Fast Way To Getting A Good Wife

Stickman, I think you are very wrong. I read your weekly rave of 23/5/04 with some interest. Ok, I have been slow to get my point articulated, but here we go. Being married to a Thai, I find it more than interesting. I think your wife for one or someone has talked to you and made you print this politically correct gibberish.

First there are good places to find wives, you can find them all over the place, I know about 20 – 30 Thai women of various ages who all they want to do is be married to a Falang. I will come to all that later, so you can email people back and
say “Sydney Tom recommends this:”

Why is it you say it is mad and cannot find a wife in less than 2 weeks? If people are motivated, they can find a partner very quickly, and live on bliss for a long time. It does not matter if you cannot speak Thai either; there are ways around that as
well.

Now if the reader of this article is an average man who maybe wasn’t a lady-killer back in the land(s) of “Long White Noses”, and you just want a nice and faithful wife who you are happy to live with permanently, then read on. If
you aren’t then you bight as well hit the “Back” button on your browser now.

Ask yourself this, if you share common goals and have a common attitude, then you are a long way there. And trust me, sitting in coffee shops and on the beach for 2 weeks talking to your prospective will change, and you will know soon enough.

This article has been re-written so many times, I hope this is the final time. I will make the remainder of this like a tool-box, and then some ending comments. This has ended as a bit of a rave, but I hope you read through and get the information I am
trying to tell.

Ok, Stick, I have written this in the “Hemmingway of Suphanburi” style.

So lets start – “For whom the bell tolls”, or more aptly, “For whom the Baht jingle…”

1. The BIG One M O N E Y.

First thing, and this is very important, when you meet a lady, be reasonably frugal. I don’t mean be a Cheap Charlie, but don’t spray her with money like you are holding a fire hose. You know you love her, and she probably loves you. But,
the amazing numbers of men I have met and have read about who have had a sad story to say, and it goes like this :

“I met this really nice 18 – 25 year old, working in (insert impoverished condition at will) and I decided to show her my love by making her life better. “So I rented her a fully furnished condo in (insert outer Bangkok suburb or Sukhumvit Rd) which cost 6000 a month. I then also gave her an allowance of 15 – 20 thousand baht a month. After 3 months she is asking me for more, etc and the phone is not always answered. What should I do? I don’t think I trust her any more. And the story goes on to a sad ending.

Well, the fact of the matter is, if you “went up river to the source” and found her squatting in the rice paddy, or saw her at the front of a factory, or in a shop etc, she would have been earning absolutely at best 9000 a month at a really
good factory, with lots of overtime and down to 4000 a month in a poorer factory. In the rice paddy, she would seasonally earn 3000 a month.

Lets assume she is pulling in 4500 a month, which seems to be an average. Normally, she would be sending home about 2000 a month, leaving 2500 for rent, food and some meagre entertainment. Probably in the shared room, there won’t be a television,
they will all sleep on the floor (sometimes in shifts) and there might be a radio and some pictures. That is her life. So assuming your teeruk’s contribution to the rent is 500, she now has 2000 for her share of food. That’s about
66 baht a day, not withstanding the cost of getting to work each day, laundry electricity and water. Basically she is living in poverty, but has her friends / family to keep herself happy and occupied.

You go and give her a huge allowance and a free condo, she now has an enormous amount of spending power and not much to do, sitting in a condo, waiting for you to call.

Of course what generally happens is:

1. The family know quickly she has a lot of money to spend.
2. She starts taking her friends out for “lavish” entertainment.
3. She gets very bored.

Although the money is nice, keep her at work. Keep her with her social group. Sure give her some money, even upgrade the apartment, but remember this, the ladies like a bit of spending money, but they feel a lot better when they are also making some of
their own, it gives them a little bit of independence.

The best situation is if you financially take the burden of the day to day like the apartment, and something for food and a small allowance, so she can send a bit more home. The family back home will still think she has had good luck and you are a good
man, but Mum and Dad won’t give up work and live off you as well.

Of course buy teeruk a gift and take her out to dinner and do nice things. Make sure you pay for the beauty shop and buy her clothes to your taste.

So now you have a teeruk who is financially reliant on you and generally appreciates you “taking care”. It is a big thing. Trust me, to improve the level of happiness requires exponentially greater amounts of money. Remember, these people
really aren’t educated in how to handle money. Give the family 20,000 baht, and after you leave, they will have a big party and buy all sorts of things and be starving again within 2 weeks.

Visiting the family and money, I will get to later.

2. Education and Expectations (Cutting to the chase).

In my opinion, it is all to do with expectations and little else. Education is a fallacy that is pushed around by the politically correct and the academic elite. In many ways the worse your future partner is educated, the better. <This is fxxxing insane unless you area control freak – Stick> I know this is a strange thing to say but you want a clever teeruk who is poorly educated from a poor family. Poor enough that they need a few thousand baht every month or they go hungry. If nothing else in this country,
if you have the money, you are the boss. If you don’t believe me, empty your pockets, wear some dirty clothes and see how long you will be taken care of.

No I am not contradicting myself, but if you have the money, you have the control, the more you give away, the less control you will have. So you have to set the family’s expectations early. <Which absolutely validates the point I just made – Stick>

This means the minute you meet the family you will be “Poo Yai” or the big man. You still don’t want to spend a lot of money, just make the experience when “Johnny Falang” comes home, it is something to look forward
to. If you go and shower the family with money – look out, they will have an expectation and so will most of the village – after all, generally the family will want to look better in front of the village, by having an easy spending
Falang “courting” their daughter.

As I said before, the last thing you want is mum and dad giving up work. Next her “brother” will have an industrial accident, the family buffalo will get sick etc, you have heard it all before.

At the end of it all, take them a 50 kg bag of rice when you visit, and also some food, but when you leave, don’t give them any money. If they ask, the first time tell them you are sorry, you need all your money to get back to Bangkok etc. If they
ask again then her family is a swarm of mosquitoes whose role in life is to eat your blood. Finally you will spend more money in the village in a weekend than the village boys will make in a weekend, so trust me, the competition is eliminated.

Life expectations are so important. The sooner she knows what you like and dislike and the same for you learning about her the better. After all you would be the most important person in her life, so she wants to learn about you and that’s it.
So if you have a girl who has not passed Prathom 6 that will be enough education. But you want someone who has not gone on for hardship reasons, not because they are stupid.

Any more Isaan education fills their head with all sorts of babble they just don’t need. Now you need to be a bit careful, you want someone who is eager to learn, so you may want to look for some behaviour they are resentful at not going past Prathom
6 and into Matayom 1 etc. You can test how well they learn by seeing how well they pick up your language idioms. As an example, Mrs Sydney Tom speaks wonderful Sydney slang.

Moving along a bit, this is getting tiring…

You want someone who has had a boyfriend before and is not a virgin. This means they have had bad sex and the sin sod is a lot lower. But of course they will need educating in the manner of bedroom style, and something they need to learn
quickly is that Farangs make love differently to Thais. They also need to understand that you are shy to teach, and are also worried she is shy, so this is where you use an instruction video. Some homework for this is to go around Pantip and Sukhumvit
and get some movies. They have to be something you enjoy doing yourself, otherwise your new wife will do all the wrong things. Then you can sit your teeruk down and show her a video or DVD on lovemaking. They have then seen the videos on what
makes a Farang happy….. Trust me this works well, just don’t over-do it.

Moving along. The next big problem is cooking. Most Farang really don’t like Thai food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So same again, instruction videos on cooking hamburgers, bacon and eggs, how to correctly slice the banana for your cornflakes
etc. Mostly they will like to eat this food and it will make them happy to make you happy.

Most mornings I get a double espresso, cornflakes and toast. Well thinking about it, Mrs Sydney Tom will make anything I like for breakfast. But please remember, you cannot ask teeruk to cook a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich with bacon etc, if she
has never seen it.

There are other things they need to learn, like Farang culture. It is important to stress that it is normal for western men to go to bars with their friends, while their partner stays at home, washes and cleans. If you stick to your guns you will get
away with this. I am often asked if I want to go to Cambodia with my old friends, and when my great friend Khun Bill comes from Jakarta, she would not even consider the notion that I want to stay at home.

You also need to tell your partner about a dowry. In the west a bride’s family pays a dowry to the husband, and what does her family expect to do? You will need to explain (gently) that their daughter is marrying into a family of means and that
Falang culture dictates that the brides family has to “buy in”. You can get a 25% success rate with this line. Obviously you want to save face for the family, and pay a sin sod but you are still going to be sending
them money, so they need to choose about the sin sod and continued support arrangement.

Now with that in mind, lets talk about the girl. Why does she want a Farang husband? Well my research deep in Isaan has revealed from a large sample size that the Thai men don’t meet their expectations. There are many reasons, and I don’t
want to verbally bash Thai men, but they see a Farang as a far better option. There is much talk in the media about it, but face it, you are at the top of the heap.

Ok so all of you out with the tar and feathers:

The summary is you want a young girl, who of course good looking and polite, but is poorly educated. She must be clever. She must also be happy to learn all aspects of a relationship, and other things. As an example, Mrs Sydney Tom is going to start doing
horticulture at college soon.

You must control the finances and keep tight control. Apart from rent and an allowance, don’t give away money to her or her family. It is the worst thing you can do, it will cause trouble everywhere.

So with a little bit of financial independence, you “taking care” and teaching your teeruk the ways of the world, you should have a happy life for a long time.

Ok, where do you find them? People email me and ask me the same question. Every time I go to the village, all the mothers come around to ask if I have found a husband. Hell it ranges from very young to very old. There is quite a supply.

As a bit of advice, take a holiday around Thailand. Every province the girls look a little bit different. Even if you compare the girls from Buriram and Surin, although they are neighbouring provinces, the girls look different. In Surin, particularly
South of Prasat, they have a stronger Khmer influence, than the rounder faced girls of Buriram.

If you go further north say to Nongkhai they are different again, and of course there is Chiang Mai – different again. All the provinces are a little bit different.

When you see an area where you like the girls, have a holiday there. Book a hotel, take your Thai phrase book and just circulate. This works almost anywhere. If I think of a particular town, it has about 5000 people and a small hotel. The hotel is cheap.
You can just start there. Go to lunch, look in the motorbike dealers, get on the internet, just stroll around, and enjoy Isaan (if that is possible). Soon enough the locals will see you are alone and one day at lunch you will start to see more
and more looking at you.

All you need to do now is keep your eyes open and see what happens. Don’t forget to smile. Moving along, do it all slow. Just ask people where is somewhere nice to have dinner, where is nice to go for a day etc. If you try to sleep with girls in
a hurry, you will be moving to another town. Even this town I am thinking of has some interesting temples.

Oh yes, take a digital camera with you, the girls like to see their photo. You will get the standard response “Mai Suaay”, which is “Not beautiful”, but if you just gently say to the ones you like “Mai Chai, suaay maak”.
It's even better received if you add a “Krup” or “Kup” at the end, it makes you sound polite.

Finally, good luck, but you need to be genuine. If you are genuine, then you will find someone good, and everyone will benefit. If you are looking for a short term relationship or something not genuine, don’t leave Sukhumvit from Soi 1 –
33. Just think of the problems it causes for the family if you stop your teeruk. I have heard of disasters. Once they are known to have had a Falang boyfriend, the locals aren’t interested any more. Sad to say but that is a fact. So you
need to have good intentions.

I can be contacted at Sydney-Tom@hotmail.com

As a footnote, I am not in the wife finding business. I make clothing for a living. If you want me to find you a wife, think twice. It won’t be easy. To consider introducing a stranger (Falang or not to my village, family or surrounding area, it’s
possible dynamite. Falang no good – K. Sydney Tom no good, Mrs Sydney Tom no good, etc.)

Stickman's thoughts:

Well, let’s just say that you and I have VERY different ideas on how to find a suitable girlfriend who may later become one's wife.

Yep, I really do think the idea of getting someone with a very basic education smacks of issues of control, one of the very worst things in a relationship. If someone was to marry a girl with such a modest education, I think the best thing that they could do would be to send her back to school. Courses are available for adults in Thailand to cram study what they missed out on when they were younger. Isn’t poor education half the problem in Thailand?