Nice Work, if you can find it

M, the owner of the ecolodge here, tells me the difficulty in finding good help. People will up and leave- no advanced warning, no explanation. Or, if you try to correct someone too much, they react, and they don't show up again. M has the air of a flabbergasted expat trying to run a business here.

The bottom line: Seems like the go-getters all

1. go to Thailand.
2. are actually Vietnamese or Chinese and don't live here in Laos.
3. hide.

The country's in need of a system that identifies and develops talent. The distribution of folks here, on the lazy-
to go-get-'em spectrum, is skewed to the left (the Confucian Vietnamese to the right). But there's got a be a way to find these folks who want to learn, work, keep at a job, improve. M says that the government of Luxembourg will build a school of hotelling and hospitatlity. Its first graduates probably will be 2-3 years from now. Wouldn't it be great if he could offer internships to students at an english language institute who might be interested in tourism.

M is quick to acknowledge that the Lao way is much better for mental health. People either look for quick paypack, or they're not interested. But when you're trying to run a business, you need people who'll be willing to be taught, who'll improve their skills, and, ah, stick around.

The people who live in the village near here are basically subsistence rice farmer/hunter-gatherers, M realizes. What do they really need money for? Why should they worry about punching a clock? What will they do with their new found skills in hotelling? And why are these farangi (anglo/euro foreigners) willing to pay to live in their backyard anyhow?

(It reminds me of stories of Europeans who came to Brazil and tried to pay the natives to build them their rubber plantations. The natives would work just enough for what they needed- enough to earn that one metal knife or axe- then take off. Supposedly, this was a reason the conquistadors decided to enslave the local people to work.)