Dear friends,
I want to thank everyone for making this fun and unique event possible. Especially I want to thank the main organizers Chokchai and Chompoo (taking a flight to Singapore 7am today and sacrificing her sleep for me !), DJ Team Bangkok Electro (sad news about the death of DJ Aof’s grandmom today, so sorry), the Indonesian designers Hirwin + team, the sexy and professional behaving coyote entertainers, the security team, 808 service staff and of course the friendly and inspiring guests who came along to check out an unknown, fresh party concept.
We didn’t had many guests, but the goal of the party was reached to explain and show Bangkok people the concept and style of Global Nanpa, to start branding it there. Moreover we proved that we are able to bring together creative minds all over the world, establishing a network for shaping the future in an intelligent, positive way. This party had some impact and two interesting and very different calls came in shortly after finishing at 2am (yes, we did respect the police rules). A large Thai TV channel and fashion series asked me for my some of video material but I like to edit it till christmas at least myself, so the featuring might take a bit more time and I am unsure If I like that at all. I am very careful with not burning the image of Global Nanpa for the wrong stuff, so we will see how things develop there…Like I said before : I am mainly interested in impact and not traffic or quick money…
We made some of the big Bangkok club owners who shortly dropped by at the party quite mad because they saw the power of the concept and we didn’t charge entrance fees. The most impressive scene of the party was probably when we walked the long RCA road with all coyote’s down from one club to the next and back to Club 808. That was an image ! LOL. I am looking forward converting that video material. Next time it would become a lot easier in Bangkok to bring across that party concept again once those news and the video are spreading.
Beforehand I already got threatened via Email to get sabotaged at this party, so our security got warned but nothing happened. My last party try at Club Noir got cracked down by some mafia guys and there were bookings of 2 different party organizers made for the same slot ?! I got the same warnings from some jealous Bangkok bloggers but when you see those people in real life, and yes I know your faces, it mostly turns out that they are just keyboard warriors who don’t get anything done in real life, toiling their lives away as low paid expats in Bangkok. Sad species..
The next Global Nanpa event will happen 2010 in Jakarta most likely. We have big plans for Jakarta. Jakarta, the big durian, shall actually become my base for future SEA travels. I see a lot of creative energy there, opportunities in many business fields, very unexplored territory and an immense lack of information coming from that place ! Bangkok and Thailand is full of people overflooding us with info and travel activities – not so in Indonesia, they don’t even have a single, cool and English written blog I know of yet ! Indonesia is also politically quite stable now, we hope for big changes. The Philippines has too many unsolved problems like transportation and safety issues. Travelling is really stressful for me there : Manila airport is my worst nightmare ! Moreover I figured out for myself that I am actually not such a beach person, I am a city guy feeling comfortable in real shoes and jeans with pockets.
Also many thanks to my German tax lawyer/advisor with whom I met up two days ago in Bangkok. I showed him Wat Phra Kaew, we had a cocktail at Vertigo bar during sunset at Banyan Tree hotel and later some good steaks there. Afterwards we walked from the hotel to Suan Lum night market and drove back with Tuk-Tuks to the Oriental hotel for a final cocktail. I might hopefully be able to tax-deduct my future travels from 2010 on. A very pleasent meeting and also brought me back down to earth seeing friends from Germany on “Mars” again.
On Thursday, Nov.26th, everything seemed to have worked out for me. I also finally was able to chat for almost an hour with Ms. Prof. Dr. Boonsri, director of innovations, pharmaceutical sciences, Chulalongkorn University. Thanks to her undergraduate students for bringing me as a group to her, they all were so extremely helpful and Ms. Dr. Boonsri is a very friendly, calm and smart scientist, as well as teacher. She came late to teaching her own class for that longer chat. I do respect and honor that a lot. This would have never been possible in my own country, Germany. Most people try to set up obstacles there and a lot of beaurocracy for creative and dynamic entrepreneurs is often being set up to break your spirit for change, especially in the shark pool, the healthcare sector. Moreover everything in the western world is so strongly based on competition that nobody wants to help you if they fear that you might endanger their own position or might get a larger piece of the cake than themselves. In SEA there is no such conflict of interest, that’s why things work out so quickly and easily for me here i guess. Now we established a first contact and who knows what will develop out of this network in the next 5 years….
In the Philippines I tried something similar without having an appointment or any contacts : I went to the Angeles University Foundation and thought I could easily enter it, but no : They are actually technologically pretty advanced and without a chip card you won’t be able to enter that and there are security guards everywhere. I have never seen such an advanced safety system at a university, neither in the USA nor in Europe. Once entering through the entry with your chips, the monitors display your photo, personal profile and study area. I was impressed. So I had to make from the entry phone calls with security guards to enter it. 15 minutes later I was in : the next 2 hours I got introduced to about 4 people chatting always around more than 15 minutes with them. Finally I got introduced to the head of research and development (with no appointment !), Mr. Dr. Roberto Pagulayan, executive director, professor of Biology. It turned out that he spoke German because he got his Ph.D from Tuebingen in Biology. We spoke about Global Happy Pills and trying to figure out how we might be able to work together and share knowledge for it. Like in Thailand and Indonesia, once the network is established, things can move on pretty quick, when the right time has come. So it was just a first exchange of ideas. I am very curious how things develop there in the next 5 years. The herbal medicine field, which we are starting with herbal lifestyle drugs as a first money maker (think of the former tiny pharma generics maker in the 80s and how quickly they became big within only a decade without doing anything innovative…). This will be an extremely exciting and important project. Global Nanpa’s Happy Pills are a lot more advanced idea and concept than the lifestyle drink Red Bull (water+sugar+caffeine+b-vitamins+taurine) for example. They are just living from their marketing and brand. A few really smart and friendly individuals have now showed interest in possible future cooperations. The global network is getting tighter. At the very top the circle of players is not that big anymore and most people know each other over friends.
Regarding hospitality I met up with general manager Rainer Stampfer, Four Seasons Bangkok, and we had an interesting chat for about 45 minutes in the executive lounge there. We exchanged some disturbing insider info, one of it really did shock me a lot and explained something I was always wondering about. This cannot be written here, as well as some of the talks I had at Thammasat University, likewise the info I gave him in exchange about something I found out in the Philippines.
Booking rates of all major hotels across Thailand are in general around 25% below last year, but the situation is stabilizing and Thailand is recovering. Currently it is more the financial crisis problem and not a political one. Imagine what will happen when the king dies, which could happen every day considering his health condition. At Thammasat University they are already in big time preparation mode for December 6th, the king’s birthday. Thailand will have an immense political stability problem once the king dies. Let’s just hope that it won’t happen so soon. I myself finally decided not to fly with Thai Airways / Lufthansa internationally anymore. Enough is enough, I will return my frequent flyer Miles and More card to Lufthansa and switch preferable to Qatar Airways or Emirates although the connection times won’t be that ideal anymore for getting into SEA, but I am now finally willing to make that sacrifice. I stick to my principles and the service and unfriendliness I just experienced again, especially with Lufthansa Germany ground staff finally marks the end of my relation to those two allianced flight companies.
I also talked with a few other German general hotel managers. It seems like the German’s are mostly the organization talents and commanders all across Asia. I rigorously checked out the new Shangri-la Boracay and got amazed of the extremely friendly staff there (Hi Mae and Spar – turned out we both know the embassy club owner at the Fort and had some super-funny talks about ladyboys there… !). It is one of the most beautiful resorts I ever saw in my life, it is brand-new too and has a very different standard than what you are used to from other Shangri-la’s – this one ranks more in the class of an Aman resort or Four Seasons. Unfortunately Boracay had been a very stressfull experience and I got an oyster food poisoning there again (like 2 years before !), getting 6 hours IV injections afterwards and being deaf on one ear for almost 2 days.
Mr. Goessing, manager of the famous Oriental Hotel Bangkok is since 6 months now as well in Thailand and he is “of course” a German again, replacing a retired German manager. After staying there 3 days and checking-out, he surprisingly came up to me for about 20 minutes and we exchanged business contact info. He is not at all as conservative as I thought at first. He is easy to talk to just like the older lady, I think the No.2 of the hotel with whom I spoke more often. Mr. Goessing told me that billionaire Mr. Mateschitz will be coming soon to Thailand and staying at his hotel. He is one of the two founding members of Red Bull, the Thai founder Chaleo had the original idea and owned 51%, the Austrian Mateschitz the rest 49%, both invested USD 0.5 million at the start in 1987. Mateschitz is a marketing genius but he didn’t came up with anything innovative. Everyone I talked to in Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines certainly enjoy the idea of Global Happy Pills a lot more. This motivates, you can bet !
Sometimes strange things happen in life : At the G-club the Pent, I met the managing director of Osram Thailand (part of Siemens), I think it is Germany’s largest lighting company. It turned out he is in touch with Ms. Fleur M. every second week or so. She had been my very first girl-friend in Germany during high school times and now works for the same company in marketing in Munich. Sometimes the world is small and the circle closes again…
The entire 5 weeks trip, the memories and experiences will shape my life immensely. There are so many stories to tell about Thailand and the Philippines. As I will be extremely busy from Monday on in Berlin, I won’t be able to release any videos before christmas till new year’s time. I decided that for 2010 I will probably focus on only 3 spots : 4 weeks Jakarta, 4 weeks Bali and 4 weeks Bangkok. Jakarta shall become my base outside of Berlin, Germany, that’s the place where I see the most potential and that’s also the place where the next event will happen for Global Nanpa. I am really tired now and somehow happy to get back into my normal, certainly not “so stressfull” job on Monday again, just working my ass off 60 hours per week till end of the year. I am really glad to be able to do that right now, my energy reserves are empty for travelling.
Thanks again friends and stay in touch via email : info@globalnanpa.com
See you in heaven or on Mars !
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