The sign on the notice board at the Villa Supermarket sait it all: Lovely condo for rent. 3 bdrms, nice lounge, gdn, kitch, fax, maid available, delightful, convenient (she sounded perfect!), on Sukhumvit. Only Bt 85,000 mth, 3mths deposit.
Bt85,000 a month? For rent? You could buy Zambia for that. And half of Russia with a deposit. Who's paying this kind of money? And why? And more to the point, why don't they give me some of it?
There's nothing like money for separating people. Like it or not, cash defines us. Leave your hut in this city and your wallet starts to glow. Your status as a foreigner has nothing to do with how well you speak the language or understand the culture.
Sorry about that. It's money that establishes position, earns respect, and issues its own passport to the lifestyles of the rich and shameless. Show enough and suddenly everyone is listening. Spend enough and you have new-found friends - or rather, they have found you. No one cares if you're from Chad or Chicago.
In Bangkok there are several classes divied by the "Bahtability Factor." The parameters of the society range from the cloud-piercing penthouse class on Sukhumvit, where the monthly income hovers between Bt200,000 and none of your business (and they don't even pay the rent), to the desperately-seeking-a-squat class off Banglampoo, where the inhabitants use a pig on a string as an air freshener, and sleep on designer straw. They stagger around half sober, narcotically confused, with eccentric hairstyles that have to be ironed into submission, and survive on a princely income of Bt19 a month - which has either been borrowed, or stolen. Quite possibly from you.
To quality for the middle-class you need around Bt80,000 a month. This strata includes insurance men, club owners, advertising wallahs, architects, and computer nerds who wear their glasses upside down, eat floppy discs for breakfast, and whose idea of a good night out is to stay in and abuse the mouse. It's a notch up from "bus consciousness", but a floor down from a really good view.
For journalists and teachers, musicians and writers, and those with long and winding CVs ("Hey man, wanna buy a degree?"), the income tends to be flexible - let's say from zero to Bt50,000 a month. It's more of a roller-coaster existence than a defined class. Try not to look down if you can help it, because there is no safety net - only the bus and the potential to look for love in all the wrong places. Definitely character revealing though.
I come from a culture where you are still judged - and thereby classed - by the kind of car you have parked in your driveway. Make? Datsun Insult. Colour? Um … , rust with flaky bits.
In Thai society, this takes on even greater significence. As long as the brand-new, teal-green, top-of-the-line Mercedes is gleaming in the sunlight, it doesn't matter that 19 family members have lived in one room above the shop-front, and granny has been chained to the sewing machine for the last two years to pay for it.
The face that you've gained now places you in the class that you wanted. You've arrived.
Or have you? Is it really the toys you can afford that promote you to prominence?
Being a foreigner has different advantages. Having no face, we have no face to lose - which means you've just saved Bt4 million on a car which never gets out of second gear - and, suddenly, you're elevated into a position of choice. Just don't forget to unchain granny. Alright, don't bother then.
Another bonus is that because Bangkok is a multi-levelled society - faceless but with attitude - you can actually learn to cruise the classes to discover how everybody else lives. It doesn't even take money. It just takes a little practice, discrete charm, and blatant lying.
A friend of mine was sitting in his usual disheveled splendour in the riverside restaurant at the Oriental Hotel. After devouring a large meal and sinking a good bottle of wine, he whispered to the man at the next table that he hadn't got any money. The man's expression quickly changed from surprise to concern, and then he said, "Don't worry, I'm an American." And immediately paid the bill. Don't you just love Americans?
I'm certainly not advocating this audacious scam. The real point is that it takes a certain sense of class, however nefarious, to pull it off.
Applying for well-paid jobs that you are not qualified to do, is also worth a try in the class-hopping game. Borrow clothes and adjust your resume accordingly. But not too much, otherwise people might get suspicious.
"Your credentials are very impressive Mr. Prat, but where exactly is the Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Advanced Switch Gear Technology and Shorthand Typing?"
But then this city can make you do crazy things. It's forever changing your plans. It can lull you into a sweet sense of belonging, and then confront you with the fact that life is played but once - why waste it somewhere else?
So, whether you're perched so far up in the charged atmosphere of serious income to give a damn, or, alternatively, you live in a box underneath the stairs at the Texas Lonestar in Washington Square, homeless, phoneless, and hopeless, don't worry - because money has actually got nothing to do with it.
Personally, I've often found that those who have the most money are eminently capable of displaying the least class. In fact, the rich are boring company. Why? Well, because they are rich means they don't have to fight anymore, and if you don't have to fight, you don't have any fire, and if you don't have any fire, you don't have any passion. Result? Boring.
And yet arrogance and ignorance are not confined to those with an overdraft. And a high income does not guarantee good taste.
Because class is not something that can be bought.
It is really defined by character, and expressed through style.
To be a courtesan of good taste costs nothing, and as Marilyn Monroe once admirably remarked.
"Class? Why, honey, you've either got it or you ain't."
By Roger Beaumont
  Available at Bookazine

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