Stickman Readers' Submissions June 3rd, 2009

Stickmen


After a steady diet of reading some of the articles that were written on your website I feel I must get something off my chest. A couple of articles really got my attention – one written by Arthur, one written by IndyUK and another by Korski.
All have expressed an insight into a world I know little about. Except that I am married to a native South East Asian girl that grew up in the Philippines and these people are not that dissimilar from Thai.

Many of the traits and habits are similar. The article by IndyUK is brutal but he does at no time criticize the girl or any of her habits. The other men seem to express a feeling of superiority when it comes to relationships with Asian women.
All I can read is use them but don’t get involved with them. I have a question especially for Arthur who referred to some men who married Thai girls and took their wives to the U.S.A and the marriage broke up. Well how about that. Almost
50% of the marriages in the U.S.A end up in divorce and they are not all married to Thai. How can he explain that? And in North America some men marry women from European countries, mostly Eastern Europe and they also end up in divorce. In my
small yacht club there are several Germans that came to Canada married to German wives. All of them divorced and now have a second German wife. That is the solid Calvinist or Lutheran upbringing that Arthur referred to and was missing in Thai
girls. Has he had a close look at the state of affairs in his own country lately? I have traveled extensively in the U.S.A. and can not say that it is a showroom. Poverty reigns supreme except on a different level. The whole western world has
lost its bearings and is totally lost when it comes to commitments, values and relationships. In my youth in The Netherlands divorce was a rare occasion and couples stayed together through thick and thin. Today we can always split up and it is
as common as water.

He Clinic Bangkok

When I grew up, the Far East was a place full of mystery, full of beauty and with gentle and graceful people. So who turned these people and the women in particular into the calculating little sex kittens that they are now. Before the Vietnam
War, Thailand did not have the name for the sex industry it has now. Where did the soldiers from the U.S. have their R&R and who did they use for their R & R. Probably the mothers of the same girls that they now look down upon and treat
like toys. When the Dutch left Indonesia after some 400 years of rule the people were unchanged especially in Bali where it was common for the women to wear long skirts but no tops. Bare knees were frowned upon but not bare chests. That was never
changed in the time the Dutch were there. Now it is Miami with prostitution galore. Who is responsible for that, the local women? In Europe after the second world war there was a saying “Americans are over here, overpaid and oversexed.”
Wherever they went they turned local women into sex objects and whores. It was no different in the Philippines where all around the American bases bars and sex clubs sprung up. It would not hurt the American image if they had a good look at what
they turned countries into and how they looked upon the local female population. Again during the Vietnam War, Vietnamese girls were referred to as Slant Eyes, the rest of the population as gooks. When you start out with that attitude it is not
hard to see how Arthur looks at Thais. Stories about South East Asia never revealed the poverty that so many now seem to be saddled with. The story about Noi as told by IndyUK could also have taken place in The Philippines. In my memory that region
was a basket of rice for all of Asia so why the poverty now? Who is responsible for that?

My marriage to a Filipino woman and association with her people for the last 40 years has given me a glimpse of a society that is very different from my own and than again, not that much. I have stopped being surprised or question why they
do things and avoid getting between my wife and her family. Most of the irritating parts of their lifestyle are a direct result of the poverty that they grew up with and lived in. Helping the family and sending money is an ongoing affair that
will never stop. If you can not stand it don’t marry them. That is the Asian way and it is a matter of survival for them. You believe that Europe or North America is any different. It is different because in Europe and North America they
have a social safety net and social medicine. Prior to that it was the same. During the war families stayed together for survival. Nothing like a social safety net exists in Thailand, The Philippines, Cambodia or Vietnam.

North America and Europe also have a vast industrial complex that provides work, material and stability to the citizens. They have had that for over a hundred years.

CBD bangkok

I was born during the second world war and grew up in Holland among bombing raids. My playground after the war was the bombed out buildings.

The war stripped a good number of countries of all their infrastructure and food supplies so when I grew up there was nothing, very little food and amenities that we are so used to here. The article by IndyUK describes the same situation
in England. I would like to see Mr. Arthur do without stuff like electrical power, heat or warm water and see how his lifestyle changes.

Poverty is a powerful factor in people’s life and most people in the far East have that in abundance.

The differences between the Asians I know and Europeans start the moment they are born. The European child will have its own crib or room and all the features that you see on TV such as child seats, play pens etc. The Asian child has none
of that except the mother. They are never alone and always sleep with somebody. Dependency is created at that early age. The houses that they live in are full of people and privacy is not known. This situation will exist for most of their lives
there. If there was one thing that I found different between Western people and Asians it was the lack of hobbies or a library. Korski referred to S.E Asian women not having the education to have a good discussion. When was the last time he tried
to have a discussion with Americans over anything other than what took place in their own backyard. Most have so little education that they can not even find Canada on the map even though we are right North of them. It is true that Asian men and
women shy away from the type of confrontational discussions that we at least in Holland love with a beer or glass of wine as it is a part of a good evening. No Dutch house is without a book shelf or something akin to a library. In Canada I have
not seen a single book shelf in a Filipino home. Also hobbies is something that is missing. Every Dutchmen or European Canadian has a hobby of some sort. The Asians I have met do not do such things. They have endless BBQs or play Mahjong as long
as they are together.

wonderland clinic

Upon reflection that also relates to the poverty. When you have no space in the house to even sit alone how can you withdraw with a book or find a place were you can practice a hobby.

When I grew up there was no TV. Images of other countries came to you via photographs and pictures in a book. Then came TV. I remember standing on the street and watching through a window. In the beginning there were only American shows to
watch and all of a sudden we were bombarded with a lifestyle that we could only dream off. We could not believe that ordinary people such as us would own houses like they did and drive cars and have swimming pools. It looked like heaven. Later
on in the sixties when the poverty from the war finally seemed to fade the envy became less.

The TV has spread the American dream worldwide and everyone wants that. The desire to have a better life is a very powerful force and when Americans or Europeans are around we are the ticket to a better life, the life that they see on TV.
From all over the world people are trying to get into the Western world by any means, so what is wrong with marriage at least from their point of view.

What I said earlier on I mean. The whole Western civilization has lost its bearings. When I grew up churches were filled every Sunday from every denomination. Today they are empty. As a young man I was taught to respect women and if you ever
got a girl pregnant you better stand up and marry that girl to protect her name and that of the child. This type of commitment today would be laughed at. And what is so wrong with that.

The old Inuit or Eskimo as they would be called had no material possessions other than what they could carry and the tents they needed. When a visitor came they would show him the utmost respect and hospitality and having no material things
to offer they would be invited to spend the night with the wife or daughters. Nothing remotely sexual about that, it was the norm. Any offspring resulting from such encounters would be treated no different than their own children. The child was
important and revered, not who fathered it. We the sophisticated west call them primitive and we are civilized. I am not so sure at that. I still like the standards that I grew up with and that are now frowned upon. No child without a father does
not sound bad to me.

What I seem to pick up out of all the articles written is a singular disrespect for the Thai and the women in particular. It is almost that a handbook or road map is required when you deal with them. Nowhere do I sense any feelings or love for those women.
I know that this not apply to you because you married one and still live among them but what are the rest doing there if they have such a problem with these customs. How does your wife feel about all this? Every body warns you against this or
that and every one of these little girls is a scheming little whore who at the first opportunity will have sex with anybody and take you for all your money. <Now you're getting plain silly and making gross generalisations to try and support your argument when in fact you only succeed in doing the opposite and weakening itStick> Who made them that way? Do these men really believe that Western women are different? If Arthur thinks that American women are above that he has something else coming. These are among the most material oriented women
you will ever see. Let me see when he loses his job and has no money how attractive he will be. Here the single most important reason for marriage failure is money. But that can’t be because these are sophisticated educated western women,
so what happened. Sounds very familiar to the little Thai girls that are trying to survive. Just like the girls in Bali, the European and North American men created these girls for their own self gratification and when they get bitten they scream
murder. I am no saint but have never bought into that philosophy. In my youth if a girl was good enough to have sex with she was good enough to marry.

I also read a good number of times that these girls are poorly educated and come from farm communities. Well that also strikes a chord with me. My ancestry in Holland was all farming. My grandparents on both sides of the family were dairy
farmers but lost the farms due to disease in the cattle. I never met any of my grandparents because they were deceased before I was born. My mother as a result grew up in an orphanage and I believe had a grade 4 education. My father did much better.
He lost his father when he was ten and had to work but made it to grade 6. So in my background I have an awful lot of uneducated people and farmers to boot. Yet despite their lack of formal education my parents did well. My father was one of the
deepest thinkers I have ever known and worked for the government in the publication department. But apparently when you are a Thai girl that background is a recipe for disaster and you are only good to be used and thrown away. I am glad that this
sort of person did not exist when my mother left the orphanage.

The issue of the dark skin seems also to be an issue. This seems to be common with all Asians and I have noticed the same with Filipino women. Dark skin means poverty, hard labor in the fields and no education. Here in Canada on a hot steamy
day you can find the Filipinos in the park under the bushes with long sleeves and hats on to keep their skin white. Personally I like a good tan and do not discriminate against it. Funny, nobody is happy with the way they look. In Holland, even
in my youth, the women would lay on the beach in the smallest bikinis that would be legally tolerated before total nudity became acceptable, just to get a good tan, In Tokyo you have clinics to give the well to do girls an eye change to the Occidental
look and in Amsterdam if you like you can get your eyes changed to the Asian look. In Holland if you had a good tan it meant you were well off and could afford to travel to sunny climates whereas in Asia it means the opposite. Go figure. But for
a western man to use this as an excuse to look down upon a girl I find despicable. <I think you will find the vast majority of the readership PREFER dark skinned women so do not know what the hell you are on about here. It is the local Thais who discriminate against dark skin!Stick>

What you see happening in Thailand is happening all over the world except in Pattaya it is concentrated and the girls look prettier.

I am sorry that a few words became such a long drawn out story. I have written before and I like your site and attitude. I see you support the views sometimes but since you are married to a Thai women must have a different outlook. It is
getting warmer here and last weekend I spend on the boat and will be sailing again shortly. One day I hope I can stop working and do this for a long time.

Indonesian Dating, Singles and Personals

Stickman's thoughts:

Interesting submission. I think you might get a few bites from the American readers (and they, including the Americans in Thailand, make up close to 30% of the site's readership). My personal feeling on what you have written – and there are too many points to comment on – is that you are perhaps not that in touch with what is happening in Thailand. One of your basic arguments is that they grow up in poverty and from their outset their lives are different (to ours) and difficult so we should not be surprised at what they choose to do to offset that. The thing is, in Thailand, this poverty is not nearly as bad as it once was and today there are many instances of people who "do what they do" not to ease poverty at all, but because it makes for easy money and an easy life. Somehow I don't think that fits with your old-fashioned values. What you also may not see is that a lot of the money the women make on their backs is squandered and so the poverty cycle continues.

Oh, and the sex industry in Thailand was THRIVING well before the Vietnam War! All that happened to do was to be the start of (in the big picture, at least) a small sector of the industry specifically for foreign men and to put Thailand's naughty nightlife on the map.

nana plaza