |
Before writing you said you once worked
at the British Council. Do you look back on those BC days with any great
fondness? |
| A |
Not exactly; I found it quite stressful at times. And
the students could be so hard to get going that everything depended on the
teacher too much. Still, it was such a big step up from plodding the sois
and, even back in 1993, the standard rate was five hundred baht an hour. I
do have some good memories, though, especially of other teachers. |
| Q |
You then moved on to NIST. Remind us
what the acronym stands for and how did the NIST job compare to the position
at the British Council? |
| A |
New International School of Thailand, in soi fifteen.
There was no comparison; to go from teaching classes of twenty adults to
classes of eight primary kids I was in ESL was bliss. I spent five
reasonably happy years there and often came to the conclusion that teaching
can be a very good way of passing professional time. And kids are the way to
go; for me the idea of teaching adults even the adult kids in Thailand -
would now be a complete turn off. |
| Q |
You now work in Abu Dhabi. When and why
did you decide to turn your back on life in Thailand? |
| A |
In my fifth year at NIST I was getting more and more
frustrated by the thought of never having tried writing. I'd thought about
it for years and knew I had to do it full-time to make it a valid experiment
and effort. Writing in my free time and not getting published wouldn't prove
anything; there would always be the excuse that I could have done better if
I'd dedicated myself more fully to it. I was thirty five and couldn't bear
the thought of going in and out of a school for the rest of my life, even
though I was getting paid pretty well to do that. So, there was only one
thing for it: leave and put everything into my dream. It didn't work out
but, when I look back, I know it's the reason why I'm where I am now and am
thankful. |
| Q |
Let's dwell on life in Abu Dhabi for a
bit. You are (let's see if I've got this right) an academic advisor for an
eleven-year old sheik? |
| A |
Yes, that's what my contract says. I started off as an
ESL teacher here at a brand new school. Then, a year and a half into my two
year contract, I was asked to switch jobs. I now teach the boy in question
an eleven year old in the ruling family here after school. I'm also
responsible for communicating between the palace and school and being the
conduit through whom all information about the boy's education flows between
the palace and the school. It sounds flash but, in reality, it's a rewarding
job which just requires diplomacy, friendliness, tact and a desire to play
zany uncle. |
| Q |
Is he a
pain in the arse? Is it please, please Mr David, can we drive the
Rolls-Royce around the drive-way again? |
| A |
He's very likeable and completely normal. He's
respectful of others and likes English much more than Arabic. And it's a
Mini Cooper he drives, though I haven't seen him as he does that in the main
family palace not the one where I see him. Seriously, he showed me where he
drives it in the grounds, round an ornamental fountain, which we looked up
on Google Earth and zoomed in on. His eighteen year old brother has a
Mclaren
|
| Q |
You're
earning in excess of 150,000 baht a month. What benefits come with that? |
| A |
A free one bedroom apartment, free utilities (that's 24
hour air-con if you want it and constant flowing water) and the standard
school package of thirteen weeks holiday a year and the usual training
opportunities. There's also a thirteenth month of pay for every year of
service which the school keeps until you leave. My housing allowance is half
a million baht a year but I don't use it all (my apartment only costs
350,000 baht). But the main benefit is the savings potential: in three years
I've saved three million baht (then again I'm a stingy twat). |
| Q |
You still
take your vacations in Bangkok though? |
| A |
Yes. One of the great things about living outside
Thailand is that you have an obvious destination for holidays. And flights
from here only take six hours and cost about 18,000 baht. Bangkok feels so
much better when you're not working there, too, as anywhere would. Bangkok
means pure holiday for me now. |
| Q |
And
you've invested in a nice little Bangkok condo so you plan on retiring here
eventually? |
| A |
Retirement seems a bit presumptuous and scary to think
about I'm only forty two - but the condo means that I'm psychologically in
Bangkok from now on wherever I am (I don't have a home in my native England,
for example). That purchase has meant a lot to me; the mental roots have
become actual ones. |
| Q |
What do
you miss most about life in Bangers? |
| A |
A few years ago it was
the nightlife but now, nothing. I'm there so often that I don't really get a
chance to miss anything. Living away from life I used to have there daily
somehow enhances everything when I get back; I think were I there full time
now some malaise or other would descend. As it is, Thailand is just a great
place to holiday nowadays and is also home. Whenever I'm back it just feels
as if I was only just there, as if I've been away for a few weekends or
something; that's a great feeling. |
| Q |
It's a tough racket for
those teachers who choose to eke out a living in Thailand though isn't it? |
| A |
Not if you get into
international schools it isn't. But, reading your interviews here, I was
struck by how low some of the wages are. Some of the earnings mentioned were
what I was getting ten years and more ago. I was amazed at that so, if those
figures are genuine, I would say that it must be pretty hard for people
there (on the dole in England you could get 17,000 baht a month, for
example, over half what some are earning). I guess the absence of savings
potential for these people must be offset by what they think of as a
reasonable life or they wouldn't do it. The reason I contacted you in the
first place was just to share my story. I prove that you can go from
teaching privates in Bangkok to something beyond it and then come back
with enough cash to buy one of the condos like you used to teach in! Believe
me, things have turned out very nicely for me sixteen years after I first
lived in Thailand. And if things suddenly collapse, I won't worry: it's just
good to know that things can turn round beautifully. |
| |
|
