ThaiFarang-Blog

Good for you ….

(6 February 2007)

This video is supposedly making fun of middle aged women trying to be politically correct. The woman in the sketch is trying to adhere to an idea of cultural relativism where no one can condemn other cultures. The actions and attitudes of people can only be interpreted by in their own culture. Judging other cultures on the basis of the values of your own culture would be chauvinistic and prejudicial.

The gravitationally challenged woman stars by delivering her politically correct statement that its good for ThaiFarang couples because he is “lonely” and she is “poor” – so it’s “good” for them. However, what she really thinks is that he is a “dirty old man” and she is so poor that she lives in a “hut”. The approaches of our woman of substance scares of the ThaiFarang couple which leaves her to condemn the Farang as a “pervert”.

It’s clear that the joke is mainly on these “understanding” people who are actually very entrenched in their notions of what is right and wrong – what constitutes a “proper” relationship and what doesn’t. The sketch reflects well on a debate that has been going on in Denmark following the recent documentary on Thai-Danish relationships. A lot of women have been enraged at this documentary and many do not shy away from attaching the above derogatory labels to Western men who marry Thai women. I know that Sine Plambech the main creator of this documentary attempted to dispel many prejudices about Thai-Farang relationships with this TV programme – such prejudices as the men being abusive and the women being very subservient. Many people, however, latched onto a few utterances and behaviours of the Farang men and used this to confirm prejudices about the men as perverts and the women as their victims – a notion that the film actually dispels if seen in its right perspective.

The negative reactions of many Danes to the show made a lot of Danes in Thai-Farang relationships attack Sine Plambech for making them look foolish and yet again having to endure negative comments in the workplace etc. It was as if many men blamed Sine Plambech for even bringing up the subject of Thai-Farang marriages – they would have preferred the topic to stay hush-hush. Like the Thai-Farang couple in the above sketch they ran away when confronted with the overwhelming prejudicial attitude many people have against their relationship. It is a recurrent thing. I believe very few Farangs or Thais go on the offensive when confronted with various jibes against the nature of their relationship. Rather such comment is met with a wry smile by the man as if to show “I know what you mean – I know I’m a bit of a rogue”. Many Farangs do not stand up for themselves because they are still influenced by society’s main prejudice and cannot seem to find a basis for self-defense.

It’s the flaw of a Thai-Farang relationship that it’s very nature is a clash or joining up of cultures. It’s not like an Indian man or woman who marries another person from the Indian subcontinent. They can point to their arranged marriage being based on their cultural tradition. A Farang man cannot take such a high ground. He knows fully well that his “tradition” has been heavily influenced by gender equality and feminist activism. It is hard for a Farang to defend his marriage by referring to his Thai wife’s cultural traditions – to explain that paying sin sot is not “buying” a wife, to explain that sending money home is not being “milked dry”, to explain that Thai notions of love are radically different to the relatively new Western romantic notion of what love (almost) has to be like.

Nevertheless, my preferred (yet unfunny) ending to the above sketch would have been for the Thai-Farang couple to invite the horizontally gifted woman to sit down for a discussion and explanation of how Thai-Farang relationships can be different to same culture relationships but still as valid and genuine in nature.

Farang Predators

Above all others, a certain group of men who frequent Thailand have given Farangs a bad name. Paedophiles in various shapes and sizes have been descending on South East Asia for as long as modern tourism began in that part of the world.

The first time I ever heard of such a resort as Pattaya was when I was a teenager in Denmark. I watched a documentary that showed this place as a haven for these sorts of Western outcasts –it seemed to my then young and inexperienced mind that Thailand was an incredibly seedy place where such perverts could act out their desires without any fear of prosecution.

I must admit that this programme put some prejudices into my mind some of which stayed with me until a few years ago. Recently, Thailand has done a lot to root out these predators that seemed to roam around freely in the late 1980s when I watched the Danish documentary. To a large extent, the problem has moved across to Thailand’s poorer neighbours such as Cambodia and Vietnam.

We still seem plagued by stories of how Farangs are getting caught trying to get away with doing despicable things in these countries. Thai policing has become focused and increasingly adept at detecting these paedophiles, however, which may explain why so many high profile cases have hit the news in recent times.

Currently, one of the most infamous of these predators, former glam-rock star Gary Glitter, is about to be extradited to Britain after having served about a year in a Vietnamese prison for having sex with young girls. He has told reporters that he is planning to try his luck with obtaining residency in Hong Kong next – anything to avoid the public scorn of living as a convicted sex offender in the UK and probably also to allow himself to continue prowling South East Asia and its vulnerable impoverished parts.

There have been other high profile cases about Farangs getting caught because of suspected paedophilia in Thailand – notably John Mark Karr of the USA and Chrstopher Neil of Canada. The effort of Thai police to expose these criminals is a healthy sign that Thailand wants to get rid of these foreign infiltrators that give Thailand a bad name. Other suspected predators, however, still think that Thailand is a haven where they can keep escaping in order to avoid facing the consequences of their crimes. A British man caught with 10,000 indecent images of children has “vowed to return” to Thailand after being arrested there, but subsequently released because it could not be proven that the man had taken the photos himself. (source)

It is sad that people like this cannot feel ashamed and cannot get the message that Thailand doesn’t want them back. It is ultimate guile that people like Gary Glitter and others like him try and try again to hop around South East Asia according to where laws and policing are the most lax and poverty is the greatest all in order to satisfy their perverse impulses. It is cringe-worthy that such men still have a passport, and that it has to be up to Thai immigration to control their entry to the country and Thai police to catch criminals who succeeded in getting in. Western paedophiles are a Western problem that we should be protecting the rest of the world from – especially countries where methods of police control and detection are not as advanced as ours. If people like Gary Glitter and his ilk are forced to spend the rest of their lives in their own countries and western resources are spent on controlling and monitoring them we will help in ridding Thailand of a menace, and those of us with Thai partners or other connections in Thailand will feel less ashamed by hopefully not seeing our own countries named in association with these crimes quite so often.

A Predator’s gallery:

Gary Glitter, aka Paul Gadd.

“The leader of the Pack”

Glitter is an ex-rock star from the 70s. In the late 1990s he was arrested and convicted for being in possession of a large child pornography collection. He served a short British sentence and thereafter went to live in Thailand to escape the public eye. He then surfaced periodically in the news as he was hopping from Thailand to Cambodia and lastly Vietnam – all seemingly with the purpose of finding easy victims to target. He was apprehended in 2005 and has since served time in a Vietnamese prison. He is to be extradited back to Britain shortly.

Christopher Neil

In 2007 this Canadian man was arrested by Thai police soon after he was detected entering the country. He is currently charged with molesting 3 young boys and posting images of these acts on the internet.

John Mark Karr

This American man surfaced in Thailand after being traced though e-mails in which he supposedly confessed to the murder of a Jon Benet Ramsey – a high profile child murder of the 1990s. He was deported back to America where it was subsequently found that his confession was unreliable. Karr has also faced Child pornography charges and worryingly while in Thailand he worked as a school teacher.

The following video shows another British man accused of Paedophilia and depicts how he tries to evade justice by doing a “runner” to Thailand:

The spendthrift vs. the miser

(7 May 2007)

By my Danish family’s standards I am a spendthrift but by Thai standards I must be some kind of miser . . .

This weekend my wife and I went on a trip to London with a Thai couple. We spent the first part of the day in a Theme park called Thorpe park. By my standards the price of the entry tickets were dear enough and I did not really have a mind to splash out on other things inside the park. I wanted to go on the exciting rides we had paid for and then leave. Not so for our Thai friends – they found it much more interesting to go around the various coconut or shooting stalls variously spending £3 at this place, £4 at the other place etc. I find these places to be pure rip-offs with the odds heavily stacked against the suckers playing them. I think our Thai friends spent about £40-50 like this and their prize . . . a stuffed animal called Crazy Frog. As my wife experienced this extravagant and careless attitude towards spending she must have begun to worry that we by just walking alongside them were seen as miserable kee-nee-ow people – stingy people. She began cashing out £2 here and there on various games – I had no objections, it was all part of the experience to lose a few bob like that I thought. But when it became a matter of face and my wife seemed to want to spend money at a degree that I did not expect I tried to discuss this with her without the other couple knowing. We didn’t argue but I had to make it clear that I would not enjoy losing £50 on such stuff.

After we left the Themepark we went to Chinatown in London. We went to a Chinese restaurant. After we had looked through the menu the Thai man asked me if he could order for all of us. I thought he meant that Mam and I told him what to order for us. I told him I wanted a pork dish priced at £10 and Mam said she wanted mixed seafood priced at £8.50. When the waiter took our order our Thai friend told him of what we wanted and then proceeded with his “own” order. He ordered loads of expensive fresh fish dishes, two lobsters and scallops etc. When the food was placed on our table it was obvious that this order was more than 2 people could eat – it was even more than what 4 people could eat! When the Thai man began pouring the seafood on my plate I began to object but was firmly kicked by Mam. I didn’t want to accept the food as I did not want to pay for it. To Mam, however, it already seemed a foregone conclusion that we definitely should share the bill 50/50. She told me quietly and with a resolutely firm stare that we pay half. I gave her an awkward look but did not want to make it an issue as it obviously meant something to her to keep face in that situation. As it was Mam and I had to pay £56 each for our meals!

With my Danish miser-outlook I found £112 on a 1 hour meal a total waste of money – I would much rather have spent that money on our forthcoming trip to Thailand. When we came home I told Mam that I found her Thai friends’ behaviour rude. In my notion of right and wrong you do not order lavish food and expect unknowing friends to pay half the bill. Mam agreed in her own way I think. The solution in future may unfortunately be that we have to see less of these Thai friends. The kind of one-up-man ship that seemed to be practised by the Thai man sort of spoilt the day for me . . .

Taking my Thai wife to visit my Danish family.

(7 April 2007)

Mam and I are now well into our second year of marriage, and as of 1 April 2007 Mam has been a UK resident for 1 year. Yet, until this week Mam had not met any members of my family in person.

All of my family live in Denmark. Over the past year they had not had the opportunity of visiting the UK, and Mam and I were prohibited from travelling to Denmark because Mam had not yet had her Visa renewed.

It took 6 months for the British Home Office to grant my wife a “Residence Card” which now allows her to reside in the UK for 5 years as the wife of an EEA national. We needed to wait for the “Residence Card” in order to obtain the “Schengen Visa” which would allow her to travel to Denmark. By the middle of March we obtained the Schengen Visa and thus we could finally travel to Denmark on 31 March.

My family is typically Danish. It is firmly rooted in Denmark’s peasant past. All my grandparents worked in agriculture and despite their children moving on to work in the cities and manufacturing or clerical work they never lost touch with those roots or values. Virtually no one in my family has married anyone who is not local (or regional) to their own area of birth. 2 years ago it would have been a revolution to see any member of my family actually in a relationship with someone from Copenhagen (the antithesis of someone from the Jutland peninsula). Marrying someone from a radically different country or culture as Thailand similarly figured nowhere on anyone’s radar screens  . . . until 2005.

When I first broke the news of my engagement to be married to a Thai woman in August 2005 it was received with a deafening silence. It was obvious that people had their doubts but these were never expressed – except by my father who in his own benign and inept way tried to teach me some old hand philosophy about women.

The combined doubts of my family gradually eroded as they heard of our life together in the UK and how Mam conducted herself. My sister was the first convert shortly followed by my mother. It took a while longer for my father to become sympathetic to the idea of our marriage but eventually he too was looking forward to finally meeting us.

My mother became slightly tearful as she finally saw her long-awaited daughter in law arrive at a Jutland airport. We spent the first two days in the company of my mum and my stepfather. Mam did not have to exert a lot of energy to get them to accept her into the family. Mam’s amiable and helpful nature was enough to convince my mother that I had been very lucky in finding Mam. We were visited by my uncle and auntie who had travelled in Thailand on holiday. It was obvious that they were apprehensive of Mam at first – probably based on prejudices and horror stories from what they may have heard or seen in Thailand for themselves. Likewise, prejudice was overcome within an hour or so after communication had begun.

On the third day we were to meet my father. He had arranged for us to eat in a Chinese restaurant with other members of his family. My father lives in an old folks’ home and struggles with slight physical disability and senility. His need for help made him immediately endearing to Mam. At one stage my father refused to eat some Chinese soup because it was too hot – Mam jokingly told him to use one of the ice cubes from his drink to cool the soup down. He immediately used his spoon to scoop up the ice and drop it into the soup. Now he happily enjoyed his soup. Other guests did not find this incident as light hearted and amusing as we did, however. Unfortunately, there were guests at our table whom Mam did not win over (for various reasons). 

At the end of our stay my father expressed his joy at having found a daughter like Mam. Similarly, Mam shed quite a few tears as we had to leave my father at his old folks’ home in order to travel home to Blighty.

Alexa rankings are bogus!

In a recent Thai-related website-article Alexa rankings have been used as evidence of the relative popularity of websites with Thai-Farang content. Using Alexa, I have produced my own graph which shows that the credibility of Alexa is bogus. I have installed the Alexa toolbar on two computers (at home and at work). I have used these computers to view and edit my site. Since doing this my Alexa ranking improved from virtually nothing to (at one point) actually winning against both the above website and his main rival (see graph).

Throughout this period I have never had above 180 unique visits in one day. I am pretty certain that my Alexa ranking has been brought about solely through my own efforts in logging on to my site every day and with 2 different computers. A site similar to mine also had its rankings improved almost in parallel as we both began using the Alexa toolbar.

So unless the two sites in question will admit to sharing a similarly modest readership to mine then I think the Alexa rankings should be avoided as evidence of popularity in future. It may be reliable as a measure of the popularity of the top 1000 websites in the world but I fear that none of our websites will ever reach that far . . .

(17 February 2007)

In 1994 Elizabeth Hurley caused a great sensation by arriving at a London Movie Premiere wearing a daring Versace dress only held together by safety pins. The media attention this created for her launched her subsequent career and virtually made her famous overnight.

In early February 2007 a 22 year old University student and actress, Chotiros Suriyawong, attempted a similar stunt presumably aimed at bringing her into the spotlight and secure her more prominent roles in either TV or film. She attended the Thai version of the Oscars wearing a dress incredibly similar to the Hurley dress of 1994 – although admittedly the Thai dress reveals much more.

So far things have not worked out the way Chotiros may had hoped, however. Instead of being flanked by admiring journalists and getting phone calls from media agents eyeing dollars or Thai baht, she has had to “stand trial” at her University, forced to do community service, humbly apologise to an outraged public and see herself cut out of previous films she has appeared in.

It is a contrast between the individualistic culture of the West where Elizabeth Hurley would not be criticised for wearing what is a daring but still legal outfit. Public interference against her would be a denial of her individual rights and seen as a horrible kind of state enforced morality – the Western public has rejected this sort of deference to public morality in favour of individualism.

In Thailand the individual is still not as free. What comes first is still what Thais consider their traditional culture. As a media celebrity Chotiros Suriyawong should not appear indecently in public – by doing that she is not only disgracing herself but the whole of Thailand and its people. As a student at a well-respected university, she has brought shame on the whole institution by her behaviour. When she attends an important event such as the Thai Oscars she is not just representing herself - as Hurley was - but her University as well.

So now this young Thai woman has relegated herself in terms of her career in the media and furthermore has to endure a punishment of 15 hours community service to atone for bringing her University, country and least of all herself into disrepute.

It is a funny and striking contrast between Western and Thai culture - as yet.

Video of the episode:

Showing off

(28 January 2007)

I am not pleased. My wife is beginning to show off too much.

She seems to have got into some silly competition with another Thai woman whom she considers some kind of rival (in what sense I am not quite aware). They both work at a Thai restaurant and their shows of one-upmanship sometimes revolve around who drinks the most expensive orange juice and at other times about whose husband helps out the most around the house. Each week there seems to be some new petty issue that makes them competitive.

My wife had me fooled for a while. She kept coming home talking about how her Thai friend would make stupid comments meant to show her superior luck, wealth, status – whatever. My wife would normally laugh about these examples of showing off.

Today, however, it was apparent that my wife was just as petty by parading into the living room wearing a new designer shirt. With a wide smile, she immediately commented that someone was going to be jealous of her tonight . . . meaning her Thai colleague.

I must admit that I find the Thai or Isarn habit of openly flaunting status or wealth to friends and acquaintances as distasteful. I do not think I will never adapt to such a way of thinking. My Danish upbringing has made me totally alien to hierarchical ways of thinking. Showing off my status or wealth with the sole purpose of putting someone else down is anathema to me.

I have previously discussed this topic on the Thailand-UK forum where members found this topic incredibly sensitive. Some people thought that the flaunting of wealth was just a fact of Thai life, and it should not be discussed. Others thought that disagreeing with the practice was in itself a sign of disrespect to Thais and their culture. I do not think so. I hope I can convince my wife of the superiority of Danish ways of thinking on this one. I aim to totally reform her on this issue. Watch this space . . .  

Ding-Dong – The Witch is Dead!

(19 January 2007)

This week a British reality show made world headlines – it has been a hot topic in the UK as well as India and even featured in the news in Thailand. UK and Indian politicians have been eager to express a view on the show, 35,000 Brits have written letters of complaint about the show and it has been suggested that the Channel broadcasting the show should lose its license.

It is a row about racism. A contestant on the show named Jade Goody has been making derogatory remarks about an Indian participant in the show - Shilpa Shetty, a Bollywood actress.

Jade Goody is a reality star whose claim to fame was appearing on a previous Big Brother show where she endeared herself to the public by her loud-mouthed, ignorant comments and behaviour. She has since had great success in putting her life on display in various newspapers, magazines and other reality shows – over the years she has netted millions of pounds by being the Nation’s favourite talentless but recognisable Chav (British word for poor white trash).

Jade took a dislike to the Indian Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty because she did not want to take part in late night drinking games, public farting, talking in lurid detail about sexual practices etc. This was Chav behaviour on show – the worst kind of Chav behaviour, a Chav with money and a screwed up sense of self. Jade had zero understanding or respect for the fact that Shilpa came from a traditional Indian background and while not being uppity or condescending of others she insisted on upholding the values she had been brought up with – reality show or not. The Chav took personal offense at this display of independence and self-respect. She resorted to disgusting racial remarks all with the intention of bringing down this “uppity” foreigner. Shilpa’s accent and eating habits were ridiculed, she was called a “Poppadum” and told to “go home”.

Jade, as queen of the “Reality Stars” that have appeared in the UK in the first decade of the 21^st Century, has spearheaded a trend where bigoted dummies have achieved celebrity status. Big Brother has also made stars out of equally obnoxious Chav girls such as Nikki and Chantelle. These “celebrities” now clutter up our TV screens, magazines etc. The values they promote are ignorant Chavviness. These are the role models British kids increasingly grow up with – it is a reflection of society in that sense. Jade has had her ego inflated during these last years and come to believe that she is a person of “high status”. This misguided belief was burst when confronting a person with class such as Shilpa Shetty – a person from India with no knowledge or experience of Reality TV and thus no respect for Chav scum. Jade is and will forever be a person of low-class and detestable behaviour – loads-a-money or not. Her resorting to racist taunting just underlines the desperation of this sad part of society – what is even sadder is that UK society chooses to exalt such losers to national celebrity status.

100 years ago the British upper and middle classes would settle in India and have dinner discussions in their colonial mansions on the “primitive” and “uncivilised” behaviour of the natives. Now the situation has clearly reversed and Indians, such as Shilpa can discuss the low-life behaviours of native Brits with Jermaine Jackson (another Big Brother contestant).

In my last blog-entry I mentioned how my wife was relieved to escape the backbiting atmosphere of a Thai restaurant and happy to be working with native Brits in a private school instead. Mam has a very positive view of the average Brit – she has never experienced any racism. She has been watching Big Brother with a mixture of quiet sadness and disbelief. She has not experienced a despicable creature like Jade firsthand, but seeing how Shilpa has been mocked by Brits behind her back has possibly burst a few illusions about the good natures of her British countrymen.

Tonight Jade Goody was evicted from Big Brother in a televoting landslide. Hopefully, this will be the end of Britain’s “Reality Witch“.

Tonight, the British public should sing the tune of the Munchkins:

Ding Dong! The Witch is dead.

Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She's gone where the goblins go,
Below - below - below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.

Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.

Sadly though, the international notoriety Jade has attained will probably just spur her on and earn her even more publicity and thus money – too sad that I could not really end this blog-entry with a message of hope . . .

Transformations

 (13 January 2007)

There have been some changes for Mam lately.

Previously, Mam had a full-time job in a Thai restaurant. This involved working 6 nights and 5 afternoons a week for limited money. The hours of work and other issues with the restaurant gradually became a major source of frustration for my wife. She really wanted to find different work.

Luckily, one of her Thai friends helped her find a job working in the catering department of a local private school. She began working there in the afternoons and told her Thai boss that she could no longer be available for full-time work.

My wife has gradually increased her hours of work at the school and worked less and less at the Thai restaurant. This has been a relief to her. Apparently, the kinds of jealousy, gossip, in-fighting etc. that go on among the staff working in Western-based Thai restaurants are notoriously fierce and draining. I had heard many horror stories about this before. In retrospect, however, Mam navigated these matters quite well during the period she worked there. She has found some good friends through this work, but she obviously feels that the work she is now doing at a “British” place of work is less emotionally draining.

The changeover of staff at the restaurant has now almost been 100% as the Thai chefs have left (as well as the Thai man who washed the dishes) – and now Mam. So, goodbye Thai restaurant – hello UK world of work . . .

Apocalypto!

(7 January 2007)

Today, Mam and I went to see the new Mel Gibson film, Apocalypto. It was a truly haunting thrill-ride the likes of which are few and far between. Apocalypto is a supreme experience that will stay with you for some time. Mam and I saw the film without knowing much about the plot, which I am now very satisfied with. So if you have not seen the film already forget about reading the rest of this blog-entry (too many spoilers)– JUST GO AND SEE THE FILM!

Right from the opening scene of the film you are thrown into a thrilling and enthralling world of the Ancient Mayas. The film is not so much about a clash between Western explorers and native Americans – at least not initially.

Firstly, we are introduced to a harmonious Mayan tribe and audiences get used to the fact that the cast are speaking in Mayan and not English. The effect of having the whole film spoken in Mayan is brilliant. It adds to the feeling of observing and being sucked into a totally alien culture. If the cast had spoken in American accents so much of the film’s effect would have been taken away.

The harmony of the Mayan village is interrupted by a raiding party intending to capture slaves for human sacrifice in the Mayan capital. We do not know that this is the intention, however, until the final moments when the slaves are dragged through the tumultuous capital and up a pyramid where the gruesome spectacle is taking place.

The film’s hero, however, escapes his fate and tries to return to the remnants of his village where he managed to hide his wife and son. Thus ensues a terrific chase through the jungle that will keep everyone on the edge of their seats.

The hero manages to kill off his pursuers except for two. These two Mayans as well as the hero are, however, stunned into inaction upon seeing what for them would have been a magnificent sight: the landing of the Spanish conquistadors on the shores of America.

It is this sight that becomes so haunting and meaningful, and it is the main reason why I am writing about the film in this blog.

As a Westerner, you sort of feel relieved to see the Spanish conquerors in their Western dress and with their Christian missionary row towards the coast with a determined and inquisitive look in their faces. After having seen the outrageous human sacrifices of the Mayans it is a relief to see a glimpse of a familiar world coming in to put things right – to civilise.

On the other hand, you also know that the brave Mayan hunter and his family are henceforth doomed, and that the total dominance and ascendancy of Western culture and values will wipe out the Mayans eventually.

It is a haunting sight because it is so relevant in our modern world and as an individual in a cross-cultural relationship it makes you think as well. It makes you think about the historical inevitability of the extinction of the Mayans. In a way you wonder whether this is also going to be the fate of distinctly Thai or Isarn ways. And in a way I am thinking – yes, of course. In 10, 20 or 50 years time Thailand and Isarn will be probably be thoroughly modernised and westernised.

As a person in a Thai-Farang relationship I think you often feel fascinated and enthused about being a part of a radically different culture, but also sometimes relieved to see familiar Westerners or Western institutions in Isarn villages for example.

I guess the sight of the conquistadors’ ship is equivalent to the sight of 7-elevens or McDonalds opening up in very corner of Thailand. It is a relief to see something familiar from your own culture and thus feel safe, but it also reminds you that the excitement you get from trying to understand and live with a different culture is a privilege that will one day die out as the whole world gradually becomes modernised. Seeing the vision of the conquistadors’ ship in Gibson’s film makes you understand where we are today, but also where we will probably be in the not too distant future.  

. . . and Happy New Year! (6 January 2007)

It’s has been a while since I last updated this blog. Mam and I have been taking it easy, and I have started work again this week.

The tumult at Mam’s place of work has now reached a temporary conclusion. The two Thai chefs have resigned to take up work at a new Thai Take-Away set up by the main chef’s sister. Such a move was probably inevitable as family takes first place in the Thai state of mind. I received an e-mail from a friend about my last blog-entry where I compared this state of affairs to a sort of modern serfdom. He wrote:

Interesting article today on the restaurant.  An asian restaurant is a whole different world.  I was lucky enough to be an owner of a small chinese restaurant for about 6 years.  (how that came to be, is a story best told over a couple beers...)  I can't imagine the basic dynamic in a Thai restaurant is much different than that in a Chinese restaurant. (…)

 

My ex-wife certainly also expected that her family members help her out in the restaurant if she needed them, even to the point of quitting other jobs that they may have.  It wasn't serfdom but rather a debt of gratitude, as she had put enormous amounts of work into building herself up in english skills, business, and financially, so that she could sponsor her family to come to the States.  When her sister refused to help her out, it caused a riff in the family that never healed.  Three years later, the sisters are barely on speaking terms.  She saw the sisters refusal to work as ingratitude in the face of the fact that she basically worked for 10 years with no other goal but to get her family together in a country where they would have more opportunity.  As an outsider looking at it, I think my ex was right, she had sacrificed everything for her family (even eventually her marriage) so to have the sister not want to help was a slap in the face.

I can certainly understand and empathise with a situation like this. If someone has virtually sacrificed herself over such a long period of time with the primary aim of creating new opportunities for her family and subsequent generations of that family then it is reasonable that such a feat is rewarded with a sort of unquestioning gratitude and loyalty. In my Western way of thinking, however, I still think someone who has earned such loyalty and gratitude should shy away from becoming an absolute dictator and pose too many requests that are solely in her own interest. Otherwise, the goodwill she has earned and deserves will evaporate and rightly so.

I also suspect that the ownership of many Thai restaurants in the West will be different than the ownership of Chinese restaurants.

The overwhelming majority of Chinese restaurants are set up through the hard work of Chinese couples or individuals, and they very much run family restaurants where everyone is obliged to take part. On the other hand, many Thai restaurants are probably owned by Thai-Farang couples and most often financed with the Farang's money.

Chinese entrepreneurs may spearhead a restaurant business by running a low-scale take away at first and then through hard work and discipline work themselves up. The process of spearheading a successful Thai restaurant may be slightly less lengthy if a Thai lady can set up a quality Thai restaurant with Farang money.

A Thai lady, who sets up a successful Thai restaurant in this way, and thus succeeds in bringing over family members to help her run the restaurant does not appear as “deserving” from an objective point of view. But fact is that she still may demand the same sort of loyalty and that is purely to do with traditional Thai views on family and paying off your debts.

With my Western mindset I am not pleased to see this very affable Thai couple who hardly speak any English or mix with Westerners, except through work, be exploited by family or other Thais. Because of language barriers and unfamiliarity with Western ways they shy away from any contact with Western culture and prefer to stay safely within a small Thai cocoon centred in the restaurant. These same Thais that form their main point of social contact are the very ones that exploit them and try strenuously to rake in all the profits of their hard work for themselves.

I know that the Thai chefs plan to earn as much money as they can while in the West and then settle in Thailand once their “ordeal” (because that is how I think they see it) is over. Too bad that their experience of Western life cannot be a more positive one.

A return of enserfed labour?

(27 December 2006)

A serf is a worker who is bound to a “master” and has no freedom to choose his or her own occupation or place of work. The relationship between serf and “master” rests on the fact that the serf is obliged to follow someone else's wishes due to the benefits incurred from past favours or services . . . It was the basic medieval way of life.

So where am I going with this? Well, there has been some controversy at Mam’s place of work today. My wife works at a restaurant, and the chefs who work there are a Thai-Thai couple. Like many Thai restaurant chefs they both live and work with their employer - having few days off and earning just about minimum wage.

The special fact about this couple, however, is that their current employer was not their first UK employer nor do they have any kinship to their current employer. Their first employer was the sister of the female Thai chef – this sister brought the couple to the UK and employed them until her restaurant went belly-up. This did not mean that they were “freed” from her influence though. She took it upon herself to negotiate with other employers on their behalf and virtually dictate where they should work.

This couple has been working at the restaurant where Mam works for some 6 months now, but now the sister is setting up a new restaurant. She has “ordered” her brother-in-law to take the up-coming 5 days off from work so he can help her move and set up her new business. This has brought about a conflict between Mam’s employer and the Thai chef’s sister. Mam has been dragged into this as a sort of mediator or “advisor” to her employer, who has told her chef’s sister that if he takes 5 days off without permission he is out of a job, which effectively means his wife is as well.

The most amazing thing to me is that today’s negotiations have all taken place between the restaurant owner, the chef’s sister and Mam as mediator – the two people in question are at the present stage completely unaware that their future employment is uncertain. When I asked Mam why the chefs are not being consulted she replied that they always do what the sister tells them – partly because she is the older sister, but they also defer to her because of her greater wealth, language ability and the fact that she got them their work permits in the first place.

Mam and I tried to explain to the restaurant owner that posing an ultimatum like this to the sister was probably playing into her hands. When the sister had finished setting up her restaurant it was probably her plan to bring in her two relatives to work in the kitchen. If Mam’s employer was now going to force the Thai couple to make a choice between obeying the sister or keeping their jobs – the sister could manipulate the situation to make it look as if they had been pushed out and could only rely on her once again. Mam had heard murmurings from the Thai man, who, while not being pleased about his current employer, was tired of moving about and wanted to stay where he was. So the current situation sorts out this aspect beautifully for the Thai sister and strengthens her control over her Thai relatives even further.

I am quite interested to see if this turns out the way we think and fear (because they’re good friends of Mam’s and she would hate to see them leave) . . .

Christmas finish! (24 December 2006)

Mam and I have virtually finished our Christmas “festivities” for this year. We ate the goose and opened the presents tonight – tomorrow will just be a day of relaxation and TV watching.

Unexpectedly, we were joined by some of Mam’s colleagues from the restaurant at which she works, a Thai-Thai couple and a Thai-Farang couple. This was at rather short notice, and since our guests had to work in the evening we had to move our Christmas meal forward to 3 pm. This meant a rather rushed day of preparation as extra supplies had to be purchased etc.

It was not the relaxed and romantic day I had been expecting where Mam and I would just calmly prepare our evening meal without any rush. Now we were clamouring to get all the food hot and ready for when our guests arrived.

I prepared the food Danish style. It is really one of the first times Mam has let me in sole control of the kitchen for such a long time. I began preparing a pork roast and the goose at 10 am, and when things got too “hectic” in the kitchen I actually had to call for Mam to come and help. Her only “Thai” intervention happened while she was basting the goose - she suggested that we use some of her Thai soy sauce to improve the flavour! That made me laugh as I had expected that sort of suggestion all day – Mam has changed virtually every Farang dish I cook by adding Soy sauce, Fish sauce, chilis etc. etc. so it becomes more tasty (in her opinion). This time, however, I insisted that my Danish traditions were upheld.

It was a funny experience seeing our mainly Thai guests try to enjoy a Danish style Christmas “feast”. They were very polite and kept saying that the food had been well-cooked. However, when you looked at them it was obvious that what their eyes really expressed was the curious question: “How can you Farangs eat this stuff?”

Mam's friends were good company, though. Always upbeat and eager to create a good mood around the table. Few people will be bored or feel uneasy in the company of such people. Still, on a day like this, I feel a bit displeased about not being surrounded by other Danes, ie. my family. I felt quite alone in appreciating the Danish Christmas feast I had prepared. The other Farang at our Christmas dinner seemed to have his mind on the upcoming Christmas day turkey and other stuff that goes with a UK Christmas. In future years, Mam and I will hopefully be celebrating Christmas in Denmark, which in due time should “teach” my good wife to “love” the flavours of Danish home cooking – at least she will have fewer ways to “improve” the dishes as no soy or squid sauce will be within reach.

An unhealthy obsession . . . ? (23 December 2006)

Mam is giving me the silent treatment at the moment – and quite rightly so. She is upset about me spending too much time with this computer “thingy”. Furthermore, the UK weather is not exactly doing much to cheer her up either.

I have managed to buy a goose though which I will attempt to cook tomorrow night. Even though we are living in the UK we will be celebrating Christmas on 24 December as is done in Denmark. I have never really experienced celebrating Christmas UK-style – so better to stick with what you know.

The 24th of December is also the day of our first wedding anniversary! Tomorrow, it is one year ago since Mam and I tied the knot in her village near Sukhothai . . . a great day with excellent people. Tomorrow we will hopefully refresh those memories as we have a relaxing and enjoyable Christmas evening with a goose (totally free of fish sauce) and presents.

During the last few days I have had little to do so have become more interested in matters to do with this website. I am trying to get the site to reach a wider audience.

Firstly, I have been a bad boy by joining several forums with the sole purpose of “informing” members about this website with the predictable result that my posts have been deleted.

Secondly, I have signed up with Google Adwords, and it has now become a geeky hobby of mine to fine-tune the adverts I have with different sites and which keywords I try to “sponsor” in the keyword searches of search engines.

During the last days the result of this increased emphasis on publicity has been a more diverse readership. Previously my website got about 60-70% of its visitors from the UK but now that trend seems to be reversing:

I hope that this trend will last as I want the site to be read by Thais and Farangs from a global community and not just limited to one country.

But Mam is decidedly unimpressed by my efforts. There is nothing she abhors more than seeing me at the computer, which also explains why she has not written anything for this blog for the last 3 days . . . So I guess I had better make this short as I do not want her to bear too much of a grudge against me tomorrow . . .

Hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas break!

Planning for New Year’s Eve (22 December 2006)

This year, Christmas is going to be a low key affair. As I wrote in an earlier entry on this blog, neither Mam nor I have a family in the UK and cannot go back to either Thailand or Denmark due to Visa issues. We had been invited to spend Christmas with another Thai-Farang couple but politely declined. So Christmas is going to be a duo performance with me trying to cook some kind of bird and Mam eagerly anticipating what gifts she’ll be getting – it really is charming to see how she awaits opening her presents with Childish anticipation.

I want New Year’s Eve to be a more up-tempo affair as we will be joining some of my friends in Nottingham for that celebration. That will hopefully be the highlight of our Christmas break this year.

Before settling down with Mam I had anticipated that issues to do with our age difference may arise. I am 32 years old, but Mam is only 23. So naturally I believed she would be keen to socialise with friends and party on weekends like most people that age. So far, however, she has only gone out alone with friends twice. The first time she came home after 1 hour and the second time she came home terribly sick after having downed 3 Bacardi Breezers . . . ! Contrary to my belief Mam has no real desire to party hard on weekends.

Previously, I had heard many stories about younger Thai women wanting to hang out with a clique of Thai friends and preferring to socialise with them rather than staying in. I also know that when Mam was living in Thailand the group of friends she had at the Thai restaurant at which she worked during the last few months until her Visa was granted were extremely important to her and that almost all her spare time was spent socialising with them. Furthermore, authors such as Mont Redmond states that a key to the Thai concept of Sanuk is:

Fun is rarely solitary. It may be relaxing to stay home and watch television, but it is more fun to go out at night with friends. (…) Sitting and drinking with buddies is basic Thai fun. The tone should be bantering, boisterous, or bawdy.

From Mont Redmond's book: Wondering into Thai Culture

Mam does not conform to this apparently typical Thai trait as she prefers staying at home unless I go out with her. My plans for a "bawdy and boisterous" New Years Eve are therefore more my wishes than Mam’s I guess.

Merry Christmas everybody . . . and now back to the Christmas shopping.

Christmas time (21 December 2006)

Mam and I are spending this year’s Christmas in the UK. We would rather have gone home to visit my family in Denmark but are prevented from doing so due to the fact that neither of us have a passport at the moment. Both of our passports are with the UK Home Office as they are processing Mam’s application for a Residence Card which will allow her to stay in the UK for a further 5 years.

I began my Christmas holidays yesterday so now the onus is on me to provide a true Christmas experience for my wife since it’s her first “real” Christmas and it’s just the two of us this year. Mam is probably more in the Christmas spirit than I am. She has decorated the house single-handedly – including our “minimalist” Christmas tree. On a day to day basis, I usually focus entirely on work, but now I guess it is my turn to take up the reins and make this a memorable Christmas.

Food, I think, is the most crucial thing to get right to have a real Christmas experience. Mam isn’t too keen on me buying a big bird (Turkey or Goose) and making a first shot at cooking one of these – she has probably cleverly realised what the result would be. She keeps telling me just to buy some pork and keeping things simple. I have a sneaking suspicion that it is really because Mam’s relationship to Western food is that it is something she eats out of politeness to me and other Westerners. She only eats a little bit when eating Western food whereas Thai food is devoured in much more sizeable quantities. Mam’s shocked (and slightly horrified) facial expression when I told her that a Turkey would last us several days after Christmas day was priceless . . .

Another thing Mam has enjoyed about Christmas in the UK has been the buying of presents and the exchange of Christmas cards. She was delighted to receive Christmas cards from her UK colleagues at work and spent a long time writing Christmas cards for them all. It always seems that Mam is keen to re-pay all kindnesses to her manifold. It is the same situation with my family back in Denmark who sent us some token gifts this year and I arranged to send them some money so my mother could purchase some gifts for my sister’s children etc. Mam would have none of it. In a persistent - but strangely un-nagging – way she persuaded me that we too had to send them Christmas presents. So the Christmas shopping I had hoped to avoid because we would only be two this year I still had to endure as we spent the whole of Sunday inspecting every shop in town for potential gifts.

The days of Christmas still await . . .  

The first entry (20 December 2006)

When I first set up this website in July 2006 my intention was that readers looking for material on Thai-Farang relationships would find this site and read an overwhelmingly positive picture of what it means to be in a relationship with a Thai. Since then various things seem to have happened in cyberspace. One of the negative sites that people referred to on Thai-Farang relationships has been suspended and other sites with the aim of spreading a positive message of Thai-Farang relationships have mushroomed – among others the GeoffandAmy site in particular.

I still want the ThaiFarang site to remain a site that is read by people and has regular updates. Now, by opening this blog, I am hoping that those updates will become a bit more regular – it is easier to put down thoughts in a sort of rambling manner than trying to write coherent articles on the major issues affecting Thai-Farang couples. No doubt many articles remain to be written for this site – but at present I think there is a good selection of articles that relate to some of the issues I find the most relevant to people in a Thai-Farang relationship.

I am still hoping that this site will attract a wider readership. At present I will admit that daily readership is to be counted in the tens rather than the hundreds. The daily record for the site was some 200 back on a day in July when the site was first published and written about on sites such as ThaiVisa.com. Since then it has been slim pickings. At the same time newly opened trashy sites on Thai-Farang relationships rake in daily readers numbering in the hundreds and sometimes thousands. Of course, this could be a reflection of the fact that the articles on this site might not be as entertaining as reading about the seedy or negative side of Thai-Farang relationships. Additionally, if you’re in a settled relationship with a Thai woman you may not need to read the sort of articles that are published on this site - they may seem self-evident to you.

However, if you are new to the world of Thai-Farang relationships the site may be of more value. In the Summer of 2005 I had fallen in love with a Thai woman and found that many websites and internet forums tried to warn me against pursuing such a relationship. Much of this advice was good-willed wishing me good luck in pursuing the relationship, but also suggesting that I should let the long-distance relationship test itself out over a couple of years and then marry when I was 100% sure that it was the right thing to do. Other advice, I now realise, was just hopelessly tarred by a negative prejudice against Thai women written by men who had been through hard times with Thai women - deservedly or not. I always felt convinced that I had to pursue my relationship with Mam despite the negative feedback. I did follow my instincts in this matter and cannot be happier that I did now - one and a half years on. At the time, however, it would have been nice to have found sites and opinions supporting my belief in the ultimate success of a Thai-Farang relationship.

So this is my first entry in my new blog-section of this site. It should feature my daily thoughts and experiences on being in a Thai relationship (but probably also many other things). Hopefully, it will be a rather monotonous blog because that will mean the relationship I have with Mam is like most relationships in that it just works and there is not much to report . . . 

The Thai perspective:

เมรี่คริสมัส

ฉันมีชื่อเล่นว่าแหม่มก็ตอนนี้เกือบจะเต็มเก้าเดือนแล้วซินะที่อาศัยอยู่บ้านหลังที่สอง

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