Thailand--the 'land of smiles'? David Armstrong has run--as editor-in-chief--many major newspapers including The Australian and The South China Morning Post. We catch up with him in his new role as president and chief operating officer of the Bangkok Post.

One morning about two years ago, David Armstrong was sitting in his office in the Bangkok Post building when he heard about 100 staff members yelling out, calling for his resignation. All were dressed in black.

Armstrong's sin? He had dismissed a Bangkok Post reporter--for negligence. It was said this was the first time in the 60-year life of the newspaper, economic retrenchments aside, that a reporter had been sacked.

Working in Asia involves adjustments to different cultures, philosophies, ways of thinking and ways of working. Armstrong, a former editor-in-chief of The Australian, looks back on that time as his most abrupt lesson.

He began learning about working in Asia in the early 1990s, when he went to Hong Kong to run the South China Morning Post.

"I thought I knew something about the importance of personal relationships in Asia," Armstrong says. "I had worked in Hong Kong for six years, traveled extensively in China and dealt with Chinese officials and business people, developing close relationships, even with ministers.

"But nothing prepared me for dealing with the intensity of personal relationships in Thailand."

Armstrong, 59, is president and chief operating officer of Post Publishing, which produces the Bangkok Post, a Thai-language business paper, Post Today, and Thai versions of international magazines. It has just installed a new $A35 million high-speed printing press.

But in August 2005, he was filling in as...