Thailand’s soon to be ex-junta leader/soon to be Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-Ocha announced last Friday that the previously announced crackdown on back-to-back visa running farang will also be a soon to be ex-policy because disallowing those folks re-entry to the country is hurting education and tourism within the kingdom. Evidently, according to Almost PM Prayuth the crackdown on in/out visa scammers is putting a hefty dent in the number of foreign language teachers and tour guides. Even though the old new policy was only a matter of a few weeks old. And even though those on tourist visas are not allowed to teach. And even though non-Thais are not allowed to work as tour guides. Which would make little sense if Almost PM Prayuth was the almost leader/military coup honcho of pretty much any other nation on the planet. But this, thank the gods, is Thailand. Where what you don’t say matters more than what you do.

For those who don’t think learning choice words and phrases of the local lingo – like that the Thai word for toilet is hong nam – is the route to better understanding the world of Thailand, reading between the lines immediately tells you what Almost PM Prayuth really meant. First, his announcement was about face. And second it was about tourism and how Thailand is viewed by the rest of the world. Which currently is as a country-wide brothel. And that’s a rep Almost PM Prayuth is tired of. Because he doesn’t want to be referred to as Mamasan Prayuth when meeting other leaders on the world stage. But let’s talk about that face thingy first.

The initial crackdown that sent many illegal sexpats’ balls racing for safe harbor was announced by soon to be ex-national commander of Thai Immigration, Lt. Gen. Pharnu Kerdlarpphon two months ago as part of the junta’s overall crackdown on everything that wasn’t making Thailand a happy place. As devastating as that bit of news was to those who have no legal right to be living in Thailand, most assumed it was just another thrust in the multi-prong attack against general villainy that included a crackdown on illegal immigrants flowing over the border from Burma (which really was about protecting them in the workplace) and a crackdown on the notorious Taxi Mafia (which was really about sending a bitch slap to permanent ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his band of merry red shirt wearing men). Thai immigration officials, never big fans of anyone who is not Thai, rushed to implement the new – and now soon to be ex – interpretation of the law.

Unfortunately for soon to be ex-national commander of Thai Immigration, Lt. Gen. Pharnu Kerdlarpphon’s career, he failed to notice that his announcement was causing a bit of rain to fall on soon to be Almost Prime Minister Prayuth’s parade All of the junta’s crackdowns making the news were supposed to be coming from the good general. So that everyone would know that by junta we meant General Prayuth. Oooops. Soon to be ex-national commander of Thai Immigration Lt. Gen. Pharnu Kerdlarpphon’s bad. And now he is ex-national commander of Thai Immigration Lt. Gen. Pharnu Kerdlarpphon. And Almost PM Prayuth now has to clean up his mess.

So, during his weekly TV briefing to the nation, the general said he had ordered the Immigration Police to be “more flexible” in its application of the law. Which is Thai for ‘go back to what you were doing for the last twenty years’. And since it would look un-leader like to explain the new policy to not enforce the law as was done under the old policy is all due to an uppity Lt. Gen. who didn’t know his place, Almost Prime Minister Prayuth resolved the issue by saying, “This is an ongoing problem that needs to be resolved, as it can lead to a shortage of English teachers and guides.”

Which may appear to look like Almost Prime Minister Prayuth doesn’t even know what the laws of his own country are. Until you remember this is Thailand and laws are generally considered to be something best ignored. And if ignoring those laws becomes too much of a hassle, you can just enact a new constitution anyway. But taken in context of the numerous steps Almost Prime Minister Prayuth has taken over the last few months to make his country a happy place and clean-up its reputation around the world, the good general’s announcement last weeks speaks to a much broader soon to be official but we can’t actually make it official policy, directed toward the country’s tourism industry. And that policy should warm the cockles (minus a few letters) of Pattaya’s sexpat population’s hearts.

While Thailand battles with its most recent attempt at being a democracy (wink, wink), it’s obvious Almost Prime Minister Prayuth, as he picks which battles are to be fought, takes his cues from the long hours he spends on Facebook. Social media has become the driving force behind the good general’s efforts to happy-atize his country. When the on-line world was all atwitter over Thailand’s win as one of the world’s worst violators of human trafficking thanks to its successful seafood industry, Almost Prime Minister Prayuth stepped right up to the seafood dinner plate and announced a crackdown on the dastardly illegal immigrants who were feeding themselves into the country’s slavery trade. When Kim Kardashian tweeted that she’d like to take a Thai baby home as a souvenir of her trip to the kingdom, Almost Prime Minister Prayuth’s junta immediately responded with a crackdown on the country’s previously profitable surrogacy industry by arresting nine newborn infants who’d been conspiring to sell themselves to foreign parents in Australia and Germany.

As soon as Almost Prime Minister Prayuth notices problems within his country on-line, he immediately responds. For example, in reaction to the horror of Facebook fans over the illegal ivory trade that has always been business as usual in the kingdom, the good general recently announced a crackdown on elephant poaching too. (Although I don’t remember just what steps were announced to solve that problem. But I’m sure they included a death sentence for any elephants caught involving themselves in the trade.)

As with these on-line hot button issues, the good general’s general state of unhappiness with Thailand’s rep for being the world’s brothel has also resulted in a crackdown on Bangkok’s red light districts. No longer, for the overpriced cost of a drink, can you see naked locals copulating on stage. Now you have to pony up 500 baht and take one (or more) of them back to your hotel to experience that pleasure. Not that the country’s lax enforcement of its prostitution laws are to blame. Of course. That fault lies with its tourists; touri gone wild is a major problem in Thailand. And there’s the rub. (Which, btw, in Bangkok will run you about 2,000 baht for a happy ending.)

So it is not mere coincidence that the good general and soon to be prime minister mentioned what were recently considered to be ‘bad’ tourists in his radio address last week just days after touri gone wild made the social media news in Barcelona. Evidently, the residents of that Spanish town are fed up with tourists behaving badly. The straw that broke the camel’s back was three nude Italian tourists who frolicked around Spain’s La Barceloneta neighborhood for three hours last Friday, which resulted in 100 Barcelona residents taking to the streets demanding local officials do more to combat their city’s drunken tourism problem. “We’re tired of low-cost, drunken tourism,” said La Barceloneta neighborhood association leader, Oriol Casabella. “It’s killing our neighborhood and dissuading other types of tourists. It’s Magaluf all over again.”

(Note: Magaluf is a major holiday resort and a notorious holiday spot on the Spanish island of Majorca, primarily catering to the British, Russian, Irish, and Scandinavian package holiday market, with a well-deserved reputation for being naughty, naked, and downright dirty. Uh, the town, not the touri. Well, okay, both.)

(Note to self: You need to make a trip to Magaluf.)

The naked tourists were the latest incident in an ongoing conversation Barcelona has been having in recent years about the number and the type of tourists visiting the city. The number of tourists visiting has jumped drastically in recent year to more than 7.4 million annually. As residents attempt to go about their lives in a city where tourists often far outnumber the 1.6 million residents, the number of complaints about noise, nudity, public drunkenness, and littering has rocketed. Which may sound like Pattaya to you. Well, it did to Almost Prime Minister Prayuth too.

And much like with now ex-national commander of Thai Immigration Lt. Gen. Pharnu Kerdlarpphon, Almost Prime Minister Prayuth doesn’t like other countries honing in on what is Thailand’s rightful domain. So with a masterful one-two punch the good general addressed both issues last Friday by declaring the previously announced crackdown on in/out visa runs null and void, and declaring Thailand’s borders open season for the type of touri no other country wants. It’s not the illegal ESL teachers or illegal tour guides the good general wants to protect, but the drunk-ass sex tourists who flock to Pattaya, many of whom eventually decide to call the kingdom’s version of Sin City home. and since no one in Thailand actually considers Pattaya to be part of the country, by funneling the drunks and sex tourists there the good general can still have his cake and eat it too.

What Almost Prime Minister Prayuth meant by “This is an ongoing problem that needs to be resolved, as it can lead to a shortage of English teachers and guides,” is “We built Pattaya for the drunk sex tourists of the world and if we don’t allow them free access across our borders it will lead to a shortage of those ideals Thais hold most dearly: baht, baht, and more baht.” Which was all that the crackdown on in/out visa runs was going to accomplish anyway. Now with Almost Prime Minister Prayuth’s un-tightening of the country’s recently tightened immigration policies, those who choose to live out their golden years as illegal immigrants immersed in a constant state of drunken haze and commercial sex can once again breathe freely. And if that doesn’t make Pattaya’s bar owners, visa run service operators, flesh peddlers, and prostitutes happy, I, and the good general, don’t know what will.

So if you were concerned that the next time you stepped foot out of the country it would be your last time, rest easy. The crack down on in-out visa scammers is now officially an ex-crackdown in illegal immigration. And if an immigration official starts giving you a hard time about the multiple entry stamps cluttering up the pages of your passport, just tell him you are headed for Pattaya. Then all will be fine. Because unlike clueless farang, Thais know what Almost Prime Minister Prayuth meant when he promised to bring happiness back to Thai people.

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