Half–Chinese Girl and Utley

I was impressed with Utley’s contribution to this debate, though I didn’t necessarily think it was necessary to add the “Fuck You”. Several people have already commented on the fact that perceptions change over
the years, and perhaps in a few years, Half-Chinese girl’s perceptions may change. One of my favourite quotations is by Mark Twain: “When I was 14, I couldn’t believe how stupid my parents were. By the time I got to 22, I
couldn’t believe how much they had learned in the past eight years”.

The real point about this young lady’s contribution was that much of her argument was debased by her own quickness to generalise, but nevertheless, I would think that not many people are over worried about her opinion of them as a
loser.

I recall a story that I read at primary school, which gives a warning about acting on other people’s opinions. The story was about a farmer and his three sons who decide to sell a horse at market. As they are walking along, they hear
someone say, how stupid they are to walk when they have a horse to ride. The father mounts the horse. A bit further down the road, they hear someone say what a terrible father to ride on the horse, while he makes the sons walk, so they change
places. A bit further down the road, they hear someone make the same criticism of the sons, so the father mounts the horse. Before too long , they hear someone saying that with four of them riding the horse, they will soon kill it. So all four
dismount and grab one of the horse’s legs each and proceed to carry it to market.

Clearly, if you rely on other people’s opinions to lead your life, you run the risk of them turning you into a fool.
Whether or not you are hurt by this young lady’s rant, my own advice is that if you think she is talking
about you, then the first question you need to ask yourself, is are you happy with the life you are leading in Thailand. If at the end of the day, you would be appalled about your closest friends finding out what you do in LOS, then perhaps you
might be a loser. When I talk about your friends knowing what you do, I do not extend that to those morons who want to give a blow- by-blow of how they abused every woman they came across. Those people are definitely losers.

Personally, I am happy with what I do when I go to Thailand, but having said that, I never discuss these things with my wife, though I think she has a good idea of what happens. Based on my previous paragraph, this might qualify me as a loser.
Here is my story, and you can make up your own mind:

I started going to LOS four years ago. I am married to a Japanese woman since 1987. Almost as soon as we got married, she became seriously ill with kidney failure. We were both 34 when we married. I had the idea that we were going to have
children and grow old together. My wife waited 13 years for a transplant, and shortly afterwards became menopausal. During this time, I supported her unhesitatingly both financially and emotionally.

Friends and even some members of my family told me through the years, that they could not have done what I did and would have left her a long time ago. My only comment was that if you stop loving someone because they are sick, then you really
couldn’t have loved them in the first place.

My wife is a good woman and I have never doubted her love for me. So by the time I reach 48, there aren’t going to be any children, and my sex life has come to an end. I continue to look after my wife. Though she has now had a successful
transplant, she is still going to have plenty of illness throughout the rest of her life. Over the next few years, I suffer in silence but the thought is always with me, that “This is not what I signed up for”. I want to talk to
her about it, but I know that she also desperately want to have a child. I cannot bring myself to talk to her about it, because I don’t want her to feel any worse about it.

I feel that I have had a good life generally speaking, and of all my ambitions, there are only two that I never achieved. One was to be a millionaire. I really don’t care too much for that now, as I have watched the pathological greed
of the rich contribute to much of the world’s problems.. Nevertheless, I feel that I live like a millionaire, because I have enough money to do whatever I want whenever I want. I have a car, a home, and had four trips to LOS, as well as
Japan, France and Holland in the past year.

The other ambition was to have a baby. Over the next few years, I considered the possibility that if I wanted to have a baby, the only realistic prospect was somewhere like Thailand. Having said this, I am not that desperate that I will impregnate
anything that will let me do this. I want to be father both biologically and by taking care of my child and its mother. So effectively, I am looking for a permanent relationship, and though most of the interviewees have been bar girls, I am under
no illusions that this may have consequences that can lead to a fraught life for both of us. On the other hand, as I said in an earlier piece, I am not of the opinion that all these girls are conniving bitches, but for those that are; it is usually
after they have been abused by us Farangs.

On the other hand, when you see the sacrifices that these girls make to take care of their children, you have to consider that if one of the boxes that needs to be ticked is “Will she make a good mother”?, then this is one quality
that most of them have in abundance.

The problem with my idea that I might find a Thai girl to be the mother of my child as well as a life partner is that by my second trip, it had just degenerated into meaningless and shallow sex. Just when I think that this was not such a
great idea, I meet a beautiful girl that ticks all the boxes. I come back five times to see her, but the truth eventually dawns on me, she is happy to meet me and sneak away from her boyfriend for the fun that I give her, and when it comes to
giving a girl fun, I am Premier League Player, but she does not want to be with me as much as I want to be with her.

At time of writing, I have just returned from Thailand, having met another girl that ticks all the boxes, but she has the additional quality that she really does enjoy being with me, or so I believe. We had twenty-six nights together, and
I have learned by now, that it is not the questions that you ask at the job interview, “how old, do you have baby, are you from Isaan”? that counts, but it is the body language that tells you most about whether a girl likes you or
not, and I know this girl really likes me.

Maybe I am loser because I couldn’t have a baby with my wife, but that would make my wife a loser too, and that I don’t believe. One thing I do know, is that I won’t be winning any beauty contests, and by this girl’s
standards, I am very rich, but though the money clearly helps, I think she is looking for a good man, and in that respect, forgetting the age difference, I probably tick all the boxes for her.

And yes, she did work in a bar. Her career was ten minutes old when I met her. I have heard many people say that if you are going to have a successful relationship with a bar girl, you need to get them out of the bar as quickly as possible,
and I have done this. Though it may not exactly be apropos, I am reminded of the Jesuit saying, “Give me the boy, and I will give you the man”.

Coming back to Half-Chinese girl, there is an underlying thread in what she says, and indeed it was a popular thread in this column not so long back, that P4P does more harm than good. As I have said already, the generalisations detract from
her argument, and you get someone like Utley who doesn’t fall into her preconception of the mongering Farang.
In my time, I have talked with hundreds of Farangs in Thailand, or who have been there, and generally, I can say that I only
met three who I would want to socialise with back home. The problem with the bulk of Farangs that I have met, is that just like Half-Chinese girl, they are full of generalisations, and life is too short to waste time trying to rid them of these.
I am sure that the young lady has seen the responses both for and against her rant, and then we see what someone like Utley has to say. One thing I am sure about, is that Utley is not a minority of one, and that there are many of us with stories
that put a different perspective on what she believes.

As for my wife and I, we have discussed separating/divorce, and it will happen at some time in the future. It’s not her fault, and she thinks it is because I am bored with her. She doesn’t know that it is purely selfishness
on my part, and I think that if she knew the real reason, she would be badly hurt by this.

Unlike the man with three sons and a horse, I don’t generally care what people think of me, though I worry about what my wife might think. The truth is that she has always done her best for me, and had it not been for her illness,
I don’t think I would ever had gone to Thailand. Whether I have a child, only time will tell, but the irony will not be lost on me that I might be giving up a good woman and end up firing blanks in the hope of conception. That would definitely
make me a loser.