Someone somewhere must surely have calculated that Bangkok has more doctors and tailors per capita than anywhere on Earth. These two industries, healthcare and clothing, must account for a prodigious share of tourist revenues, and they both operate on similar principles: make the customer feel pleasant even as the results disappoint. It’s a formidable business model, not least because it persuades thousands of customers that they have scored a bargain and therefore cannot be as disappointed as they actually feel. Deeply gaslit, the customer fervently believes in what he has purchased – even if his new suit would not look amiss on a Jacques Cousteau research boat or his ‘world-class’ surgeon operated on the wrong foot, something that happened to an acquaintance of mine. Weeks in a wheelchair but still a bargain.
The model will likely not fit you unless you are built like a 19-year-old Korean pop star. You aren’t
Consider the average tailor on Sukhumvit Road, where American tailoring tourists go to die.
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