Variations on a Theme: Thai Women and foreign husbands.

Variations on a theme: Thai women and foreign husbands
By Richard Bernstein The New York Times
Sunday, August 12, 2007

The main road leading through this village of 800 people in Thailand's northeast mostly runs through a scene of rural dishevelment, simple shacks with the ubiquitous rusted corrugated roofs, ragged clumps of banana trees and palms, and, here and there, a simple open-air restaurant or grocery store.


But next to the Ban Cao post office is a sort of anomaly: an imposing iron gate leads to a spacious house with verandas, a sloping tile roof, a garage, a well-tended garden with sculptures and lawns. It is one of several like it in this otherwise nondescript Thai town not far from Udon Thani, which was an American air base during the Vietnam War.


Are these the weekend getaways of Bangkok businessmen who have decided for some reason to build here, not far from the Mekong River and the border with Laos, rather than on some island resort like Phuket or Ko Samui? Not at all.


"Normally in the northeast when you see a big house, you know that this house belongs to a foreigner who has married a Thai woman," Adul Khankeaw, Ban Cao's headman, explained. "And if you go to buy a new motorbike or car and pay cash, the salesman will ask you if you or one of your relatives is married to a foreigner."


Thailand, of course, has always attracted foreign men interested in the local women, not least of course during the Vietnam War when the country was the favored "rest and recreation" destination for tens of thousands of GIs, as well as construction workers, Air America pilots, diplomats and journalists.


And, while the GIs are long gone, this country has, almost ever since the Vietnam War ended, been one of the chief sex tourism capitals of the world. Even a relatively remote place like Udon Thani, which is the local provincial capital, shows the marks of this. "Great Food, Drinks, Pool, Girls" is the way one restaurant advertises its offerings on the official map distributed by the town's hotels.


But what those imposing houses in Ban Cao show is a variation on the theme of Thai women and foreign men. They are the homes of men, mostly middle-aged and older, who have married local women, in many instances former bar girls whom they met in Bangkok or Pattaya, the two major centers of the Thai sex trade, and settled down in retirement in rural Thailand.


Usually an economic consideration has entered into these marriages at the outset. Quite clearly, comely Thai women are marrying European men, often 20 or 30 or even 40 years older than they are, because of the economic advantage of it to them. And for the men, they have companionship, an easy life in a country very cheap by Western standards, and somebody to look after them as they get older.


"At first it wasn't about love but for a better life," acknowledged one woman, Supee, 45 years old, who is married to a retired German named Peter, aged 62. Peter was a tourist in Thailand when they met 21 years ago and, after living in Germany for most of the years since, they moved to Ban Cao, Supee's native village.


"I didn't like him so much at first," another Thai married to a European man said of her husband, a retired French oil engineer named Jean-Claude. She gave her name as Boonyong, and she was working as a waitress in Bangkok (she was not in the sex trade) when Jean-Claude met her on a visit and asked her to live with him.


"I said, 'O.K.,' because I had just lost my father and now I could go home and be with my mother, which is what I wanted," Boonyong said. In Ban Cao alone, out of 180 families, 30 local women have married foreigners. There's a village in Roi Et Province, the Thai press has reported, where 200 women are married to foreigners, the majority of them German and Swiss. There are only 500 families in the entire village.


About 15 percent of all marriages in the northeast, a study published by Khon Kaen University found, are now between Thai women and foreign men. Most of the men are Europeans, but there are upwards of 300 or so Americans, many of them veterans of the Vietnam War who were based in Udon Thani in the 1960s and early 1970s and are living here, most of them with Thai wives as well.


There is a sort of calculated redemption on both sides of these marriages. Many of the women have painful stories, of working as prostitutes, of abandonment by Thai husbands and boyfriends, of children they couldn't afford to take care of. They make no secret of the fact that marrying some nice, older foreign man saved both them and their extended families from poverty and unhappiness.


And as for the men, many of them are divorced or unhappily married back home. They came to Thailand for a brief touristic encounter with the local sex-for-sale industry and ended up staying for life.


"In Vienna you have so many obligations," said a retired Austrian international lawyer who gave his name as Christoph Killy. He has been married for 14 years to a woman from Ban Cao. "There's so much you have to do and so much you aren't allowed to do there. Here you are free."


The truth is that deceit and tragedy, along with happy stories, are part of the picture. Houses and land, by law, have to be owned by Thais, and so there have been cases where Thai wives simply expropriated the properties built for them by their foreign husbands whom they expelled, and then invited their Thai boyfriends to move in with them.


"I've seen terrible things here," Killy said. "Some women are married to Thai men and they tell their foreign boyfriends that they are their brothers. So they sit together and eat together, and the foreigner even buys a motorbike for the Thai 'brother.' "


Still, it's easy to meet what seem like normally happy couples here. According to that university study, marrying a foreigner not so long ago carried a stigma. Now, asked what they want for their daughters, 90 percent of the inhabitants of the Thai northeast replied: "I want for them to marry a foreigner."



http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/12/ ... 113402.php

What do you think about this piece?

I think it tells it like it is!

same old, same old.

"Thailand is the sex capital of the world" - oh- shock horror !!! zzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzz
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Paul wrote:same old, same old.

"Thailand is the sex capital of the world" - oh- shock horror !!! zzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzz

I agree that not all expats wives worked in the sex indusry, but the rest of the story was'nt bad.

I believe in all what has been said.Not all Thai women are from the sex industry.But there are alot that are.I have found Thai's to be lazy and will always take the easy way to obtain anything for them selves or their family.I have seen many relationships with farang and Thai and I would say the majority fail.

Hmmm!!! Didn't realize Udon was remote, sure doesn't feel like it.

This sure is a popular subject all over the world isn't it?

Carpy wrote;

"I have seen many relationships with farang and Thai and I would say the majority fail".

Yes, I agree some do fail, but I don't wonder why, seeing, hearing & reading the attitude of some of the farang.

You can only get something from a relationship, if you are prepared to put something into the relationship.

Tum Dee - Dai Dee - Tum Chua - Dai Chua

"At first it wasn't about love but for a better life," acknowledged one woman, Supee, 45 years old, who is married to a retired German named Peter, aged 62. Peter was a tourist in Thailand when they met 21 years ago!''
"I didn't like him so much at first," another Thai married to a European man said of her husband, a retired French oil engineer named Jean-Claude. She gave her name as Boonyong, and she was working as a waitress in Bangkok (she was not in the sex trade) when Jean-Claude met her on a visit and asked her to live with him.


"I said, 'O.K.,' because I had just lost my father and now I could go home and be with my mother, which is what I wanted," Boonyong said.
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This article is not saying that most of the women are from the sex industry.Divorced women and women with children have very little chance of marrying a Thai man.But these are examples of relationships that have been succsessful even though economic security was the main motivation on the womans part!
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There is a sort of calculated redemption on both sides of these marriages. Many of the women have painful stories, of working as prostitutes, of abandonment by Thai husbands and boyfriends, of children they couldn't afford to take care of. They make no secret of the fact that marrying some nice, older foreign man saved both them and their extended families from poverty and unhappiness.


And as for the men, many of them are divorced or unhappily married back home. They came to Thailand for a brief touristic encounter with the local sex-for-sale industry and ended up staying for life.
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According to that university study, marrying a foreigner not so long ago carried a stigma. Now, asked what they want for their daughters, 90 percent of the inhabitants of the Thai northeast replied: "I want for them to marry a foreigner.

This last statement is very questionable IMO!

In the end - both sides win. The girl gets some kind of security and a better standard of living and the man gets a (usually) attractive partner who takes care of him.
Who cares if others see it as right or wrong ?
It makes those two people happy (at least for a while) and they are the only two people that matter in each relationship.
If she is an ex- bargirl - whose business is that to judge ?

People should mind their own business and not other peoples !

you look at the thai dating forums and the women all seem to be looking for elderly gents NOT blokes their own age .this is pretty unusual as normally on the dating sites they prefer gents of a similar age. so why should that be ?
a short term decision to pay off gambling debts ?on the sweetsingles site there are disturbing numbers of thai women who appear to have travelled around the world to various places and they are still looking for elderly gents ! why should that be ? oh yeah i forgot young thai men are unreliable womanising drunks who like brothels too mut .

i have to agree with carpy , they want easy money with as little work as possible .this is quite noticable when comparing a thai women with an asian women from say singapore or honkong where they are more likely to want to stand on their own feet to make a living ,instead of sponging off others .

Paul wrote:In the end - both sides win. The girl gets some kind of security and a better standard of living and the man gets a (usually) attractive partner who takes care of him.
Who cares if others see it as right or wrong ?
It makes those two people happy (at least for a while) and they are the only two people that matter in each relationship.
If she is an ex- bargirl - whose business is that to judge ?

People should mind their own business and not other peoples !

very true indeed myself i think when you find a partner wherever they are from you both look to have your needs and wonts furfilled
if you pair up just because of looks our body shape that will fade very quickly but like they say up to you
remember money carnt buy you love

Just out of curiosty, was there anyone who settled here and didn't know this?

At some point we all made choices and I believe that you would have to have been hidden away in a closet the times you visited here before. Not to understand what you were getting into.

We must have made those choices because something made us happy. Don't see that anything has changed so maybe the change was in us.

Yes there is a high percentage of divorces involving farrangs, but that also holds true in the states, in farrang to farrang marriages.

Do these girls want money yes, who doesn't?

Do they enjoy being spoiled on level that they wouldn't have been able to enjoy in the circumstances they met thier farrang husbands, yes. Who doesn't?

Is any realtionship wonderful all the time, I seriously doubt it.

Anyone notice that the people writing these articles are not in farrang Thai marriages.


I would say that before you can judge someone a clear undertanding is really required.

There is good and bad about these relationships just like any others.

Do you have to be careful involving yourself in a marriage if you want it to have chance to last. Is that really any different here then anywhere else?

Don't think these old Thai geezer with some baht are not doing the same thing that we farrangs are accussed of doing. Or does anyone think that Mia Noi's are choosen because they have great educations and are going to contribute to the family income. In the end folks we didnt bring anything new it was already here.

The biggest difference Thai's don't walk down the street hand and hand with the little sweety


I would say never forget what brought you here and savor it for as long a possible

What more can be said.

Blo-dy good write up Ray

I think more then anything else I was reminding myself

Have to do that from time to time.