A Thai couple opt to live in down town Taipa for the convenience of being close to work and play.
Pawin Sriusvagool and his wife Bee moved from Hong Kong to Macau in September 2012 when he took up the position of general manager and head of Zung Fu Motors (Macau), the exclusive retailer of Mercedes-Benz cars in Macau. Zung Fu is a subsidiary of the Jardine Motors Group, which is a member of the Jardine Matheson Group, one of the original Hong Kong trading houses on ‘Hongs’, founded over 180 years ago during the times of Imperial China. 
A political economy Masters degree graduate from the London School of Economics, Pawin’s career started out in investment banking. After 3 years in New York he joined Jardine Matheson as a member of their strategy group working in merger and acquisition transactions in banking, healthcare, retail, and automotive industries.
Originally both from Bangkok, Thailand, Pawin and Bee first met at a friend’s wedding, at the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok, also part of the Jardine Group. Subsequently Pawin proposed to Bee at the same Mandarin property and they had their wedding there too.
When setting about looking for their new home in Macau their priorities was enough space for family visits and ‘location, location, location’. They quickly settled on a 1700 square foot, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment in the Manhattan, Taipa. “This place is comfortable and suits us well as everything is nearby. My office is 1 minute walk away and the show room is about 3 minutes walk away. One of the great things about Macau is that it’s small and easy to get around; in Bangkok I spent four hours on the road each day getting to and from work!”
Whilst now much of the earlier open sea view of the apartment has sadly been obscured; “The apartment can get quite dark being penned in by other buildings”, there’s still a little bit of greenery to see. And the furniture, provided with the lease, is tastefully modern. The master bedroom and ensuite bathroom is off the living room, and the guest room, study and guest bathroom are at the back of the apartment off the dining area. The galley style kitchen, long and narrow, contains all the mod cons including oven (rare in Macau!) and temperature controlled wine storage cabinet.
Standard to all Manhattan apartments are the dark chocolate brown wood floors throughout. The dining table is chocolate brown, the dining chairs and sofa, in cream suede, add an elegant contrast. 
Within a short time of arriving Pawin and Bee started a family – daughter Nami is almost 3, and son, Saint, born in Macau, is almost a year old. Especially with the children they make the best of the Manhattan’s extensive clubhouse facilities. It’s convenient to pop downstairs to the play room, pool, BBQ and entertainment areas. “On alternate evenings I either swim or do Thai boxing. The Thai boxing keeps me fit, both physically and mentally” explains Pawin. “It teaches me resilience, how to never give up, and it’s a good form of stress management too”.
So after 3 years here what do the Sriusvagools love about Macau? “Well it’s not so crowded for a start” says Pawin, “I’ve lived in many different parts of the world, from Philadelphia, to New York, Singapore, Hong Kong and of course Bangkok, and whilst the pace of life here is slower Macau still has the cosmopolitan element, a deep and interesting culture and a blend of the Western and Chinese which we enjoy.”
“Macau is very expat friendly and small enough that it is easy to get to know people and the community”, adds Bee. She attends the International Ladies’ Club of Macau events and there are numerous play dates with different mums for the children. 
“And” laughs Pawin, “Macau is not as busy in terms of having to fight to get on to the MTR, you don’t have to queue up to get into a restaurant and you wont have someone standing behind you waiting for you to leave your table! And for fun and a bit of glamour, Hong Kong is only an hour away.”
Pawin has a busy life juggling several responsibilities. In addition to being in charge of overseeing and managing sales and after sales operations of Mercedes-Benz vehicles for Macau, he is also the Jardine chief representative for Macau. This involves coordinating various company activities and making sure the spirit, camaraderie and communication amongst the group’s different business units is strong in Macau; One Central under the HongKong Land badge, the Mandarin Oriental, Starbucks, IKEA, Schindler, JEC and the San Miu supermarkets incorporated recently into the group under the Dairy Farm badge.
He’s also the Jardine representative at the British Business Association of Macao, where Zung Fu Motors (Macau) is a Platinum Member.
So how does Pawin see the car business for the year ahead? There’s no denying that it will be “tough for everyone, with the economy expected to contract by at least 25%” he says. “The first thing people cut their spending on is on luxury items.”
“We aim to be the brand and company of choice. How do we do this? Well, its important to us that we don’t simply concentrate on product and price. Our focus is on the whole experience of being a Mercedes-Benz owner. We capture people at different stages of life; a father, a mother, the son, the daughter, newly weds, those with an active life style – we have a car for a wide range of people and their needs.” 
And the challenges of achieving this in Macau? “By making sure we maintain the same volume of sales without diluting the brand,” says Pawin. “How we will stand out within the luxury car market to sustain continuous growth is to pay close attention to employing, training and developing the best people in Macau. After all, we’re in the people business – we are just people selling to people, people servicing cars for people.”
The Thai community in Macau is small but that doesn’t worry the gregarious Pawin who has built up a huge network of friends in the short time of being here. He’s a seasoned networker and generous with his time in making introductions for new arrivals.
“Some people move from place to place to find happiness”, he says, “but the key is to be happy inside”.
Photographs taken in the Mercedes show room and the Manhattan Clubhouse, by Antonio Mil-Homens, for Macau Closer.
