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Do you speak English Khun Noy?

By surapong, Created on: 26/07/2010, Last updated on: 07/01/2016

» Ms Noy’s gonna need some English lessons in order to pass her tests to prove that her command of the language is good enough before being granted her visa. The number of Thai women from the Northeast marrying foreigners is rising every year. Over the past few months, almost 2,000 people have shown...

• ramdom commented : C'mon, I don't think anyone is so great that they can judge anyone else as better or worse, even though I'm going to a bit of it in this post . Beau58, your problem is that you think YOUR idea of what is acceptable is correct and everything else is not. Everyone's entitled to fall in love, and women in Thai bars tailored for farangs as a population are not much worse than the general populace. In the US, there are zillions of stories of women cheating on men (and vice versa of course), taking them to the cleaners, etc. and ALL of these people are NOT those who work in bars! So it's possible that a woman who works these bars might end up being a more loyal and smarter partner than someone who is college educated. The number of women who may cheat and play around with farangs is no more, I think, than the number of farangs who cheat around and play around with these women. So it's all quid pro quo. Working in a bar doesn't make one any less inferior to someone who doesn't, as your comments imply. It takes all kinds in this world, and people have to survive. Some people are fortunate enough to be afforded, and to seize, opportunities to be professors (like you and me), and some people clean toilets, and some people work in bars. It's a profession, and some do it even though it destroys their soul. I see by your comments you look down on this, but in my view, THAT makes you more unenlightened than anyone who would sell their body for the sake of money. I often say that people who work for corporate America prostitute their minds. People in general sell something, and you do too, as a professor, since you had to get paid somehow. Your judgements simply indicate unenlightened thinking (particularly in the Buddhist sense). The problem also is your role as an academic. I'm an academic also, a professor who's been honoured at the highest levels here in the US and who's been offered honorary professorships at Kasetsart and Mahidol (and Chulalongkorn if I desired though the problem is I'm told by a Chancellor that the U moves slowly when it comes to cutting edge science), all by the young age of 38 (I got my tenure at 32), and I can tell you we tend to live in an Ivory Tower. I am familiar with higher education in Thailand in science in all geographical areas quite well. Your comments indicate that you too are kind of out of touch, like many academics, as to what is happening on the ground. Every person is an individual, and people just don't have opportunities. If people are given these, they too will love to learn. I see education in Thailand generally on a slow ramp up. It is moving out of an agrarian way of thinking to one based on innovation, but it is slow. But given my numerous Thai graduate and postdoctoral students that I've mentored, I will say Thai people are as capable of innovation as anyone else in the world. I've given talks at Chulalongkorn, Mahidol, Kasetsart, etc. you name it, and I can tell you the humanity and the intelligence that happens in Chula (who are highly educated and extremely smart) is also present when you sit on the barstool on Sukhumvit or Silom (perhaps at a lower frequency, but that's natural in any place in the world). But both are opportunities to learn and you learn different things and skills. Where I am, we have tons of Thai restaurants and many are run by people who've had no more than a grade 6 education in Thailand, and some can't read and write in English! Yet the ones who've done this for several years or decades, their entrepreneurial skill would match or exceed that of your average MBA. So you overstate formal education. All people are capable of everything. If two people are happy, it doesn't matter how that happiness occur. I can't think of anything better than all the rich farangs marrying all the women who work in bars finding great matches and living happily ever after. If that happens, there's nothing wrong with that and in fact, would be a great equaliser and testament to globalisation. So more power to the farangs who've taken the plunge and the women in the bars who're willing to leave their homeland and go to a foreign country for the sake of love. I've defended the women working in bars, but I'll also defend the farangs who choose the lifestyle of going to an Isaan village and hanging out there, or those that open bars in Koh Chang. If that's what they choose and that's what makes them happy, who are you to judge that is any less better than your choice? Your judgements are what is telling (so I suppose are my judgements of you but I'll do it this time to enlighten you ). As far as money, a million baht, or 50K/month, is small change for some people. If they have it, why not spend it? I personally don't believe in the concept of dowry and can argue it out intellectually with a Thai person, but if you buy into it, why limit it? I'd say spend based on how happy you feel, and take care, as in any situation, and enter it with your eyes open. And screw all the naysayers.

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