A Thai region where husbands are imported

A Thai region where husbands are imported

 

Foreign men are moving to Thailand, drawn by the exotic reputation of the women

 

 

The most dazzling creatures Nui Davis saw when she was a child were the village girls who had found foreign husbands, visiting in their Western finery and handing out candies to the children.

"For me, they were like a princess," she said. "And I kept those pictures in my mind, and I made a wish that one day I would like to be one of those ladies." Today, at the age of 30, she lives with her husband, Joseph Davis of Fresno, California, in an air-conditioned, three-bedroom house with a driveway and basketball hoop, surrounded by flower beds and a well-kept lawn. "My family keeps saying, 'You got it. You got your dream now,"' she said.

But unlike many other foreign husbands, Davis, 54, did not take his wife home with him, choosing instead to settle down in northeastern Thailand, a region known as Isaan.

He is part of an expanding population of nearly 11,000 foreign husbands in the region, drawn by the low cost of living, slow pace of life and the exotic reputation of Thai women. "Thai women are a lot like women in America were 50 years ago," said Davis, before they discovered their rights and became "strong-headed and opinionated."

It is easy to spot the foreigners' homes, with their sturdy walls and red-tiled roofs, an archipelago of affluence among the smaller, poorer houses of their new neighbours and in-laws. Mixed couples are common on the streets and in the markets of Udon Thani. One street where Western men gather to eat and drink is popularly known as "Foreign Son-in-Law Street."

"There are villages in Isaan that are almost entirely comprising foreign houses, where the whole village is almost entirely houses purchased by foreigners for their Thai ladies," said Phil Nicks, author of Love Entrepreneurs: Cross-Culture Relationship Deals in Thailand. Isaan is one of the poorest parts of the country, and the source of most low-wage workers in Bangkok.

Some of the earliest Thai-American marriages were in Udon Thani, the site of a US air base in the 1960s during the Vietnam War. In the following years, most Americans left, sometimes taking a Thai wife with them. Now the presence of American and European men is growing again. "In the northeast where this phenomenon is strongest, a huge majority of the women there are looking for a foreign boyfriend or husband, and I think some of them can be quite assertive, and aggressive in their pursuing of a foreign man," said Nicks.

While the men may be seeking an emotional connection, the women are generally motivated by economics, said Prayoon Thavon, manager of international services at Panyavejinter Hospital in Udon Thani.

"For some ladies it is just money, money, money," he said. "Getting married has become a business more than love. People want to improve their social status. Sometimes these ladies spend the husband's money, use it all, then he's cut out. There are many cases like that."

Even though many men are retired and living on a fixed income, they are expected to help support their wives' extended families, beginning with a dowry of several thousand dollars. —NYT