While
the man featured this week with the fashionable stubble may have
been christened Nikolaus, he is better known as Niki, the owner
of Siamese Traders in Chiang Mai. He is an addict - to tea,
“Oolong” to be precise.
Niki was born in Vienna, the only son of two
artists. His father in fact is the Professor Emeritus from the
University of Vienna and a leading Viennese artist. His record
at school reached the great heights of ‘mediocre’ as Niki
was more interested in the world at large than he was in
schoolbooks. “I was hungry to suck the marrow out of life,”
he said with his infectious grin (while sipping another cup of
Oolong, brewed correctly and dispensed and decanted).
By the time he was 19 years old, parental
influence could not hold him down any further and he ran away to
sea. It was 1977 and the seafaring industry was in the doldrums,
with the ports in Holland full of unemployed sailors, and Niki
could not even find the ladder to get on the bottom rung of, so
he started work in a hotel as a food and beverage (F&B)
trainee.
This was his first real job, so everything
was new and exciting. He also learned that when you work in a
bar in the evenings people confide in the barman, “Though in
my case it was the bar-boy,” he said, laughing again.
He then began the usual round of changing
from hotel to hotel, “I thought the grass was probably greener
somewhere else,” until the inevitable National Service call-up
grabbed his attention. He was assigned to the Tank Corps, but
ended up in the F&B Supplies Department and discovered the
principle of supply and demand. “Everybody loved me. I managed
to sneak out (food) supplies every night!” He had the supply
and they had the demand!
After the tanks, he managed to find some
investors and he opened the first Nouvelle Cuisine Restaurant in
Austria. “I had the expertise, they had the money.” However,
this was not to keep his itchy feet in one place. “Austria was
too ‘normal’ for me,” and he set out for SE Asia, to sate
his desire to see foreign countries.
Hong Kong was not to his liking, but he liked
the food in Thailand. For someone such as Niki, this was enough
to make him look at staying here and he found a fellow Austrian
in the garment business and joined him.
This was a successful move in many ways. The
business grew as Niki grew and in the 14 years he spent in the
garment industry the number of employees grew too, from 12 to
3,000.
The inevitable was happening, however. The
management role was becoming too constrictive for such a free
spirit as Niki’s. “I opened a small restaurant in Bangkok
with some other Austrian friends called ‘The Bolero’ to have
fun in the evenings. We re-created an old bar (the Bolero) -
exotic and seedy!” But the ‘fun in the evenings’
eventually burned him out with, “Too many long evenings and
too many gin and tonics!”
For something different he went to Singapore
to help in the outfitting of a motor yacht. After all, a career
in the garment industry is what every motor yacht outfitter
needs! At least the crew would be well dressed!
But this was just a dalliance on his way to
Paris. Paris? Yes Paris, where Niki managed a nightclub
restaurant for the next two years. It was also around this time
that Niki met an American author, Daniel Reid, who lived in
Chiang Mai. This was to have a momentous impact on him and on
his future. They struck up a great friendship and it was Daniel
who introduced Niki to the ancient Chinese concepts of inner
health and peace - and Chinese teas! (We broke off to brew
another pot of Oolong, to which I was also getting fairly
addicted by this stage!)
He began to attempt a healthy lifestyle,
while still living in Paris, and became “homesick” - not for
Austria, but for Thailand. He began to hang around Paris’
Chinatown and hankered for noodle soups. It was too much - he
left Paris and returned to Thailand.
Back in Bangkok he got a job in the food
service industry. At least he was back here, but he came across
a new discovery on his voyage through life. This was called a
‘conscience’. Here he was, having been exposed to healthy
living and trying to adopt it for himself, while selling
french-fries “By the metric tonne!” He was being torn in
two.
To get himself back together, he returned to
Paris, joining a friend in a TV channel. He became president for
Asia and introduced Fashion TV to Thailand, Hong Kong and Japan.
At least ‘ogling’ could not be considered ‘unhealthy’
unless one was totally narrow-minded!
During this time he had been travelling to
Chiang Mai for weekends but by 1997 he had dispensed with the
bright lights of the Fashion TV catwalk and followed his heart
to come here and settle, eventually setting up Siamese Traders
to produce and sell various local products, including teas and
jams and other items which he formulates himself. “I
personally endorse what I’m selling.” He also enjoys working
on his own health, “I’m not getting any younger and I enjoy
waking up in the morning feeling good.”
This does not mean that he is now sitting in
the corner contemplating his navel (while sipping on Oolong,
naturally). He still needs excitement and stimulus, which he
currently gets by taking his 4WD into the mountains and drinking
tea with the KMT still up there.
His advice to the youth of today includes “Think, meditate,
find out what you want to do, then do it - and give it all
you’ve got.” Niki Prachensky has certainly been giving it
all he’s got - and is loving it! By the way, the tea’s not a
bad drop either!
