Your average Asian woman is a delicate flower,  with delicate features that compliment her usually delicate frame. Small hands, small feet, small ears and almost always small breasts. Thai women, being Asian,  are no different in this regard and the biggest thing you’re most likely to ever notice on a Thai woman is her smile.

As with most women if you talk to a Thai woman long enough you’ll find she isn’t happy or satisfied with certain of her body features. Where her Western counterpart wants darker skin, perkier breasts,  smaller bodies and bigger eyes and lips the Thai woman wants lighter skin, smaller noses, thinner lips and larger breasts…much larger breasts.

Like most men who travel to Asia, I am attracted to Asian women and have been ever since I can remember. Their small delicate features definitely play a part in that attraction I suppose and I don’t have a problem with small breasts, as a matter of fact I prefer small breasts. I’ve never seen the attraction of large breasts but then again I’ve always been more of an ass man,  so what do I know.

Large breasts will make any woman stand out in a crowd but large breasts on a Thai woman, or ladyboy for that matter,  is definitely something quite hard to dismiss. Being with a Thai woman I don’t get smacked for looking, more often than not it is something that is pointed out to me by my Thai girl that has an unhealthy fascination with large breasts.

In just about every situation that I have been with Thai women and a surgically enhanced model enters the room I always hear the same thing, ” Oh look, isn’t she beautiful”, “She has big milk, very lovely” or something else in the same vein of adulation for the big breasted girl who just toppled over into the room. In more than a few of those cases I wondered just how in the hell a woman that tiny with huge breasts was defying physics and not constantly falling flat on her face boobs.

More often than not these surgically enhanced creatures have a falang boyfriend or husband who also like big breasts and more than a few work or have worked in the night life industry and see large breasts as merely a business expense that will help better their bottom line. Either way some one has shelled out 50-80 thousand baht for a new set of knockers and usually everyone involved in the silicone transaction is more than satisfied with the results.

I was surprised my first trip up country to see quite a few Thai women with enhanced front ends, although I shouldn’t have been. It still bothers me though, I mean, you wouldn’t change the Mona Lisa by painting a bigger smile on her…would you? I may be in the minority on this issue but I feel like there really needs to be a Save the Small Breast Foundation set up somewhere to educate Thai women on their natural beauty.

Of course this rant comes on the heels of a conversation I had with my girl the other night regarding said silicone seductiveness that has been, once again,  brought to my attention. You see, she has many old school friends that she grew up with that have  ended up in falang relationships and almost half of them have had breast implants in the past 2 years. Invariably when another friend shows up in Nakhon Phanom or Mukdahan I get the phone call and the following conversation takes place.

Pookie: Hi Teelac, how are you? I have something to ask you.

Me: Good Teelac, what is it you want to ask?

Pookie: Teelac, I want big milk…you can do?

Me: Yes Teelac, I can do…do you need a gallon or will a half gallon be okay?

Pookie: Teelac! You know I mean big nom. My friend come today and she get…very beautiful Teelac I want to be beautiful too.

Me: Teelac you are already beautiful and I love your small nom.

Pookie: But Teelac I will look much better and clothes will look very very good on me.

Me: Teelac you don’t need and besides big nom cost 50 thousand baht easy,  then you need all new bra and shirts.

Pookie: Yes Teelac, new clothes make me look more beautiful. You can do?

Me: Okay Teelac I’ll tell you what…I’ll buy one big nom and if everything works out ok we can talk about the second one in a year or so.

Pookie: Teelac!!! One no good! …need two.

Me: We’re negotiating Teelac. You like large nom and I like small nom. This way we are both happy.

Pookie: grrrrrr

Me: You should have that cold looked at Teelac, you sound a lil horse…

And the conversation is put away for another rainy day when the next friend comes back to town sporting a  brand new set of silicone breasts that will mesmerize all the village girls into seeing a more seductive silicone future.

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Don’t let the picture fool you this is a very serious situation that is rapidly heading towards defcon 4. The picture above is of my father and his great grandson taken during Easter this year. The chocolate rabbit, great grandsons first ever, was a present from my father and the source of the strained relations.

I was in Thailand during Easter and since I was sending photos home my sister thought I would love to see this photo, I did and it really made my day. When I got the e-mail I called Pookie over to see it and she thought it was adorable, and then the questions started.

“Teelac” what does baby have?” I tried the best I could to explain Easter and chocolate bunny rabbits but after chocolate the rest fell on deaf ears. Several times during my trip I was grilled on this mysterious chocolate rabbit and each conversation ended with decidedly confused looks.

Since I’ve been back home we talk regularly and then last night out of the blue, mid conversation, this discussion takes place:

Pookie: Teeeellaaaaaccc?

Me: *thinking quietly that the last time I heard this tone and draw I was lightened a few thousand baht and someone had 3 pairs of new Levi’s* Yes teelac?

Pookie: I want big chocolllate bunnnny…

Much conversation ensued about chocolate bunnies again and Easter and how there is this one window of opportunity a year for delectable treats of the chocolate bunny variety. Much of that conversation was lost after the word chocolate though.  Chocolate Santa’s were brought up since the season is quickly coming upon us but the sound in her voice told me that a chocolate Santa wouldn’t cut it.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a chocolate Easter bunny at the end of October? And if that weren’t bad enough then you have the whole logistical situation of getting a large chocolate Easter bunny to Thailand in one piece. Not to mention the fact that there are children involved which means multiple bunnies are now involved.

With Pookie and Fa’s birthdays coming up in December I better think of something fast….maybe I can melt a chocolate santa head and mold it into a bunny head.

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Sure, there is the language barrier but most people in similar relationships will tell you what I’m about to tell you…thats easy. Especially when you both have at least a small grasp of each others language and a willingness to learn. The cultural aspect of my relationship with Pookie has been more of a learning curve, not because I don’t want to learn or am resistant to change, but basically because  I grew up in the west and I have forty some odd years of seeing things one way. So, sometimes I shake my head in wonder about certain things but I am quick to realize that these things are important to Pookie so I do my best to go with the flow. Likewise, Pookie does her best to understand my western background and even understands that every great now and then I need a peanut butter and jelly sandwich…she likes the strawberry preserves but the jury is still out on the peanut butter.

That’s about the way of any relationship though isn’t it? You learn what makes the other person tick, their likes and dislikes. You bring aspects of their life into yours and they do the same. You learn together about each other and sometimes you have to over look the fact that Grandma spit her chaw out the window and it landed on your shoulder…It’s not like she was aiming…I hope.

Probably the biggest consideration in my relationship with Pookie is her family. Thai’s are very family and community orientated which is hard for some Falangs to understand. We love our families in the west but as soon as we are of age we want our freedom, our alone time, our privacy. Thai’s on the other hand do everything they can to remain with their family and family is everything in Thailand.

Pookie’s family goes out of their way to make me feel at home when I am in the village. They always want me to have the best chair, bed, portion of food…I politely decline a lot of the time because I don’t want or like the special attention but sometimes I have to swallow hard and accept things because the family would lose face if I didn’t. I’ve gotten pretty good at realizing when those times are though. Although they treat me very well, and usually send me home with armloads of gifts for my family, I still get the sense that they believe me to be rich…at least the Aunts, Uncles and grandparents do.

Another of the family, a sister on the fathers side, has a Falang husband who apparently buys everything for the family and of course the rest of the family wonder why Pookie’s Falang doesn’t do the same. Like I said earlier I made it very clear in the beginning that I’m not rich but I do what I can to help the family out when they need help, and there is nothing I wouldn’t do for Pookie’s little one Fa.  I take the whole family out for Thai BBQ as well. They get all dressed up and there is much face in it for everyone. I get off lightly at roughly $35 for the whole evening and it’s nice to spend the time with her family.

There are some other aspects of this relationship that are difficult to get used to though. Spending any deal of time up country means certain rules are in effect. You don’t hold hands or kiss in public and being the man I haven’t once received the check when out for lunch or dinner, the woman gets the check…but the man still pays. Although it’s trying at times I have to smile because I know it’s trying for Pookie as well. More than a few times I’ve felt her hand slip into mine or have had her turn and give me a kiss only to look around to see if she got caught doing it.

I guess the last aspect of this relationship we have, and another one for the book of cliché’s,  is the age difference. There is an 18 year difference in our ages she being 25 and me being 43. I didn’t go looking for a younger woman and I’m pretty sure she wasn’t looking for an older man, although in Asian societies older men are seen as more stable. It really wouldn’t have mattered to me if she was 18 years my senior, it was never about age and I think there may be another reason for this as well.

I don’t feel like my American self when I am in Thailand, I feel like I’m a better version of me who is more free and susceptible to life and all it has to offer. I’m an explorer who is happy to keep the exploration going without any obvious goal in site, always peeking around the next corner with anticipation like a child looking for Santa on Christmas eve. Pookie doesn’t know the American me, the me that works too much, worries too much, has gotten lost in the remnants of the American dream and I hope she never meets that me because he’s not the me that is full of hope and wonder when he kisses her.  Some may call that a mid life crisis…I’d call it an awakening.

This may not have been a well rounded or full explanation on my experience with the Thai/Falang relationship but thats only because it’s an ongoing tale that hopefully will take a long time to tell.

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Sorry about the lateness of this post. I had to upgrade the back end of the blog yesterday and once upgraded a slew of problems attacked. All fixed now. So, on with the story. We last saw our young hero and heroine of the tale in Pattaya.

As I said before I came to Pattaya for fun and Pookie came for the promise of work. When we met she was to begin work at a bar her cousin worked at. She had just arrived in town and the Mamasan of the bar promised to show her the ropes for the first two weeks. When I walked into the bar it was just to have a beer with a few friends and then head on to other bars that night. When I saw her for the first time she had the biggest smile I had ever seen, so I smiled back and she came over and sat with me…and that, as they say, was the end of me.

Although her English is very good she was very shy that night and couldn’t get a lot of English out but we managed to talk a bit and even understand each other. As we were about to move on I asked her if she would like to come with us but the Mamasan wasn’t too keen on that. After some talking everything was ok and we left together. That’s not the easiest thing to admit here but it is what it is. Technically I was her first and only customer and watching her reactions that night to the bars we visited there was no question she was very new to Pattaya.

Later that night we shed the remaining friends who were still bar crawling and headed to a restaurant for dinner. I was very surprised at how much better her english had gotten through the evening and we had a very enjoyable conversation. I eventually found out that other than learning English in school she also had access to an English teacher in her village who she learned even more from.I had also learned about her daughter Fa and everything that led up to her coming to Pattaya to work. The women of Issan take the brunt of all responsibilities in their families and to further that point all you have to do is look at all the women in the sex industry in Thailand.

Before I go any further I guess I should bring up a couple of initial cliché’s. The first being that Thai women who work in the bars are only after your money. While they are after a living they aren’t all after your money…trust me I have none and Pookie and I are still together 2 years on. I have quite a few friends in bar girls and their stories run the gamut. Some come for the allure of a quick buck, some come looking for a foreign husband and yet others come because they have no choice and desperately need money because the jobs they can get back home don’t pay enough to take care of a family.

The second cliché would be that of the foreigner taking up the mantle of the white knight swooping in to protect and take care of the Thai woman. That may be the case in a small percentage of falang/Thai relationships but from what I’ve seen it’s not indicative of the majority. I am certainly in no position to be anyones white Knight and I sometimes wonder if I can even take care of myself… I usually can but you have to remember I have the mind of a 12 year old sometimes.

I guess this also brings up the biggest cliché of them all…Western men are looking for young submissive Asian women to do their bidding in every way from the bedroom to the kitchen. I would say that is probably the worst of all the cliché’s I have ever heard and unfortunately it is usually propagated by western women in my experience. While A lot of Thai women do pursue that role of taking care of their man and family I find that most western men in Thailand are like me. We grew up in families where everyone pitched in and there were no clearly defined roles for men and women.  I can tell you for a fact that their was no man happier in the 70′s when the women’s movement took hold in America and women took to the streets burning their bra’s…Although, I was too young to understand feminism.

As for myself and Pookie I can tell you that our first niggle came early on in the relationship when I decided to do the dishes after dinner one night. She saw me doing the dishes as her being a bad caregiver and I saw it as just doing the dishes. I started to learn a lot more about face and perceived roles in Thai society that night but I still stood my ground. I let her know that night that Any woman I was with would be equal and not be there to serve my every need.

The first thing Mamasan taught her at the bar was the English phrase “Up to you” . When a falang asks what you want to do respond with the obligatory “Up to you”. Whenever pookie would say that I would say ” No, up to us”.  It took her a while but eventually it sunk in. Nowadays I long for the “Up to you”  days because now when she dumps a pile of green vegetables on my plate I hear her say “Up to me teelac…you eat”.

Pookie and I ended up spending 5 weeks together after we first met. We did all the tourist stuff and most nights we spent talking until the sun came up. She had already decided earlier that she was leaving Pattaya and unlike most Thai women I have met she doesn’t care much for Pattaya and absolutely hates Bangkok. She knew of at least one job she might be able to get making 3000 baht a month ( roughly $90.00) . I told her I thought that was a good decision and that I would like to keep in touch and see her again.

This is where the next cliché comes in…”The Sponsor”. While I didn’t pretend to be rich I did tell her I would help her from time to time if needed. Rural Thailand isn’t like Bangkok or many other more westernized areas of Thailand. The people are very poor for the most part but also very rich in community and family. The needs of all are taken into consideration. The majority of men who are in relationships with Thai women from rural Thailand are helping take care of the family one way or another. Sometimes it will be monetarily but there are many other ways from taking care of the children to helping out on the farm.

The average education level reached in rural Thailand is 9th grade. Due to school expenses and the fact that labor is needed, either on the family farm or in the house taking care of the family, most children don’t receive a high school education. This by no means makes them stupid but when it come to job prospects they become severely limited.

Many stories are told nightly in the bars of Pattaya and Bangkok about “The Sponsor”. How he sends money because the buffalo is sick , the family is sick and of course because the children need milk. The stories often find our poor sponsor being suckered out of money because the Thai women are giving it to their husbands/boyfriends. While I know there are many cases like this there are also many that are not. I am very happy to tell you that Pookies water buffalo’s are fine, the family is well, and Fa has her milk. I send a little bit of baht here and there to help out and make sure Fa has milk and when I am in Thailand I help out on the family farm and help with some shopping too. I do what I can to help out but I am never asked for large sums of money or big ticket items.

Now that all that is out of the way it will make it a little easier for me to explain our relationship as it is today and what I get out of what some would percieve as an unequal relationship. All that in the next part.

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A little while ago I got an e-mail from Catherine over at WomenLearningThai.com and she would be the impetus for this series of posts. Catherine wrote:

There are way too many cliché’s going around about expat men and Thai
women. I’m guilty of it, and I don’t like seeing myself that way. But I guess
it is because I don’t understand. And I want to.

But no one really writes about the real, honest to goodness caring
relationships. We read about how many difficult some are, etc. And little bits here
and there. And of course, we read tons of the cliché’s. But not the real parts.

Sure, there are posts stating why some guys like Thai gals over
Western gals, but they are used to slam Western women more than
anything else.

So would you be open to writing a post about it? To put things into
some sort of perspective? So that we can have something to point to
amongst all the cacca out there?

A tall order if there ever was one. In order to write about the relationship I have with Pookie,  my Thai girlfriend, I’ll have to write about myself  honestly which is never something I like to do because,  honestly, I’m as flawed as any other human being out there and we never like to look at ourselves that closely. Not to mention the fact that it could get long and boring.

As far as cliché’s go,  there are a lot of them out there concerning western men and Thai women as well as a lot of bad stories and bad feelings. The fact is most cliché’s are born out of truth and there are a lot of truths in all the cliché’s about western/Thai relationships. I can only speak to my knowledge of the situation and what I’ve learned. In order to explain the relationship I have with Pookie I guess I need to start with a little about myself…you know, the unflattering bits.

I found Thailand not too long after my 40th birthday. I was doing very well in my job, had no debt and had some serious pocket change looking to be spent. I have always wanted to travel but up to that point in my life I had never been anywhere. Since I was little I had always wanted to see South East Asia, this was most likely due to the fact that I grew up watching the Vietnam war on the T.V. and,  being young, glossed over the death and destruction and focused on the beautiful back drop.

Long story short ( yeah, right) I looked into Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. Thailand won hands down as the travel curve didn’t seem as steep as the other places. Thailand is easily adaptable to the western lifestyle if you are only visiting Bangkok and Pattaya. And to be honest I have always had a penchant for Asian women and the stories I had heard of Thailand’s night life intrigued me.

My first trip to Thailand I spent 16 days between Bangkok and Pattaya. I can’t say I saw much of Thailand but I did see every bar on soi Cowboy and most of the bars in Nana Plaza as well as a good bit of the beer bars and Gogo’s in Pattaya. I wanted to see Thailand but waking up at 3pm every day isn’t conducive to sight seeing.

Like most men that had found Thailand I was back within 6 months for an extended stay. Pattaya is a funny place, most people think the only allure is the young available women but from my experience it’s much more than that. Most men from the west have their close circle of friends but because of marriage or jobs they don’t get out all that much anymore. Pattaya is like being 20 again and friendships and camaraderie are as much a part of the Pattaya scene as the bars and the girls.

I’ve made a fair few good friends in Pattaya but for me it was all about getting away from the stress of my job and America and actually relaxing and enjoying life for once. I wasn’t looking for the proverbial submissive, nubile, young Thai woman to satiate my every need because I had been forgotten by American women or hated them. I love American women and have had very good relationships in the west…I love all women, I was just looking to have fun.

I met Pookie 1 week into my second trip and have been with her for the past 2 years. There have been some ups and downs and the learning curve regarding culture and language, while not being all together too steep, have been a challenge.

Pookie is from Issan and she came to Pattaya the same time I did looking for work. She had given birth to a daughter 6 months before and the Thai boyfriend disappeared from the village when he learned of the pregnancy. It’s a common story of a lot of women from rural Thailand. Pookie comes from Issan which is the North Eastern area of Thailand on the Lao border. Specifically she lives in a small province called Mukdahan. There isn’t much prospect for work in Mukdahan for the average Thai much less a young mother with a limited education. A lot of women from Issan will head to Bangkok or Pattaya in search of work in the tourism industries. Hotels, restaurants, malls and yes the bars. Sending as much money home to the family and children as they can every month and usually living on very little themselves.

I don’t want this story getting too long so I’ve cut it up into several parts. Tomorrow I’ll delve a little further into the background of the relationship and hopefully let the air out of some of those underlying cliché’s.

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After talking for a half an hour there is a pause and this is what I hear:

Her: Teelac….I pregnant

Talen: …………….

Her: Teelac?

Talen: ……………uh

Her: Yah, I think 5 month

Talen: counting silently in my head…

Her: Teelac!

Talen: (thinking to myself) it adds up

Talen: Teelac….why you not tell me before?

Her: I think maybe I just pom pui (fat)

Talen: did you go see doctor?

Her: yah yah, he say I just pom pui….”giggle”

Talen: grrrrrrrrrrrrr

Her: I not want you think I pom pui so I tell you I pregnant “laughing”

Talen: Wait till I see you Teelac…..

Her: I have go now I hungry…love you Teelac.

Gotta love those Thai girls. And just in case you were wondering she weighs in at a staggering 50 kilos. Now you know what a Thai girl considers fat!

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