This section looks at recent articles that address issues to do with Thai-Farang relationships. It discusses whether the article is a quality piece of writing on the issue or whether it is too tarred by prejudices or ignorance.

This article is from The Daily Reveille, 12 February 2007.

Mail-order brides

Mail-order brides maintain a kind of novelty around them. People wonder if they really exist.

Non-citizens are eligible for citizenship if they are the fiance or spouse of a U.S. citizen.

According to the United States Citizen and Immigration Services, nearly 150,000 women advertise themselves for some sort of mail-order bride service.

The USCIS also said a majority of women advertising themselves come from Russia and the areas of the former Soviet Union or Southeast Asia. Studies by the USCIS also show that the majority of men who order brides are white and well-educated.

"I think often they tend to be very busy, very professional men, and perhaps they are too busy to invest time to find a conventional relationship," Susan Dumais, assistant professor of sociology, said.

Dumais said hope of a better life leads women to advertise themselves.

"The hopes that eventually they may be able to get money to send back home and the idea of the American dream make people more willing to do it," Dumais said.

Students differed in opinion on whether it is worth it to marry strangers for U.S. citizenship.

Been Hood, mechanical engineering freshman, said it would depend on the situation.

"I don't think so. It would all depend on where you come from, I guess," Hood said.

Leah Wattigny, English senior, did not think it was worth citizenship because she was skeptical about who would order a mail-order bride.

"I don't think I would ever want to be with someone who would order a mail-order bride," Wattigny said.

Dumais said there is a darker side to mail-order brides.

"These are men who have had major career success and are used to being in charge, and the women are usually younger, vulnerable women who don't really know anybody and can be controlled easily," Dumais said.

by Ryan Duncan

This article is from The Nation, 27 November 2006.

How the Internet paints a rosy glow of Asian brides

Millions of men trawl for mates, but a Thai researcher 'can't find love'

Hi guys! Are you looking for an Asian bride? Then just type in the keywords "Thai bride" on any Internet search site and in seconds you'll receive 1.2 million hits. About half of those will be profiles of women from the Philippines.

Women from Thailand and the Philippines are the most popular among Western men seeking an Asian wife.

Images of Thai woman portrayed on the sites are often accompanied by descriptions like "sweet" and "spoils and treats her husband like a king".

Filipinas are noted for their beauty, grace, charm and loyalty as well as being family-oriented, resourceful and devoted.

Additional qualifications in the mail-order bride stakes are the Filipina's Christian faith and cultural compatibility.

Internet-order brides have been popular since the mid-1990s and over the past few years Asian brides have become sub-plots on Western TV sitcoms. For example, there are "Miss Pattaya" and "Miss Tingtong" in the UK, said Dr Romyen Kosaikanont, who is researching "Women in Southeast Asia: Internet-order brides".

Romyen paid Bt1,500 for membership of a website and described herself as a woman different from the images generally portrayed.

These are: "I do not smoke or drink and I am very sincere and loving."

"I am marriage-minded. If I find the right man, I will live anywhere and do anything to make him happy."

"I am a good cook but maybe a little shy at first."

Romyen introduced herself as a "fun-loving girl with a good sense of humour". She wrote that she enjoyed travelling, discos, sport and reading, posting her own untouched photograph.

"It has been five months already but no man has contacted me," said Romyen. She added her photograph had never being displayed on the website's main page.

However, this matchmaking website is more flexible about the women it advertises, she said. The first site she contacted rejected her because she was overweight.

"The first website told me to reduce my weight by about 10 kilograms and also suggested I retouch my photo," the researcher said.

Most sites offering brides were often operated by Thai-women-and-Western-men couples who claimed to have found happiness in cross-cultural marriage and wanted to help others achieve the same.

Some said their business was to "to bring genuinely lonely, like-minded people together to achieve wholesome, meaningful lifetime relationships".

But Romyen - who teaches at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Women's Studies at Chiang Mai University - saw inequality for male and female clients. She noted wording such as "our ladies, your choices, your bride".

 In profiles, male clients would explain what they wanted from a bride while Thai women would discuss what they were like rather than what they wanted from a man, Romyen explained.

 On Internet-order bride services, she said, the femininity of Asian women was determined by Western men.

 Meanwhile, matchmakers used Thai men as an explanation of "why Western husbands are needed for Thai woman". They note: "Thailand is a male-orientated society. There is a strong bias towards men. Many Thai men tend to be very promiscuous - often having more than one wife. Not good husband material."

 What was more, they have created a myth dividing women from different parts of the world, she explained.

 Asian women are portrayed as "submissive" while Western women are stereotyped as "emancipated".

"Her self-centredness, her ridiculously high expectations, her sense of entitlement, her high maintenance, superficiality and stuck-up attitude, her snootiness and her sense of superiority" were reasons Western men spurned women of their own cultures.

Some websites noted Western women's "princess" syndrome meant "she will always think she is better than you and she deserves and is entitled to whatever she wants from you".

In the eyes of feminists, Romyen sees Internet brides as a "reproduction of patriarchy".

"It was a match of lost femininity in the West against an economic and social upgrade for Asian women ," she said.

Subhatra Bhumiprabhas

The Nation

I find that this article is slightly too biased in the way it portrays relationships established via the internet as necessarily of the “mail order bride” variety.

In the mail order bride caricature (most clearly expressed by dorky Dudley and Ting-Tong Macadangdang in the BBC series “Little Britain”) a western guy looks through a glossy catalogue of beautiful Asian women, chooses one based on looks and “subservient” qualities and then sits back in his chair awaiting her arrival.

This scenario never happens in real life. Any Farang going down the route of finding a wife via an agency will have to travel to Thailand several times and therefore has ample opportunity to correct any misperceptions he may have about Thai women. Establishing a relationship via an agency is no shot-gun Las Vegas affair – it will be a lengthy build-up as most Western countries have tough restrictions on issuing immigration visas.

 

The main reason why the article is misleading, however, is that a lot of relationships established via the internet are not initiated by men looking at “catalogues” of women. An equally sizeable (if not more common) way for Farangs to meet Thais is via internet dating sites such as international Match.com etc. These sites are dating sites and are considered widely acceptable in Western society.  

 

The concerns about women trying to adapt to certain ideals Western men may have about “subservient” Asian women can be dispelled by the sort of internet courtship that often happens when you meet via such sites as Lavalife or Match. Often the person making initial contact is the Thai woman who has spotted a Western man whom she is attracted to and as such it is really the female making the choices. Initial meetings via such forums will often be followed by MSN chats which also includes video and audio chatting. There is thus ample chance for both parties to ascertain the characteristics of their prospective partners.

 

It is the way in which the article has simplified how Thais and Farangs meet via the internet that has made me give the article a thumbs down as a piece of quality writing on Thai-Farang relationships.