Oh, and I promised to tell about my gym. Here I go.
My friend Ann (Thai Christian missionary, runs the coffeeshop, didn't realize how Christian she was until I saw her myspace page) started going to this gym and gave me a card for 5 free visits. She said the place was nice and I was looking for a gym to join anyway.
I get a call at 9pm for a girl named Posh telling me that she heard I was Ann's friends and she really wanted to give me the special price, but the promotion was going to be over tomorrow, so I needed to come in that night. I said I couldn’t make it that night, but I would go in the next day to take a tour of the gym.
I met Posh the next morning said she convinced her manager to let her give me the special price because I was a friend of Ann's and she worked really hard, but I could only get it if I signed it today. I said that a one year contract wouldn't work because I don't know what my plans are after June 19th and I know I won't be living in Chiang Mai for another year. She told me that I could transfer the membership or I can cancel it if I show an international flight ticket. And the last two months deposit would be refunded too. Posh gave me a very convincing speech and the place was kind of exciting/danceclub-ish and the monthly fee was less than 1/2 of the gym right by me. So I said fine. Paid the joining fee, the first month and the last two months and got a pink slip saying I was a member. But I didn't get a card, I got one of those 5 free visit cards that Ann had given me. Ann called me and said she was psyched that I joined and she couldn't wait to go with me. In a month. When she got back from Malaysia and Singapore.
I went back the next day, showed the pink receipt, they were confused, they asked for the 5 free pass card, and they took that instead.
I gave Caroline one of the 5 free visit cards and when she came with me, I realized she and I were doing the exact same sign in procedure. There was no difference between a "member" and a "free trial person". I asked when I got my membership card, the girl behind the counter said when I finished the 5 free visits.
I finished the 5 free visits, psyched to get my membership card and Posh said, "Great! See you when the gym opens!"
WHAT???? So I knew the gym was under construction. They have 15 treadmills, 4 elliptical machines, a couple of steppers, 3 or 4 reclining and upright stationary bikes, and maybe 15 weight machines. During the schpeal from Posh she showed me the floor plan and said it would all be opening March 1st. She never mentioned that memberships don't start until the club opens. So back to our conversation.
"What? When the gym opens? You mean in March?"
"Yeah, just a couple of weeks. Can you do that?"
"No. I started coming to the gym, I need to keep going to the gym. You never said I wouldn't be able to come to the gym. I bought it for now."
Posh pulled me aside.
"Listen, we're not supposed to do this, but here are some more (5 free visit) cards. Can you just wait 2 days before coming back?"
"Wait, so no one in this club right now has a membership?"
"No, memberships don't start until the gym opens."
"And so right now this is all free?"
"Yes."
Hmm... it feels like a stupid way to do stuff, but she gave me enough cards to easily last until March 1st so I waited the two days and went back. Caroline's been coming with me occasionally, and Miriam came for her first time on Saturday, so that's nice. That's a plus side. I have all these cards and they only accept free trial people so I can bring whomever I want.
So obviously it's more fun to work out with friends and Renata was looking for a gym, so I told her to join mine. But she's also only here until June. When I got there I asked for Posh and a girl named Ann said Posh wasn't there. I asked when she was going to be back. "In, maybe, 6 months."
WHAT??? Posh, the only sales person that can speak English took off for six months!?!?! I was sure she was confused. Posh wouldn’t do that to me! I tried in Thai to see if she was getting days/weeks/months confused but she wasn’t. Uh oh.
Ann was really psyched about helping but her English sucked. Her nametag said Ann, she introduced herself as Ann, but when she wrote her name down she wrote A M M. And when Renata was trying to ask about alternatives to a one year contract she was totally clueless. She just smiled, nodded and kept circling the same numbers. Renata, smartly, was concerned by this and decided to pass on the membership.
This reminds me. Jeff and his friend Chris came to look at the gym too and he asked a question to some real pretty girl, in Thai even, and she was clueless. He then pointed out, "Of course she's dumb, she was hired cause she's pretty. You can't talk to the pretty girls. Where's the fat chick? They're the only ones who ever know what's going on." He's kind of right. My girl Posh isn't 95 pounds. Jeff's statement sounds kind of harsh, but this isn't the only place to hire 90% good looking people, and 10% people with a brain. (Even if it's a manipulative, lying Thai brain.)
So Posh is coming back in 6 months and most people who work there don't have a clue what's going on. The gym isn't really open, but I can go whenever I want and bring friends and March 1st the gym is going to open. Fine.
Then I got a call from a non-English speaking person calling from "Ca-li-fon-EE". I didn't know what she was saying, but I figured she got my number from the 5 free visit card sign in sheet so I kept saying, "I have a membership already" in Thai. Eventually through help from her friends she said, "I want to appointment with you."
Oh awesome. She wants to appointment with me. Sure, why not. We made plans to appointment at 11 the next day.
(Posh told me the hours were 8am - 10pm, but apparently that's for when it opens. Right now it's apparently 10:30am - 10, but the mall opens at 11 and whenever there are people who want to appointment with me they'll never do it before 11, so I think it really opens at 11. Thank god I don't have a job with real hours.)
I get there at 11, and it turns out it's my free personal training session that comes with my membership. This is actually kind of exciting because it means someone's noticed that I've paid for a membership. But she doesn't speak English. Now I know some Thai, but we decide it's better if I go with an English speaking guy, conveniently named Guy who speaks English… kinda. If the goal of speaking English is to transfer information, then he can speak English. If the goal of speaking English is to know how to talk to someone in the context of their culture then he's pretty worthless.
Some key points brought up by Guy:
"You weigh too much."
"You have too much fat."
"Your health is very poor." On the fat caliper chart I scored "very poor" which was below "good", "average", "fair" and "poor". Oh boy.
"Your heart is very bad."
Ok. That's a lot for a Western girl to handle. Especially when she's pretty sure she's healthier than she's been in a while. The weight stuff - whatever. It's nothing I didn't know. I don't think my health is very poor, but I would agree that I have more fat in my body than I need. That's why I came to the gym, right?
The heart thing, on the other hand, scared the shit out of me, but he said my heart was very bad because my blood pressure was too low. I didn't know that could even be an issue. But I think he thought it was an issue because my "resting pulse rate" was kind of high. It was, I can admit that, but I can also think of 4 things why it was kind of high.
1) I left my house kind of annoyed at one of my roommates.
2) I drove through Chiang Mai traffic to get to the mall and had just come from the motorbike parking lot, which is definitely a highly stressful place.
3) I walked into the gym with 10 people talking at me in Thai, and me not understanding any of it.
4) I had just been seated at a table with the first pair of fat calipers I had ever seen.
So yeah. I had some stress factors working against me there. And
resting pulse means pulse after sitting relaxed for 10 minutes. So pretty much his measurements were bullshit. Whatever. I've checked my pulse since and I'm fine and low blood pressure is only a problem if you display symptoms, which I don't, and therefore I'm fine.
Trying to lighten the mood I pointed to the poster of the porn star looking spokesmodel for the gym and said, "So if I train with you I'll look like her?" His answer, "I don't think so. She is very beautiful. You would have to lose about 10 kilos (22 pounds) to look like her. She is very tall and doesn't have fat."
"Oh."
So after my 10 minutes of walking and then a couple of the weight machines Guy and I sat down to have a heart to heart.
"You are fat. You need to lose weight to be healthy. How much do you want to weigh?"
"I don't know, Guy. What do you think?"
"I think 57 kilos is good for you." (In Australia I was 64, right now I'm usually around 61, that day I was 61.5, but we rounded up to 62 for good measure.)
"Yeah, cool, sure, 57, sounds good."
"Ok, and what fat percentage do you want?"
"Hmm... up to you!” (“Up to you!” very very very common Thai phrase which usually doesn’t mean that at all.)
"Ok, I think 20% is good. (Calculates) That means you have to lose 10 kilos of fat and gain 5 kilos of muscle. (Laughs) That is very, very difficult."
"Yeah, it sure sounds like it."
"And in how many months can you do this?"
"Um, I have no idea. What do you think?"
"I think three."
"Three, wow. That's amazing."
"Ok, so how many sessions do you want? We have promotion now. 36 sessions for 25,000 baht." (25,000 baht, a little more than my monthly salary at AUA)
"Hmmm, sorry. I don't get paid enough at AUA to do that. I think the membership is expensive enough. Thanks though."
"Ok, 5 sessions, 5,000 baht. Special price." (5,000 baht can buy round trip tickets to Cambodia.)
"Hmmm, sorry. I think I'm just going to do this on my own."
"Really?"
"Yeah, thanks for the health advice though. It was really helpful."
It was hard saying goodbye. Less so to Guy than to all of the measurements he had taken of me. I've never had the circumference of my calf measured before. I don't know where that chart has gone off to now, but I'll sure miss it.
So I think that was Thursday and Friday I decided to start losing my 10 kilos of fat and went to the gym with Caroline.
When we started going we were using the empty yoga room as our stretching room. The lights and the air conditioning are always on, there's no one in there and it has a lot of space and a nice floor. No one's ever said anything to us, but then last Friday a guy came in and said this room wasn't open yet.
"It's not open? When's it going to be open?"
"It will open when the gym opens."
"Oh, March 1st, right?"
"Hm, not sure. Maybe the end of next month."
"End of next month? Posh told me March 1st."(Silence.)"Uh, ok, so where should we stretch?"
"Well, the front of the gym is open."
"Right, we saw that, but we didn't see a place to stretch there. Is there a place to stretch there?"
"Hmm... I can make an exception for you for today. But this room isn't open yet. Don't be in here for a long time."
"Ok, 5 minutes. We're just stretching."
We stretched, and got on the treadmills. These treadmills are brand new, really nice and they have little weight pads on them. So when you select a program there's a prompt that reads "Please stand on the weight pads for measurement."
I watched as the prompt came up and two people, one in a personal trainer's outfit looked at the screen blankly and pressed the ok button over and over. The machine responded with. "Cannot get reading. Please stand on the weight pads for measurement." I pointed to the big foot shaped gray pads and the guy finally stepped onto it. I don't blame them. It sucks that no one is going to make a (quality) treadmill with Thai script. I was confused because I wasn't sure if it was in English or metric but at least I could read everything on the screen.
So Caroline and I watched this and similar pathetic attempts with cardio equipment. Then we realized that these were all people who were going to be working at the gym. They were giving fake personal training sessions to each other. The gym is pretty empty. When I was there with Guy I was the only person working out. But that day it was packed trainer people.
So Caroline and I decide to keep doing what we're doing but every time we're on a machine one of the trainer guys comes over and adjusts parts of our bodies. I understand they're trying to help but it gets really uncomfortable really fast. And maybe if it were just one person trying to lend a helping hand it would be okay, but it's one person after another trying to “help” while 15 others are stopped and staring.
Caroline tried to help and block their path but every machine we went used someone came over to try to help. The worst was the triceps machine. One guy came over to move my elbow two centimeters to the left. Another guy came over to count to three (in English, I had to try really hard not to laugh) with me. And I think there was one more but I can't remember what he did. Finally I finished and the last guy there said, "Stretch, very important. Like this." I'm all about stretching my triceps but at this point and time I was distgustingly sweaty and the armpit area of my shirt was pretty gross and not something I wanted to display to a group of 16 personal trainers in training. (Remember, Thais don't sweat. Only farang.) But they were all staring and waiting and demonstrating how to do it. I knelt behind one of the machines and stretched while whimpering to Caroline about how uncomfortable I felt.
And then, for the icing on the cake, one trainer guy with a ponytail comes over and says, "You have very big triceps!" and then laughs. I'm fairly certain he wasn't actually talking about my muscle strength as much as the circumference of my upper arm. It's probably 3 times the size of the average Thai girl.
Last note about Friday - during the PT session with Guy we went through and did all the machines, finding seats and weights that worked well, which was actually helpful. But he wasn't writing anything down which I thought was weird. I found the card the he wrote it all on afterwards but it was all wrong. Ah, that's what the other guy did at the triceps machine. The seat was on something like 3, the third guy made me to move it to 1 which really was a lot better for me and on the card from Guy it said I should use seat 5.
I think that was my penalty for not signing up for PT - a completely useless workout card.
So Friday sucked, but determined to make the most of the free gym time with friends Caroline and I went back Saturday with Miriam making her debut appearance at California WOW. It was great. Outside the gym were a group of breakdancers which is hard not to just get drawn to. So Miriam and I walked over and sat down. There was a Thai girl with the group who came over and asked if we were international (high)school kids. "Uh, no, we're English teachers." She ended up being 36 (but could have easily been a high school girl), and speaking perfect English because she had lived in the States for 12 years. She offered lessons and Miriam took them.
This was amazing. Miriam, who had a kind of sheltered childhood experience, is now ready for anything. She is out to make the most out of every experience possible and is never ashamed to ask questions. She's truly an inspiration I love it. First rocky road ice cream, pork ribs, mainstream music and now breakdancing.
It was needless to say, amazing to watch.
Then we went to the gym and stretched in our yoga room, did the elliptical for 20 minutes and the bikes for 20 minutes. Caroline and I were both too traumatized from the previous day to go near the weight machines.
For a laugh, I did a Posh update. It's a different answer every time.
"Is Posh here?"
"Jah sah momeh peas" (Just a moment please) "Oh sorry. Today Posh day off."
"Ok, she has the day off. Cool. Will she be here tomorrow?"
"Jah sah momeh peas" "Oh solly, she not here tomorrow."
"All right. And do you when she will be back?"
"Jah sah momeh peas!" "Uh, maybe next week. Not sure." (Another popular Thai phrase.)
Whatever. Going to the gym is better than not going to the gym. If I call Posh there's a chance I can find out her version of what's going on.
---------------------
Ok, can’t call Posh because I broke/lost my phone and all the numbers in it. But that’s ok, cause it would have been worthless. She quit. The guy who had previously yelled at me for stretching in the yoga room finally told me. His name’s Kris. He speaks pretty good English. Back to the story…
So Miriam and I decide to go to the gym some day after March 1st. By this time I’ve finished my two 5 free visit cards and went to start my new one. Desk girl Pla stops me and says, “You finish card already.” “Um, Yeah.” “Ok, only one.”
“Oh, only one. Ok, well, I’ve paid for a membership, and I want to work out, so what do I do?” (With a huge, fake smile - the key to getting anything done with Thais. Getting angry or showing frustration will freak them out and you’ll never get an answer. Dad, brace yourself.)
“You come back when gym opens.”
“Oh! Posh told me the gym opens on March 1st, right?”
“Oh, sorry, maybe end of month.”
“Oh, the end of the month. Ok, so now, I use the card?” and hand her back the five free visit card while smiling as much as possible.
“Eh…” she runs and gets Kris. I completely understood what she was saying, but I didn’t like the idea that I paid for a membership in the beginning of February and I have yet to be able to do anything that Caroline hasn’t been able to expect be told that I’m fat. And I figured if I smiled and acted confused enough she’d just give up and let me start the 3rd card. But she stood strong. I was surprised.
So then I met Kris. He was the guy who told Caroline and me that the room with the lights and air conditioning on wasn’t open yet. I said I was confused because when I signed up with Posh she never told me there were going to be two months where I wouldn’t be allowed to use the gym when I was signing up. And then once she did explain it to me she said it would be open March 1st. And all I wanted to do was work out and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do because it seemed like a bunch of money was the only thing I could do and I had already done that. Smilesmilesmilesmilesmilesmile.
I showed him my contract saying I had paid, but Posh hadn’t written how much I had paid and “this was a problem.” Well I know how much I paid, Posh knows how much I paid, couldn’t you just call her?
“No, she quit. She’s left. She’s not here anymore. “
Woah! Well not really woah. I guess I kind of expected it. All of that day off, tomorrow, next week, in a month, in 6 months was total, excuse my language, bullshit. At least Kris was honest.
“This happens a lot with sales people. They make a lot of money and then leave. You can never trust any sales people.” Thanks Kris. Would American companies say that about their own employees?
“Well what do I do now? Who can I trust?”
“You can trust me. I’m not in sales. I’m in Operations. I deal with all of the complaints about sales.”
“Well Posh said I could cancel my membership if I showed an internatinoal plane ticket. I’m leaving and that’s the only reason I agreed to the one year contract. Is that true?”
“Uh…. Well, yes, I think we can do that. It would have to go to Bangkok and it might take a while.”
“So that won’t be a problem? You’ll help me when I need to cancel it?”
“It won’t be a problem, yes I’ll help.” Woo hoo straight answers!
“Thanks! And what about now? I want to work out. I’ve paid a lot of money, and I’m in my gym clothes, what do I do?” Smilesmilesmilesmile.
He explained that they didn’t want to start people’s memberships yet because the gym wasn’t open so it wouldn’t be fair. But I said, I didn’t care, I would love to have my membership started today and I just wanted to work out. And if I couldn’t start it today I wanted to cancel it so I could use that money to pay a gym where I was allowed to work out.
That freaked him out and he got some forms for me to fill out and he said he could start my membership.
And then he asked about my friends and if they wanted memberships because a lot of them have been using the 5 free visit passes. I told him most of my friends were leaving in June and if there were a way to pay monthly until June I would have at least 6 people for him, but no one wants to sign a contract with a sales person that is going to lie to them and then take off. He said that was fair. And I mentioned all of my friends think I’m really stupid for signing up because no one’s ever given me the same anser twice about anything I’ve ever asked. He said that was fair. They do have monthly memberships but it’s more than 5 times my monthly payment (5,000 baht monthly, 849 contract). Miriam and I talked for a while (without Kris) about how stupid that was, cause if you think about who is in Thailand, young English teacher and NGO expats are by far the most likely to use a gym, especially one like this where they are most definitely trying to replicate a danceclub. Thais aren’t going to use it. Besides that day with the trainers there have barely been more than 5 other people there. And most of them are in jeans and flip flops or mini skirts and stilletos. Thais haven’t completely grasped the work out thing. That Saturday that Caroline, Miriam and I went all the reclining bikes were actually taken, but Caroline pointed out that she’s never seen anyone do any of the machines for more than 3 minutes so we could probably wait, and she was completely right. A minute later, they were off to the treadmill for their next 2 minute workout. And most of the older expats are fat old men who don’t give a crap about going to gym or if they do they would go to a gym run by farang who know what they’re doing and not a place with neon posters of Thai celebrties saying things like, “Thanks for the healthy!” So you’re left with the young expats who would be more than happy to pay monthly, like 1000 or even 1500, but are way too cool to sign a one year contract for anything cause they got to go back for grad school and whatever.
Ugh. Whatever. It’s done. I have a new slip of yellow paper and when I went with Caroline yesterday, I saw my boy Kris, pulled out the yellow slip of paper, smiled as wide as I could, he laughed and said I could go in, which distracted the girl at the desk from noticing that Caroline was signing in using a new 5 free visit card. We came up with a new plan. Use the weight machines when we don’t see any trainers around and sprint for the bikes as soon as we see them. It worked well. We saw ponytail/“big triceps” guy eyeing us just as we were finishing the chest press thing and were out of there before he could “help” us.
Oh California Wow Experience. An experience indeed.
P.S. I'm not bitter, just observant.
