#that give the whole thing a very specific timestamp and don't forget. strangers writing out their relationship problems

[agnesandhilda]

bathroom stall graffiti is an art form. I'm not joking about this

[telomeke-bbs]

Again, thank you for the thorough job you did on this series. One thing that stood out for me as a plot hole was that administrators would take away a scholarship from Dissaya and give it to Ming just on Ming's say-so. I know there's discrimination against women. Still, this seems way too sloppy a way to run a school. Thoughts? (Or if you did cover this and I somehow missed it, please point me to the post.)

Hey Anonymous! Thanks for dropping by. 😊

I didn't write about this in any post, but I had thought about it off and on. I do agree that Ming being able to steal Dissaya's scholarship just on the basis of something that he said appears too contrived at first glance, but I accepted it at face value for a couple of reasons.

The main reason was because of something that Director Backaof said at timestamp 1.41 in the Soonvijarn Recap Video for Ep.10 (linked here).

The translated subtitles are a little muddy, but when Jojo Tichakorn (above, wearing a cap) says about the scholarship-swipe, "...I've seen things like this in real life" Director Backaof responds, "Of course, because I'm writing here based on the real experiences of people I know." Director B. goes on to relate (at timestamp 1.53) how he could not forget the real-life incident that inspired this BBS plot twist, especially the sense of betrayal that the individual concerned had felt. And he saw this as a more convincing raison d'être for the bitter Jindapat-Siridechawat enmity, instead of just the original novel's plain business rivalry between the families (see timestamp 8.47).

They don't go into specifics (so it isn't confirmed that the real-life incident actually did involve scholarship thievery) but if the situation really did happen as alluded to, I do think this is perversely one of those times when truth is stranger than fiction, and you can't help but go "Hmmm?" 🤔 when it's actually put into a work of fiction. 👀

Another reason why I've accepted Ming's landing of the scholarship as plausible is the picture you can build up of Ming's modus operandi from the little details revealed about him along the way.

Within Bad Buddy, the way that Ming's theft of the scholarship unfolds in my head is not as a last-minute, out-of-the-blue slamdunk that overturns the game, but rather more like part of a long-drawn chess strategy that he was spinning in order to outplay the queen and win the whole match. I don't see it as Dissaya having been given the scholarship outright, only to have it taken away after Ming tattled to a teacher (which is the straightline depiction suggested by the subtitles, and was my initial understanding at first). I think he stole it from her, the more deserving student academically, by being underhanded about things while they were still in the running, making it unquestionably the school's decision and also one difficult to take down.

Throughout the series we are given glimpses of Ming the wily operator where people are concerned, someone able to play off social dynamics to achieve his own ends. In a commercial context this can be a positive – being able to tap into and profit from a network of social connections has always been important in East Asian business culture (especially Chinese business culture, noting that Ming is portrayed in BBS as a Chinese traditionalist and also a savvy businessman). The concept of guanxi in modern China is perhaps the clearest example of this.

The first time we are shown this aspect of Ming's character is at Ep.1 [1I4] 5.13, when we see him skillfully capitalizing on his network of connections (a little mock-conspiratorial and fawning about quite unlike his usual self) in order to rescue the family business from hard times:

It's not likely this call, but a similar one that allowed Ming to secure a very low price from a supplier in China (that Chai refers to at Ep.10 [1I4] 20.43), thus allowing the Jindapats to win a bid below market price and yet still make a profit. They outcompeted the Siridechawats with a bid so low that Pran's parents were led to believe (erroneously) that the exercise had to have been rigged. But really it was just Ming being shrewd – and also an opportunity for us to learn more about his way of engaging with the people in his world.

We are also shown in Ep.2 [4/4] that Ming is still in contact with Ajahn Pichai decades after graduating, nurturing the relationship even in the present day (e.g., asking him out for lunch at Ep.6 [1I4] 5.08). Significantly, Ming does not see Ajahn Pichai as a friend, even though they are definitely on friendly terms – at Ep.2 [4/4] 1.23, in response to Pat's question "Is he your friend?", he pulls a face as he replies:

This underlines how Ming's network of social relationships is maintained more because they may prove useful to him at some point, and not because he's inherently sociable and derives happiness from social contact.

Ming was able to find out, through Ajahn Pichai, that Pat was taking the Materials Engineering class and that he was also joining the Freshy Music Contest (as revealed in Ep.2 [4/4]). Thus it wasn't at all surprising for Ming to have discovered through his own channels (as we see at the end of Ep.8 [2/4]) that Pat had been skipping rugby practice to attend Archi musical rehearsals, despite his son's best efforts at subterfuge.

But while useful, lawful and I suppose arguably neutral when employed in the business world, this particular skill set of Ming's takes on overtones of malevolence when he crosses the line into manipulation of people and situations in his personal life.

An obvious example of this is when we see Ming working his brand of voodoo on Pat in the scene that begins at Ep.8 [2/4] 15.28, and that carries over into the beginning of Ep.8 [3I4].

Instead of confronting Pat directly about skipping rugby, Ming sets up a major guilt-trip step-by-step, crafting the situation so as to inflict as much emotional whammy as possible on his unsuspecting son. He goes from benignly hosing down the car, nonchalantly asking about rugby practice, to a sudden "When did I teach you to lie?" and throwing down the hose nozzle in disgust. And he gets the effect he wanted, at his son's expense – Pat is visibly hurt at Ep.8 [2/4] 16.43, and rendered emotionally fragile for quite a while thereafter (Ep.8 [3I4] from 1.10 to 4.33).

(I'm not a proponent or exponent of these dark arts, but have been an observer of clients, colleagues and one ex-friend parlaying them in various situations. Not that I approve, but to survive swimming with sharks you do have to know how the sharks behave, especially if you're not one yourself and want to avoid being eaten.)

It's possible (with the benefit of hindsight/rewatch) to see Ming's high school friendship with Dissaya in much the same light. Kruu Payao confirmed that Ming and Dissaya were always together, possibly in a romance.

But she's also not the most reliable source of information (contrast what she says at Ep.10 [3I4] 9.16 with what we find out at Ep.10 [4/4] 8.21), so I doubt that Ming and Dissaya's closeness was really (or purely) due to romantic interest (at least not on Ming's part). I think Ming was quite likely stringing Dissaya along (whether as a friend, or something more), working on competition projects with her and benefiting academically from the intellectual interaction.

Kruu Payao also points out the similarity between Pat and Ming, in that both were popularity hounds at school, always looking to grab attention (Ming also mentions his popularity in university at Ep.2 [4/4] 1.38, and Pat was voted class president in his first year of Engineering, while Ming was head of his class in high school, according to Kruu Payao). I think both Ming and Pat are naturally charismatic in a group setting, and learnt early on that people skills can also be a powerful resource in life. And both do not hesitate to use their good standing with others when they need to. (Pat, for example, was able to wrangle his friends into helping rebuild the bus stop, and also convince Ajahn Pichai to allow them to participate in the Freshy Music Contest, both in Ep.3 [4/4].) But the difference is that altruistic Pat uses his gift to help others, whereas Ming is more self-serving (and I would say his concept of self encompasses his family and their business too).

We see Pat drawing on this ability when he snatched Pran's LogTech presentation from tipping over the precipice into failure at Ep.3 [3I4] 0.30, by flipping it around to focus on LogTech's priorities instead. In doing so, he was displaying his understanding that you can look at other people's circumstances and motivations, and sometimes use that knowledge to your advantage – in deploying his 3D social awareness, Pat understood that the best sales pitch emphasizes what the buyer wants to buy, not what the seller wants to sell. It's not that their proposed design was inherently bad, it's just that it needed the correct spin to align with LogTech's interests (environmental sustainability).

And Pran's inability to convince the good people of LogTech with his presentation also tells us that his way of doing things is what a lot of talented people less adept at the finer points of social persuasion do – simply pour your very best into the work, and then trust that the finished result will do (most of) the talking, while minimizing the self and not looking at any other factors that might help push it over the finish line. If he'd learnt this from Dissaya (I see this as quite likely – she'd always been such a big presence in his life), it clues us in to what her situation may also have been like back in high school.

In the present day we can clearly see that Dissaya is forthright, plain-speaking and to-the-point, not given to shade or subtlety. She confronted Pran immediately upon discovering that he was somehow involved with Pat, waiting for him right by the door at Ep.10 [4/4] 4.26. And then she went on to confront Ming right after that.

I think Dissaya's time at school was probably also characterized by this same go-getter fearlessness and willingness to seize the bull by the horns, together with the same sense of pride in getting things done right that we see Pran displaying (although Pran perhaps takes the perfectionism to extremes). But like Pran too, Dissaya is unlikely to have had the same presentation and people skills that Pat and Ming have – doubtless she's not one to schmooze or win the popular vote (she got a certificate of participation in her high school beauty contest, but it doesn't say that she won the crown – see Ep.10 [2/4] 10.45). So while her academic achievements could not be disputed, I think she may not always have presented herself like a winner, especially if her personal style could also turn abrasive under conditions of stress (although it's possible she only discovered her capacity for white-hot rage after being betrayed by Ming). Her focus on results rather than on polishing her brand could have worked against her if any part of the scholarship evaluation had a subjective element (as it must have had).

It's no coincidence that Kruu Payao was able to talk about Ming right off the bat, recalling details and similarities with his son. But Pran had to jog her memory where Dissaya was concerned, before she was able to recall her – only remembering later that Dissaya and Ming were close. We are being told that Ming was overshadowing Dissaya in the public eye all the time in high school, even if she was the better student and they were always together.

It's clear that on paper marks at least, Dissaya was the best candidate for the scholarship. But a scholarship as prestigious and important as this one (that Dissaya's whole professional future hinged upon) would likely not have been based on pure academic performance alone. Ming would probably have realized that his only path to victory, a narrow one, would have been to work on the more qualitative aspects and try to sway the judgement his way using those. Where he went wrong was to incorporate deceit into the mix, instead of just being content to let his other credentials (e.g., in leadership and sports) make up for the lag behind Dissaya's exam results and competition successes.

In associating with Dissaya, Ming would have increased his visibility and burnished his academic record (possibly performing better than if he had done things on his own – you learn from working with the best, after all). And just as he was playing the long-game with Dissaya, he would probably have been doing something similar with the teachers and administrators too, ingratiating himself with them while developing familiarity and trust, not hard to do if he was head of his class. We know that he had been talking to Kruu Dang and he undeniably left an impression on Kruu Payao. In those circumstances, it would have been fairly easy to start chipping away at Dissaya's chances by planting the seeds of an idea in their heads – that she lacked ambition (not wanting to go to university) and that bestowing the scholarship on her would have meant wasting it on someone who didn't value it. And Dissaya of course would have been oblivious to this, because she didn't operate on this kind of a level at all. She would have been focused more on accumulating points via academic performance rather than on making a good impression in person, even while Ming busied himself acquiring and influencing allies in right places, marketing himself as the better candidate.

I can imagine Ming taking advantage of the inevitable question during the interview part of the evaluation process ("Why do you think you would be more deserving of this scholarship?") not to spring a surprising new fact about Dissaya's university plans (or lack thereof), but merely to reinforce the groundwork already laid – and one last, sly allusion about not wasting the scholarship on someone who valued it less would have landed with maximum impact, especially coming from someone whom the teachers and administrators by then would have come to trust and like (however undeservedly). But actually, he might not have needed to deliver this one final coup de grâce even, if he'd done enough undermining beforehand (and would have gotten away with it undetected too, if Kruu Dang – perhaps a dissenter? – hadn't told Dissaya about it).

If in the final tally of marks Dissaya and Ming were not too far apart, an extended gaslighting by Ming that had been started way beforehand could conceivably tip the balance away from Dissaya by coloring the evaluation panel's perception of her even before she made it to the interview round. And if she were less than stellar (or perceived to be so) there, nobody would have objected if the award were to go to the well-spoken, popular, athletic, intelligent, all-rounder golden boy instead, a shining symbol who would uphold the name and honor of the school, rather than the (supposedly) unambitious, less memorable schoolgirl of lesser means, always in the shadow of his bigger public persona anyway. The optics would have been all right, and could have been made unimpeachable if the subjective portion of the evaluation was where Ming was scoring his points.

In summary, I think Ming knew that despite his sporting and other achievements, and despite his popularity with the students and teachers, Dissaya would still have beaten him given her academic track record. Thus, he resorted to lying about her in a furtive campaign, while using every persuasive tactic in his arsenal in order to sully her image, damage her chances and elevate his own. And it succeeded, although it must have been by the narrowest of margins.

A whole lot of this is admittedly conjecture on my part, but knowing what we know about Ming and Dissaya, I really do think that Ming's wherewithal and lack of moral scruple would have enabled him to maneuver the scholarship away from Dissaya in this way. And if the school evaluation process had been anything less than unassailably robust – is it ever though? – his gaming of the system would have worked even better. 😢

Aaaaand a short question about the scholarship somehow turned into a super-long essay about Ming's character and motivations! I had hoped not to add any more to Ming's vilification, given how hated he already is by parts of the fandom and how small his redemption arc is in Ep.12. But really, the best-painted characters are the flawed ones (and that includes Pat, Pran, Dissaya and Ming too). Dissaya never needed much redemption in my opinion, but Ming most certainly did. I do hope the Ming-haters can see that he was as much a victim of his own unsound upbringing as Pat was, and that unlike Pat he was considerably less successful at breaking free of his own father's pressures on him.

It's possible that despite all he's achieved, in his own head he's still a failure because he could not succeed (by fair means) where it mattered – so Dissaya and even his own son have proved themselves more capable and worthy than he.

And maybe we should cut the ex-golden boy some slack for having to live with the shame of this realization, now that his glory days are over. At least we can see some signs that Ming is working on himself by the end of Ep.12 – he's still a work in progress, but as we saw with Pat and Pran, undoing a previous generation's emotional damage can take an extraordinarily long time. 💖