http://teakdoor.com en Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:49:11 GMT vBulletin 60 http://teakdoor.com/images/td_default/misc/rss.jpg http://teakdoor.com http://teakdoor.com/north-east-thailand-the-isaan-forum/59438-100-000-farangs-issan-creating-jobs.html Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:07:34 GMT Foreign husbands move to impoverished...]]> Foreign husbands move to impoverished Isan

by bobbyd on Thu Oct 29, 2009 2:54 pm [61.90.189.xx]
Foreign husbands flock to impoverished Isan

100,000 foreign husbands in Issan, generating 10.5 billion baht in spending with 578,609 jobs created? Astounding figures. Got to wonder how accurate they are!

Isan is the country's poorest region.

Degraded soil, a lack of irrigation and dense population have combined to make Isan (pronounced e-saan) the country's fountainhead for factory workers, housemaids, bus boys and bar girls.

But the region is not without its attractions, as an estimated 100,000 foreign husbands will testify.

``When I came up here 17 years ago, I thought, this place is brilliant,'' said Briton Martin Wheeler, 47.

``In terms of social infrastructure, everyone has a house, everyone has land, and the lifestyle is unbelievable,'' he said, describing his adopted home in Kam Pla Lai village in Khon Kaen province, 350km northeast of Bangkok.

A former construction worker from London, Mr Wheeler married his Thai wife Rojana in Bangkok and moved to her home town in Khon Kaen when she became pregnant with their first child.

``My wife warned me about Isan being the poorest place in Thailand, but I thought, `If this is poor, I'll have some of it','' Mr Wheeler said.

A London University graduate with distinction in Latin, Mr Wheeler started out as a labourer and farmer, learned the Isan dialect and eventually became an assistant to a rural-development project, working in community building and promoting self-sufficiency agriculture as an alternative to single-crop farming.

As Kam Pla Lai became known as a success story in rural development, Mr Wheeler has become a popular figure and is often recruited by the Thai government to talk to farmers and civil servants, using Isan slang, about the benefits of diversifying crops, self-sufficiency and wholesome country living.

``My primary point is you have to accept two truisms _ most people are not going to get rich, and most will not get highly educated,'' Mr Wheeler said. ``If you accept these two truisms, the countryside has a lot to offer.''

Another message is closer to home.

``For the rural people now, the answer to poverty is to get your daughter married to a foreign husband,'' Mr Wheeler said. ``But a lot of the Westerners who come over here are like me _ we're not the cream of the crop.''

Westerners have been marrying Isan girls for decades, starting during the Vietnam War when more than 100,000 US military men were stationed in Thailand, including four air bases in the Northeast.

The bases attracted bars and bar girls. Some local women became ``rented wives'' for the servicemen.

After the war, the GIs were replaced by European and American tourists, for whom Thai ladies remained a major attraction.

Although the Thai government has few statistics on the number of cross-culture marriages, there is plenty of evidence that they are on the rise, especially in Isan.
Increasingly, academics and economists have studied the social phenomenon.

According to a study carried out by the government's National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB), as of 2003 there were 19,594 women in northeast Thailand married to Westerners.

The migration of these mostly elderly, retired men to the region had generated 10.5 billion baht (US$308 million) in spending and created 578,609 jobs, according to the NESDB's estimates.

Buapan Promphakping, an associate professor in humanities at Khon Kaen University, estimates the actual number of cross-culture couples in the 19 northeastern provinces as closer to 100,000, or about 3% of the region's households.

The influx of comparatively wealthy Westerners, sometimes amounting to 100 foreigners in one small village, has had an obvious impact on Isan society _ creating a huge income gap between cross-culture couples and villagers and fuelling more materialism and consumerism, according to Mr Buapan's studies.

And the trend hasn't been good for Thai men.

``Nowadays in the villages, parents will say to their daughters: `If your Thai husband is no good you can divorce him and find a farang [foreign] husband','' Mr Buapan said. ``So you have to behave now.''

For Western men, especially elderly ones retiring on modest pensions, Isan women have won a reputation as good housewives and nurses, while the local economy offers them a standard of living their incomes couldn't buy them in the West.

``It's a win-win situation, but it's not a love story,'' Mr Wheeler said. ``It's finance, and it's sex. It's a mirror of what's wrong with the West, not what's wrong with Thailand.'' - Peter Janssen, dpa

]]> North East Thailand, The Isaan Forum isanyokel http://teakdoor.com/north-east-thailand-the-isaan-forum/59438-100-000-farangs-issan-creating-jobs.html http://teakdoor.com/north-east-thailand-the-isaan-forum/59430-surin-games.html Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:38:01 GMT Off to Surin tomorrow for the Surin Games. My eldest is competing, representing Udon Thani province. Anyone else heading that way? Off to Surin tomorrow for the Surin Games. My eldest is competing, representing Udon Thani province. Anyone else heading that way? ]]> North East Thailand, The Isaan Forum mackayae http://teakdoor.com/north-east-thailand-the-isaan-forum/59430-surin-games.html http://teakdoor.com/north-east-thailand-the-isaan-forum/59370-remembrance-day-in-ubon.html Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:19:55 GMT Show your support and buy a poppy for remembrance day as they are now available at Peppers, N-Joy and the Wrong Way. On the 11/11/09 there will be a... Show your support and buy a poppy for remembrance day as they are now available at Peppers, N-Joy and the Wrong Way.

On the 11/11/09 there will be a remembrance service and presentation to the people of Ubon Ratchatani for their compassion and help to Allied Prisoners Of War.

Wednesday 11th November at the monument of Merit in the main park (Tung Si Muang)

Events are planned from 9am onwards and the traditional two minutes silence will be held at 11am. ]]> North East Thailand, The Isaan Forum MeMock http://teakdoor.com/north-east-thailand-the-isaan-forum/59370-remembrance-day-in-ubon.html http://teakdoor.com/north-east-thailand-the-isaan-forum/59169-travel-and-fun-in-isarn.html Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:44:32 GMT I heard about, read about it, and now I've experienced it. The most exciting bus ride I have ever taken. A VIP bus from Chiang Mai to Ubon leaving at 12:pm. At about 3am in the morning it was raining. We were on a mountain two lane road and the bus driver was passing truck doubles--a tractor pulling two trailers-- on down hill blind curves. The driver, I'm sitting right behind him seemed quite confident of his ability to drive the bus between the truck and the oncoming truck with inches to spare. Holy s!!t. On the way back to Chiang Mail he fell asleep at the wheel at about 3:30am. The bus was weaving down the two lane road--he was driving in the middle of the road.
Why waste your money to go to Disneyland? You can just take a ride on a bus across Thailand. ]]> North East Thailand, The Isaan Forum mtone9317 http://teakdoor.com/north-east-thailand-the-isaan-forum/59169-travel-and-fun-in-isarn.html