The website Stickman Bangkok is published by Stickman who lives and works in Bangkok. His website, both loved and loathed, is one of the best visited sites in its genre. Besides featuring Stickman’s personal Thailand observations the site also hosts the very popular and often controversial reader’s submissions, which offer both insights into Thailand life and above all… human nature.
About me
I am just a regular Kiwi guy entering middle age who likes to put together a few thoughts on life in Thailand. I was a teacher for many years, a job I enjoyed immensely, but which was ultimately frustrating. Despite my past profession, I am not fond of children and have no intention of having any of my own!
What makes you tick?
For me, the two most important things are happiness and health. I pursue activities and like to spend time with people that make me happy. I avoid anything that has the opposite effect.
I eat well, place much importance on getting enough sleep, don’t drink much and make a point of exercising every day. This helps me to stay in shape and while many of my friends have developed a middle-aged spread, I refuse to let that happen!
Why are you called Stickman?
The source of the name goes back to an after school job I had in a cinema. The cinema used to attract the local looneys, including some eccentrics and weirdoes. There was one fellow in particular who I was intrigued by. He was in his 60's and retired. He used to walk past the front of the cinema and was always well dressed in a jacket and tie, if somewhat unfashionable, even at that time. The poor fellow walked with the assistance of a walking stick.
One day I was perching at the entrance to the cinema, bored, as most of my colleagues had gone home for the evening. I saw this fellow walking past and I thought I'd flash my torch at him simply because I was bored. He was actually on the opposite side of the road heading away from the cinema but he saw the torch light.
He wandered across the road and stood outside the large glass, peering inside. And then all hell broke loose. He swung his walking stick with all of his might and there was this large crack sounds as the stick smashed against the glass. I'll never know how but that pane of glass refused to yield. The old codger sees me looking at him, no doubt with a mixture of bewilderment, trepidation and fascination on my face. He opens the doors to the cinema auditorium and starts yelling all sorts of obscenities at the only person present - ME! He starts screaming how the cinema staff are all a bunch of filthy perverts and so on!
At that point, the manager, a sizeable man with an imposing stature, comes running out of his office and screams at me, "Who the hell let him in?"
I didn't feel it was the time to admit to antagonizing the man with the stick, the Stickman!
The manager bellowed at the old guy to get lost. After the old guy had gone, the manager told me a story about the Stickman. Apparently this old codger was something of a pervert in his younger years and used to visit prostitutes and have kinky sex. He waffled on about how this guy was known as the Stickman and that one should avoid him as he was a pervert.
When I first started writing this site, I sort of thought that it was a little naughty that I covered the nightlife and I thought back to the original Stickman and thought, well, I can hardly put my real name on the site so what name will I use? Aha, I'll be Stickman and so the name was born!
Why did you start your website?
After living in Thailand for several months I made knew that I would be staying longer than I had originally planned. Up until that point I visited Internet cafes. I bought a computer and had a net connection in my apartment. As I had a lot of time on my hands and as I enjoyed sharing my observations and experiences in this new city, I started a small homepage for my friends and family back home to follow what I was up to. People I didn’t know started reading it, some sent me positive feedback and what was once a small, personal homepage developed into something much bigger and has grown into what the Stickman site is today!
What is the main purpose of your website?
I like to share my thoughts and ideas on life in Bangkok for expats, and also to try and explain why some things happen the way they do, and to give advice and general assistance on how to get the most out of your time here. I guess ultimately my goals with this site are to inform, and to a lesser extent, to entertain.
Why do people come to visit your website, who is your audience?
I have a varied readership from expats to tourists to people who have never even visited Thailand. There are Thais and females who read, but obviously my main readership is Western males. I think readers appreciate my frank take on life in Thailand and they tune in for news of what is going on – the sort of stuff that is not covered in the mainstream media - as well as my thoughts and analysis on issues that affect foreigners in Thailand.
Only a small section of your website is about the seedier side of Thailand yet it seems the most popular. What’s your opinion about this?
There are many hardcore sex tourism websites which have 1,000 times more information about the steamy side of life below red glowing light-bulbs. I think what my readership likes is the way I cover the nightlife. I try to do so with a tone that maintains decency and respect – although as the industry has deteriorated that is getting harder! As Lonely Planet describes my coverage of the nightlife as a “palatable account of night life in Thailand”, that’s a description I am more than comfortable with.
What is the most negative & what is the most positive thing that has happened?
The most positive thing is all of the great people I have met. Most of my best friends I met through the site and I continue to meet many great people who only knew about me by reading the site. Conversely, there are some really creepy, scummy people who read and a few of the emails I receive make my skin crawl. Thankfully they make up just a small percentage of the readership… I think!
What makes your website stand out from the others?
I’d like to think that what you find on my website is the sort of frank honesty that you don’t find on many other expat sites. For example, the way so many of the sex tourist sites celebrate what guys get up to and claims that they are good for Thailand is really self-centred and plain justification for behaviour that they are not proud of and conceal from their friends and family at home! My mother reads my weekly column and so do other friends and relatives back home. Too many people living in Thailand have secrets and this is reflected in a lot of Thailand-centric expat sites.
I call things as I see them and I think I have developed a strong voice and an opinion on certain issues and areas of expat life that has become respected. I am not scared to call things as I see them, even if it means alienating my readership. I often talk about scummy sex tourists and have even called businesses who advertised with me on dodgy practices. This resulted in me losing advertisers but that didn’t bother me in the least. I’d like to think many readers tune in to get my honest take on things.
Why did you move to Thailand and how long have you been living here?
I came to Thailand seeking a change and adventure. I planned to stay one, possibly two years, but more than a decade on I can still be found wandering the backstreets of Bangkok exploring, still enjoying myself almost as much as I did when I first came here.
Why do you think foreigners move to Thailand?
There are a multitude of reasons! Work, retirement, seeking adventure, searching for love… the list goes on. Of course there are criminals on the run, and those who never intended to move here, but sort of just fell in love with the country, or found it an easy place to live and decided not to leave!
What is the worst & what is the best thing about living in Thailand?
For me personally, the best thing is that as a foreigner you can float between the different levels of society and if you have something about you then you can fit in to most of them. In the morning you could be wandering around the slums of Klong Toey photographing drug addicts and in the afternoon you could have a meeting with a minister of Parliament. Living in a place where you have that sort of freedom to roam is something I find very appealing!
What the worst thing is, hmm, not sure. I do get a little annoyed with the ignorance some locals show towards outsiders, especially when visitors try to help locals, especially those who are poor, or whose lives aren’t easy, yet we are repelled or our ideas are shot down as being non-Thai. That irritates me.
What is the strangest thing that has happened to you in Thailand?
So many strange things have happened that it is hard to think of the single most strangest. Being chased down Beach Road at 2 or 3 in the morning by a drugged up ladyboy is perhaps not strange, but was quite perturbing given that I was actually stone cold sober at the time.
What is the biggest challenge living here?
What bothers me is that I am treated as an outsider when in fact I know a lot more about many aspects of Bangkok and Thailand than many Thais do! I am treated as an outsider yet often when I am out with a Thai I feel like it is me who is showing them around, rather than what you would expect and it to be the other way around. A few years back I helped a Thai friend with her CV and I corrected her written Thai for her. Now her spoken Thai is better than mine, but her written Thai was sloppy and here I was as a foreigner – an outsider – able to help a Thai with their own language. It grates on me that you can stay in a place so long and still be treated as an outsider. That is not to say that I fight this. I embrace it. Often I meet Thais who compliment me and tell me that I am more Thai than farang and I respond – with pride – that I am still a Kiwi boy and that you can take the boy out of Kiwiland, but you cannot take Kiwland out of the boy. That gets them scratching their heads!
Do you have Thai friends? Do you think foreigners often make Thai friends?
I have a bunch of Thai female friends, about half of whom were once girlfriends, and the other half who were almost girlfriends! I have one Thai male friend but he lives in Australia.
Many foreigners claim to have Thai friends but few have many real Thai friends. It’s almost like it is chic to have Thai friends and uncool to have lived in the country a long time and not have any real Thai friends. A lot of Thais don’t have the sort of deep friendships that foreigners have. I mean, in a real friendship, your friends are welcome around at your home any time and you are welcome at theirs. You do a variety of things together - in fact you probably prefer not to always do the same stuff together. I think a lot of friendships in Thailand would be more accurately described as drinking buddies as opposed to genuine, deep friendships.
How is your Thai?
Absolutely stellar!
What advice would you have for those considering moving to Thailand?
Don’t do anything in Thailand that you would not do at home. This is the biggest single piece of advice I can give. That applies to EVERY aspect of life! Don’t take on a job that doesn’t feel right. Don’t get married to someone you have known for 2 weeks. Don’t get a motorbike when the rider is drunk. Don’t do drugs. The list could go on and on. When unsure about how to respond to a situation, the acid test should always be what you would do if this happened at home.
Also, be conscious of the importance that face plays in Thai society and to Thai people. Avoid causing Thais to lose face. Should you cause them to lose a lot of face, the consequences could be fatal!
Thailand is still a male dominated society but times are changing. What is your opinion about this?
Women have always had a degree of power in Thailand and women generally control the home. To say that Thailand is male-dominated is true insomuch that men hold more political positions of power, control the powerful institutions such as the police and the armed forces and much of the commerce. But there are women in positions of power too. I do think, however, that attitudes are still very slow to change in Thailand and while we might see women in positions of so-called power or authority at some levels, I am not convinced that attitudes have really changed that much on the ground. They have changed, but to what extent I am not sure.
What do you think about a website like Chicky Net? Do women in Thailand really need their own social networking site?
Most Thailand-centric expat sites are very much male-dominated which reflects the fact that expats to this country have traditionally been, and still are, predominately male. This is not changing although there are more women living here today than there have been at any time in the past. I think it’s great that there are places for women to meet online, exchange ideas and benefit from shared experiences.
Do you prefer to date foreign or Thai women?
I like to date good women. It does not matter where they come from, so long as they are the intelligent, witty, positive, have a degree of independence and they are attractive. I would be happy to date a woman of any nationality. As 99% of the women in this country are Thai, that is all I have ever dated. I am certainly not opposed to dating a Western woman, but I meet so few that the opportunity has never arisen.
Anything else you would like to mention?
I know that your readership is probably predominately female and that my site is known as a boys’ hang out. I would hope that your readers would be open-minded enough to check my site out. I am sure there is some material many would not care for but I hope that there is some stuff that they might find interesting. Unlike many foreign guys in Thailand, I am not a Western female hater!
Do you have an interesting Thailand related website and do you want to do an interview too?
Contact the admin or send a message via the Contact page.
