How well off are the Hi-So thais?

[mnmn]

I always wondered how well on the Hi-So Thais (Thai upper class) are, are they middle class (US $40k/yr income) or are they making much more than that. With the Thai way of making appearance so important it is sometimes hard to tell. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Thanks

[Gobby]

when they are rich they are RICH! in thailand

[whitespider - RIP]

I always wondered how well on the Hi-So Thais (Thai upper class) are, are they middle class (US $40k/yr income) or are they making much more than that. With the Thai way of making appearance so important it is sometimes hard to tell. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Thanks

 

Dont cofuse hiso with midso. There is a tendency for people to use the term hiso to describe anyone not from a rural background.

 

Your $40k is much more akin to Thai midso.

 

HiSo only make up around 5% of Thailand - and yes you are talking silly money for some of those guys.

 

Get on a bus from Pattaya to Thailand - as you approach the outskirts of Bangkok LOOK at all the housing developements you will pass. These are 4/5 million baht houses - no fortune but that is midso thailand.

 

Also dont believe the hype shite about low earnings here and remember a Thai earning 60,000 baht a month has FAR more spending power (and probably wealth) than a westerner earning double that - mainly due to the very low cost of housing/mortgages etc.

[Tico]

In my opinion the true "Hi-So" makes a very healthy sum of money, comparable to upper strata of Western society.

 

A few that I have met make somewhere in the range of US $200k or more per year.

[kopite]

This one friend of mine, her whole family owns some diamond business. Saw some pictures of her house, it's a huge mansion, looks like the White house. Hi so for sure.

[Benny10]

These people including their families are the real Hi-Sos.

 

Thailand's 40 Richest

 

Sorted by wealth

[Mywaay]

Mostly Chinese Thais controls most of the finances.

[bundy]

I went to a Thai-chinese wedding in Bangkok last January (customers daughter) and the total cost for the wedding was close to 2,000,000 bht. The cars that were arriving at the hotel were all high end European cars, but all the guests were chinese thai, which seems to be where alot of the money is in bangkok ( i was one of the only westerners there).

[swagman]

I went to a Thai-chinese wedding in Bangkok last January (customers daughter) and the total cost for the wedding was close to 2,000,000 bht. The cars that were arriving at the hotel were all high end European cars, but all the guests were chinese thai, which seems to be where alot of the money is in bangkok ( i was one of the only westerners there).

 

My old London flat mate (from the 80's) is a teacher in an expensive private school. He tell's me that many pupils come from Thailand but speak Cantonese/Mandarin so I guess Chinese-Thai.

 

 

BTW, in 2004 I worked in London & lodged in a huge 6 bed mansion in Hammersmith, this place was fantastically decorated I shared a large bedroom with a workmate & in the bottom of one of the chest of drawers we found some paperwork-all in Thai.

 

I took the bundle of papers back home that W/E for my Mrs to read, as I could see pictures of a typical Thai official in a white uniform (yeah all covered with brightly coloured decorations for making the coffee) & pictures of big cars.

 

From what she & her Thai friends could make out, he was importing luxury cars in Thailand somehow & giving this address & a few other in London as his & own.

 

They couldn't tell for sure if it was part of a scam, but the paperwork had been sent to Thailand then sent back to England. Everthing was in written/copied in triplicate & some copies had certain information changed then officially stamped in Thai.

 

The cars were all high end stuff & I've been told before that import duties on expensive cars is very high.....so was this guy making an absolute packet & investing it into London property? If so just this one house must of been worth over £1 million back then.

 

Nah! of course not -would a Thai in high office ever have that much disrespect for his uniform? LOL

[midge]

In my opinion the true "Hi-So" makes a very healthy sum of money, comparable to upper strata of Western society.

 

A few that I have met make somewhere in the range of US $200k or more per year.

 

You lucky man??? Most of us,i think,never get the chance to meet people of OC or "only " MC Thais.

So it can not be part of a discussion about this.

May be only with ca.5% of all members at the PAs.Cheers.

[midge]

Mostly Chinese Thais controls most of the finances.

 

we all??? know this,but we as the normaly board members will never geta chance to meet

some people of this comunitie as well.Because we don't have the background to

comunicate with them on their level.And they don't meet same locations then we do.Cheers.

[Erasmus]

All of the above is roughly correct although with an observation:

The HiSo families are insanely rich, yes. But the HiSo girls you see don't actually earn big salaries, more likely less than 100K Baht per month, but have a seemingly endless source of cash, that's just the way Thai-Chinese do things.

 

Another observation is that the most visible hiso girls do not reflect the professional and business activity of that society. These are the idle ones, the smart and professionally active ones are not very visible in the Bangkok social scene. And among the less visible ones, there are some really smart and highly educated cookies who are making piles of money. Does not mean they are boring and all work no play, just that their social scene is less obvious.

[Slacker]

Take a trip around Emporium or Siam Paragon malls in Bangkok next visit - they make me feel like a pauper ! I also walked past the JW Marriott in Sukhumvit Soi 2 with what appeared to be an ad-hoc Porsche dealership on the pavements outside - over a dozen top-end 911s. Turned out to be a meeting of some well-heeled Bangkok residents.