John
Moore came to Chiang Mai on holiday in 1987 and within an hour
vowed to himself that he would one day live here. He had checked
into a nice guesthouse and unpacked. Then he decided to go out
and walk around the market place to see what was in the
neighborhood. He simply fell in love with the friendly people
and smiling faces, the open-air market, the culture and the
amazing food. He was successful in his field, agricultural
finance, and he had no idea what lay ahead of him before he
could achieve his dream. There was bad and there was good, and
as I talk to him I can see how he weathered the bad and pursued
the good. It will embarrass him to read this, because John is
not a pretentious man, but he is a tribute to the human spirit,
to our ability to adapt and persevere.
Like many people in England, John left school
at 16 to take his first job. University was not an option, so he
joined a bank. At first, he was assigned the usual tasks of a
new employee – run the errands, deliver messages, and make
coffee. He looked around and decided that he didn’t want to be
making coffee for very long, so he became the worst coffee maker
in the bank. “Do you like your coffee weak, sir?” Hmmm, add
at least three spoonfuls to that cup! “Black?” Ah, there
goes the box of sugar. He was quickly promoted to cashier.
By the age of 19 he was the number one
cashier in the bank, and learned so quickly that he began to ask
about taking exams that would allow him to be promoted again.
But at 19, he was six years too young. He would have to wait
until he was 25 for further opportunities, and that seemed far
too far away. So he left the bank and took a position with local
government for a few years until a career job opened up. A small
agricultural finance company offered him a position and he
accepted it.
He spent the next 17 years growing with the
company, which went from a staff of five to over 280 sales
people. John says that the positive feelings and the team spirit
among the employees were felt throughout the company. He felt
good about what they were all doing together. Then the company
attracted the attention of Barclay’s bank, which purchased it,
and that feeling was lost. The big name was prestigious, but the
old company spirit flailed. John moved to a finance position
with a huge multinational corporation, Transamerica, and within
nine months was made redundant, laid off. It was a shock he
couldn’t fathom. His successful career in finance simply
disappeared.
So his life, which had been quite nice, now
became quite difficult. To his amazement he found that, at 38,
he was “too old” for most positions that interested him.
Human resource people actually told him that they were looking
for younger people but people who had John’s work experience.
Impossible, of course, but true at that time. John made a few
return trips to Thailand, and on one of them learned that a
guesthouse was up for sale. He had no experience in guesthouse
management, but asked his aunt to take a chance with him and
loan him the money. Five thousand pounds was forthcoming, and
John was in business.
He met Dang, and she joined him in running
the guesthouse. They were the only employees. They booked and
received, cooked and cleaned, painted and plumbed, changed the
sheets and towels, bought the food at the market. They did it
all with creativity and good humor. To solve the lack of a
bartender, they simply put a pen and pad on the bar. Guests
fixed their own drinks and charged themselves. They lost one
Coke. Guests became family. One Frenchman borrowed the kitchen
on a regular basis to prepare food. Some came only once, but
most returned over and over again. John and Dang were working
24/7. They loved the guests, they loved having a business, but
they had no life other than the guesthouse. They sold the
guesthouse and went to England. Surely jobs were better now.
They married and had a beautiful little girl. John worked every
job he could get, but jobs still weren’t easy to find and he
had to work all the time just to get by. Dang and the baby came
back to Thailand. Living here was less expensive. John found a
steady job driving mini-cabs in England. He went back and forth
between Thailand and England. He wasn’t happy separated from
his family, they weren’t happy without him, but he had a job.
As a young man he played football and squash.
Then he injured his back and couldn’t play anymore. He was
getting out of shape just driving the mini-cab, and searched
around for something athletic he could do without injuring his
back again. He discovered archery. It improved his back muscles
and strengthened his chest and shoulders. He was 49 years old
and had found a new challenge, something that he did very, very
well. “You can’t give up on life”, he says. He practiced
and practiced. He won tournaments. He took classes and exams and
became a coach. It slowly occurred to him that this could be it;
maybe he had found a new career.
With a little money and a lot of hope, he came back to
Thailand and rejoined his family. They opened Chiang Mai Bow on
the Mae Rim Highway across from Green Valley Golf Club. He began
teaching for several international schools. He took students,
Thai and western, groups and individuals. He says, “I adore
teaching students to shoot”. I watched his students at a
tournament. Do you know they really do shoot apples off of the
heads of straw dummies? And they can hit balloons that are
waving in the wind? John Moore has come home.
