TO HOMMMA SENSEI
Information on Mixed Marriage in Northern Thailand.
The central area of Thailand north to the border with Laos, traditionally has many beautiful women. From this area, many young girls go to Bangkok to find work. The foreigners visiting Bangkok are easy targets for these young beautiful women and many marriages take place.
It is said that a family from this area of Thailand with 3 or more daughters is a wealthy home. This is a common phrase. In the cities of Kalasin and Khonkean Thailand, wealthy foreigners come to hunt for beautiful wives after they retire and many marry and settle down in these areas.
Also after these marriages between retired wealthy foreigners and local Thai women in these areas, many return to the home countries of their new husbands, especially in Germany and England. Some of these marriages are happy but many end up with the young brides from Thailand caring for an aging husband-turning into a personal nurse, caretaker or maid.
Especially with German nationals, this has become a significant problem both in Germany and in Thailand.
Also there is the problem of mixed race children. In the areas of Kalasin or Khonkean this is not so much of an issue because there are so many different nationalities living there. Mixed raced children however that live in other parts of Thailand are deeply discriminated against, causing major problems.
In the areas of Kalasin or Khonkean, the standard of living is very high with the influx wealthy retired foreigners settling there. This has caused a status-jealousy problem for local native men whose local wives want to have the luxury life as the foreigner next door. Many local marriages end up in divorce when local wives leave to find a wealthy foreigner for a wealthy lifestyle. This is a major source of unrest and growing unhappiness in even these wealthy areas.
It is tradition in this region that when a foreigner asks a family for the hand of their daughter in marriage that he pay a dowry to the family of anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 USD or more.
At a traditional Thai wedding in this area, it is common for parents of the bride during the wedding party to announce to all the guests how much of a dowry was paid by the groom and ask everyone present if that was enough. A guaranteed monthly dowry payment to the parents of the bride must also be agreed upon if the marriage is to be granted. This is the local custom in this area and the amount of money paid by foreigners for dowry is equal to one year’s salary of a Thai native that had graduated from the university.
So girls are taught from an early age to try for the money and that marrying for money is an easy way for families to get rich. Unfortunately most of these marriages end up in divorce and leave behind the problems of children of mixed cultures.