It is no secret which we would have to reserve for site members that Bangkok has become a center for cosmetic surgery procedures in Southeast Asia. It doesn't mean that you necessarily get a better result than, for example, in Jakarta or Manila.
The best-known addresses in Bangkok are Bumrungrad Hospital and PAI (Peecha Aesthetic Institute), the latter primarily because their public relations activities on sex change operations have been repeatedly picked up by the international media.
Bumrungrad Hospital is on the top of the price scale for cosmetic surgery procedures in Bangkok. However, one member of the editorial team of this site was definitely not satisfied with a procedure that was undertaken there (a liposuction that resulted in a loss of symmetry).
While at this stage, we do not want to discuss the quality of person beautifications at PAI, we do want to point out that they apparently have an ugly attitude when foreigners walk through their door.
One of our regular contributors who wanted a hair transplant done has visited their clinic (which is a small outfit, compared to many other cosmetic surgery institutions in Bangkok) in mid-2007 to ask for their price, and he was told by what appeared to be their business manager that it would be 100,000 Baht for up to 1500 grafts.
They had no pricelist, as all the larger cosmetic surgery institutions in Bangkok do, which was rather surprising. We would think that it is not economical when a cosmetic surgery clinic has no brochure with published prices as all potential customers will ask for this, and the prices will have to be told through personal conversation time and again. Furthermore, modern technologies make it very easy indeed to use a computer and printer to produce a neat-looking pricelist (provided such equipment is at hand, and somebody in the office is familiar with how to operate it).
Anyway, when our contributor returned a few days later to book the operation, the receptionist called the physician over the in-house phone.
Our contributor, who is a foreigner but speaks Thai, then heard the two discussing that the person who wanted the appointment was not 'kon Thai' (not a Thai person). So why not charge him a higher price?
Because the person requesting the appointment was not 'kon Thai', their business manager and the hair transplant surgeon who works at PAI (whom she contacted over the in-house phone) decided that the price should not be 100,000 (nueng saen) Baht, but 120,000 (nueng saen song muen) Baht, a difference of more than 500 US dollar. The physician did not bother to see the patient, so the reason for the sudden price increase was not that the operation would have been especially complicated. The only thing discussed was money.
I doubt that Dr. Preecha himself, who is a well-respected Thai citizen, is aware of the attitudes of their business manager (a slender woman) and their hair-transplant surgeon.
To charge foreigners a higher price is, of course, a common attitude among low-class Thais. The drivers of motorcycle taxis in Bangkok, or taxi drivers upcountry often try to overcharge foreigners. Thai prostitutes, so we heard, also expect to be paid more by foreign than by local customers.
Like anywhere in the world, people with a low education and anti-social, or even criminal, tendencies are much more likely to be openly racist
Do you think that people who are openly racist and discriminate against foreigners, will apply the same professional care when dealing with a foreigner.
Let's assume a manicurist who is of the opinion that white men are closer to apes than Asian men because they have so much hair. 'Thai people', when they see a white foreigner with plenty of body hair, often half-jokingly (but only half jokingly) refer to them as monkeys.
There are quite possibly only two countries in the world that have an anti-white racist sentiment in the low-class population: Japan and Thailand. In both countries, whether you are black, Semitic, or white, you are considered, all the same, the missing link between humans and the chimpanzee.
