It's all about music, man...

PROFILE

When a 50-year-old man with black and silver flecked hair and a two-day-old goatee marched onto the stage to jam with the resident band, the audience was naturally sceptical. This is Bangkok after all, a city never short of "big-shots" assaulting the eardrums of pub patrons after succumbing to delusions of Elvis Presley-like grandeur.

But when Democrat Party list MP Kiat Sittheeamorn belted out Eric Clapton's classic Wonderful Tonight last week at Thong Lor's Log Cabin Pub and Restaurant, scepticism quickly turned to delight.

The men put down their drinks to pay attention. The ladies noticeably shifted in their seats - wide-eyed, they sat up and faced the stage. After the first verse, there was rapturous applause. People started singing along. When the song finished, the applause was accompanied by screams and squeals from the ladies, prompting a second number, Al Stewart's Year of the Cat.

Does he call himself a ladies' man? Mr Kiat smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "No, but I enjoy good conversations," he said with a wink.

Is he the man to replace Kasit Piromya as the next foreign minister, should he resign? Mr Kiat laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

"To this day, no one from the party [Democrats] has yet talked to me about it." He did not wink.

Mr Kiat was tipped to become commerce minister for Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's government, but the post was given away to its Bhumjaitai Party coalition partner in the so-called "horse trading" deal.

Charisma isn't something one can buy at Central's midnight sales, but Mr Kiat does have a particular charm about him. Perhaps it's because he's not your average politician-cum-businessman. In his heart he's a musician and a biker. Above all, he exudes the confidence of a self-made man.

"I walked out from [my father's] home when I was 18, and have depended on myself ever since. I took care of myself doing odd jobs," he said.

Leaving home wasn't a consequence of a family quarrel. Mr Kiat said he just wanted to go out and see the world.

From 1977 to 1981, Mr Kiat attended Chulalongkorn University's electrical engineering programme, and to support himself and put himself through school, he diversified his skills. One day he was a carpenter, the next an electrician and the next a house painter. At night though, he became a musician.

His band was called the Imitation. It was the heyday of such legendary bands as the Impossible and Royal Sprite. The venues were the Montien Thong pub, in the basement of the Montien Hotel on Surawongse Road, and the Hollywood pub.

The band also played at cinemas, as in those days there weren't any big concert halls in Thailand. And the music? Just as the band's name suggested, they played covers of songs from the likes of the Beatles and the Eagles. Mr Kiat played guitar and was the lead singer. In those days, he also jammed with legendary musician Assanee, of rock duo Assanee-Wason fame.

"My grades were horrid at the time. I spent all my time enjoying music, making money and enjoying life," Mr Kiat said, beaming, but quickly added that his grades were bad for only the first and second year. He was able to maintain a 3.5 GPA or higher in this third and fourth years.

Music, like language, came naturally to Mr Kiat. He grew up listening to his father's music, like Frank Sinatra, Patti Page and Tom Jones. But like most youngsters, he graduated to the Beatles, which has been his favourite band ever since. He learned to play the guitar and piano on his own.

From music, he learned to speak English, and then started reading. At the age of 14 he started to help out teaching at his father's language school.

"I even had to teach Shakespeare - Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet," he said with a laugh.

For his secondary education, Mr Kiat studied at Assumption College, where he joined the school band and quickly became the band leader.

"I have this ability that when I talk, people listen," he nodded, and everyone else at the table nodded with him.

Fiercely dedicated, he took up the trumpet and practised morning, noon and night. He recalled the biggest gig of his senior year, at the Jaturamitr Samakkee football league between the country's four oldest secondary boys' schools: Suankularb Wittayalai, Bangkok Christian College, Debsirin School and Assumption College. It was a major sporting event. After rehearsing day and night, Mr Kiat performed a solo trumpet rendition of the national anthem, backed by a drummer.

"When it was done I drove to the hospital and stayed for one week ... it was exhaustion," he said.

For the next couple of decades after graduating from Chulalongkorn in 1981, Mr Kiat had to give up his passion in life. Music went to the bench as his work took to the field.

He started out at Fruedel, an electrical engineer firm and Thailand agent for the French engineering firm Merlin Grin, now called Groupe Schneider. In those days, Fruedel was the first private firm to receive an electrical engineer project. They wired Central Plaza, Lat Phrao.

"It was a small company but I got to show my skills," Mr Kiat said proudly.

After a couple of years at Fruedel, Mr Kiat planned on furthering his studies - until he received an offer he couldn't refuse. The parent French firm offered him a one-year contract to work in France. How was social life in France?

"Think of it this way. If a Bangkok office has one blonde girl, would she be an attraction? Well, at the French office I was the only Asian guy," he said.

As well as English, Mr Kiat also speaks conversational French.

That one year turned into 10 years, from 1983 to 1993. The job also took him to Abu Dhabi, Malaysia and Singapore.

"That was the time for one man to walk the earth, travel the world," he reminisced.

When he returned to Thailand in the mid-1990s, Mr Kiat opened the first Thai branch of his French employers to great success.

"In two years, I made them three to four trillion baht," he said.

He then opened his own engineering firm and managed several joint ventures. In 1997 he was appointed President of the Thai-Canadian Chamber of Commerce. The following year he became the Deputy Secretary General to the Thai Board of Trade, tasked with the responsibility to look after all foreign chambers in Thailand.

"Here's where I started to work on policies to propose to the government," he said. "And I came to love studying countries and formulating policies."

During the 1990s, he also managed to earn degrees from Harvard Business School and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

"I study whatever grasps my interests," he said. "This means I'm well-versed in not just commerce and industry, but also diplomacy."

Which, perhaps, partly explains the rumours of him replacing embattled Foreign Minister Kasit.

His favourite authors read like a who's who of business economics, namely Michael Potter and Paul Krugman.

Following the Tom Yum Goong financial crisis of 1997, Mr Kiat joined the Chuan Leekpai Democrat-led coalition government as an adviser the following year. With the Democrats losing out to Thaksin Shinawatra's Thai Rak Thai Party, Mr Kiat became Chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce from 2001 to 2004. He was also one of 21 committee board members of the International Chamber of Commerce, involving over 140 countries.

In 2004, Mr Kiat became a Democrat Party list MP and published the book As FTA Catches You, which features 20 questions on all you need to know about free trade agreements. The book is now out of print.

"Mr Thaksin should have read that book," he quipped, referring to the former prime minister's free trade policies. "When in Opposition, I was also tasked to investigate the CTX/Suvarnabhumi airport scandal."

That same year, Mr Kiat also discovered a passion for something fast - he became an "easy rider". Mr Kiat first saw a Harley-Davidson Fatboy that belonged to a friend who owns a traditional Thai massage parlour that he used to visit.

"Every day I saw it parked in front of the shop," he said, then revealed that he could not resist the machine's draw. Mr Kiat bought the bike from his friend.

If you're on the roads between Bangkok and Nakorn Pathom late at night, you might see an Mr Kiat in full Harley-Davidson gear on his Fatboy.

"Sometimes I ride in a gang, but I prefer to ride alone, late at night. It's a high ... a real high ... a different high ... not like any other kind of high."

On May 6, 2009, Mr Kiat experienced another kind of high, as far as his career goes. He was appointed President of the Thai Trade Representative Office. The TTR acts as facilitator of trade, working with the private and public sectors. It is charged with developing the country's trade strategy and work through the prime minister.

Meanwhile, he also teaches a master's degree course in accounting at Chulalongkorn, an English-language programme and an MBA at Srinakarin University. He also lectures on trade and commerce for business leaders.

"I've taught over 5,000 businessmen," he said.

How does Mr Kiat unwind? Other than riding his bike, Mr Kiat said: "I get home and get on the piano. I play two or three numbers and I'm happy again."

And he always has the Log Cabin pub gig where he can jam with the resident band, to the delight of the ladies in the audience.

"Being on stage, you're naturally an attraction. When I sing, I imagine myself in the song," he said with a wink.

Relate Search: Kiat Sittheeamorn, Thong Lor's Log Cabin Pub, Restaurant