Women: Here & There

Women: Here & There
Udon Thani Magazine Issue 13 Quarter 3 2010. © udonmap.com

What do women want? One of the greatest inquirers into the human mind, Sigmund Freud, could never adequately answer this question to his satisfaction. Perhaps there is no answer. Or an answer would destroy the beauty and mystery of the enigma that is woman. Or perhaps the answer is so simple, so straightforward and obvious, that, like the purloined letter sitting on the mantelpiece, we look right past it.

Anthropologists believe they can understand the totality of human nature better by getting diverse cultural takes on it – through ethnographies – and then comparing the findings. Are there cultural universals? Essences of what it means to be human throughout the world? Or, is human behavior more culturally determined? With diverse local expressions?

For example, are Thai women really that different from Western women? Or is what lies beneath essentially the same, just wrapped in different, more elegant, packages perhaps?

There is a great and longstanding Western (male) fascination – sometimes obsession – with Asian women in general: their beauty, mystery, elegance, exoticism, and grace. But what are they really like when one peels off the onionskin layers? When one lives day in and day out with them for years, and decades?

Surely, shared lives yield up their secrets one by one, and in the end we are left face to face with a person – a genuine human being with basic human needs, desires, hopes, and dreams like all of us have – or at least have had at some point in our lives.

Obviously, we’re not comparing apples to oranges here; more like comparing Pacific Rose to Golden Delicious apples. Can some generalizations nonetheless be juiced out after years of having eaten both? I believe the answer is yes, though qualified by each individual’s personal experience. After all, just as no two orchards – or apples for that matter – are exactly the same, no two women are the same. In my experience, I’m tempted to say that no one woman is ever the same, as I’m sure some of you will appreciate.

But I beat around the bush, so to speak. In my limited experience, I’ve had occasion to live with both Western and Asian women (though never at the same time), and I’d like to tease out a few basic observations for consideration. What strikes me foremost is that one of them is fairly transparent, while the other appears quite opaque. Need I even tell you which is which? I think not.

Another salient difference that I’ve oft noted, related to the previous observation, is that the transparency exists, is made manifest, through speech – often a great deal of speech: a virtual river – nea, ocean! – of words; what I believe is called logorrhea. Although there are always exceptions, we largely know people first of all through their words, their speech, and only subsequently through their actions; thus, the opaque Eastern ones tend rather more towards reticence, diffidence, if not outright silence. Generally speaking, Westerners wear their heart much more on their sleeve, and things are often made quite explicit, rather than remaining implicit.

Name your poison, gentlemen: worst case scenarios: an hysterical diatribe, or a master stonewaller. Personally, I find silence golden. Although one lives in fear of the inevitable explosion.

Finally, we might touch on ambition. What do they want? What are their goals? And how will they achieve them? Ahh, there’s the rub, methinks. With a definite shortfall in the “opportunity department”, broadly speaking, Thai women must perforce embrace pragmatism, and do what needs to be done – to get what they need. On the other hand, the Western woman frequently has a variety of options, made available to her through her society, her state, and its economy.

Broadly speaking then, the Western woman will normally have what she needs, and be seeking what she wants. While the Thai woman will much more often be seeking what she needs, and getting what she might want would be only a by-product of this – or a bonus.

What they both obviously need is security. As for what they want, well… if Freud couldn’t figure it out, how the heck am I supposed to. It shall probably remain God’s private mystery.

By the same token Tilo...
Men want what they want till they get it

Thought about this question and have come to the conclusion that I am too young and inexperienced to add anything to the subject .

Oh dear!

UM seems to have attracted another misogynist.