One of the pretty cool things to work as teacher at a college is that you talk to a lot of different students. Obviously. The other day I started to talk about intercultural communication, we analyzed different cultural habbits and somehow ended up talking about one of the most common phenomenons in Thailand: The “old foreigner / young Thai girl couple”.
While I still look away most of the times I see such a couple thai people – at least students (95% girls) – seem to have a different point of view. I talked about that topic with 16-21 year old students and the results varied a little. Nevertheless it was somehow shocking for me to realize, that especially the younger girls seem to have no problem to have an old “boyfriend” as long as he brings money to the family. Most of my students are not rich but far away from being poor as well so the thought of making the family “survive” does not count.
all about the benjamins – thai love lockout
When I asked the question whether the girls could imagine having such an old boyfriend (or girlfriend for those who do not like men) most of them (21 of 25) said “yeah, sure”. “As long as he is rich, it is good for me and my family. And he can be kind and lovely and funny as well….” WUAH! That really shocked me. Does nobody over here watch Disney movies? The one and only true love and stuff like that….I asked several times to make sure they weren’t joking but it seems like many of the young girls really consider wealth as an important factor. The pro/con old BF/GF ratio changed a little bit when I talked about it with my older students but the fact still stays the same: Many girls would pick a rich partner even though there is no love involved.
This, of course, explains a lot to me. While I thought all the time that the girls who pick old farang husbands / boyfriends are cruel and calculating (of course not all) I now understand that many girls do not consider this as a bad thing. When discussing this matter students said “but teacher…the old man not only brings money…he can give advice, he is wise, can lead the family…”.
So alright. My understanding developed a little into this direction. Leader of family, advice, taking care….but still I thing LOVE should be somehow involved. And that was the next point of discussion: “He can take care, he is wise…shouldn’t I respect and love him therefore?” Once more I said “alright, I understand…but still I think love comes from your heart and not your head…”
We did not agree on this matter since students always came up with this one statement. This means to me that this attitude might come from their education and is therefore a little more understandable. Nevertheless I think in the year 2011 (2554) love still (or finally!) should be the only way to be together.
After all this was a nice and interesting discussion and makes it more easy to understand why there are so many Old Farang – Young Thai girl couples around. Next time I see one of them I will….still look away though.
