Tales From the Frontier of Expat Life: On Being An American Woman In Thailand

Thailand is nice for foreign MEN. Try Indonesia or Philippines next, and maybe avoid the small towns!!! Thanks for sharing this….I’m not too surprised; been there on a short trip.

Well said, Katherine. I heard similar stories of a woman teaching in Surat Thani. She also took issue with students calling her fat.

“Part of what has made me feel better about being here in this situation is that I’ve realized I can’t hope to fully integrate and that I don’t necessarily want to.” Right on – felt the same way in Japan.

having spent a year in thailand during the vietnam war in the city of korat,I learned that what the thai people consider their customs did in no way apply to americans,male or female. seeing that 90%of their women were hookers supporting their families by working as escorts for the night for a few american dollars,or in so called massage palors servicing the thai men. the food in thailand was outstanding but their customs generally sucked.(no pun intended.

Great article…  it sums up the double standards and hypocrisy of small town thai life very, very well… I spent 2  1/2 years teaching in a provincial town in the north, and also saw and experienced a lot of the attitudes that you describe. The first year I was there one girl brought a can of lager in 7-11. The locals knew (at times it seemed like they knew about every step we foreign girls made) and the witchier of the women labelled her an alcoholic, a tag that still stuck to her name a year after she’d left.
After that she was always seen as a bad teacher, and the Thai teachers liked making the comparison between the good, young , kind South African teacher, versus the bad, alcoholic, strict, and much older English one.  In 2008 when I was attacked by a local man, some people in town suggested I’d deserved it.
I was a single, western woman, and the perception many Thai women seem to have of us single westerners is that, since we have no bf we are either gagging for it or hellbent on ‘stealing’ theirs. Many Thai women also seem to think that, as females we must share the same aspiration – or should that be desperation, – to get hitched and live the kind of caring, sharing husband centred family life that many of them seem to dream of.At the time that the attack, and the stories that followed it happened, friends in Bangkok told me that I shouldn’t worry about the gossip. The people creating it and passing it on were stupid, uneducated provincial people. The truth is that they were not. They were teachers, government officials, policemen’s wifes, people who were, and still are thought of as being respectable members of their local community. Thai society has many levels, something people who visit as tourist rarely see or have to deal with. Behind the beautiful smiling faces, and super polite ‘ka’s and krup’s” lies a lot of jealously and maliciousness. Unfortunately, a lot of this is directed at western women.I can totally understand you choosing to keep your western male friends. I always found it easier to make male friends too. Being someone who liked current affairs, history and travelling I found many of my female colleagues hard to talk to. They had no interest in anything other than their (or other peoples) weight and appearance and there are only so many times that you can force yourself to look or sound interested in conversations about how much fatter someone has become, or how black another colleague does or doesn’t look (note for anyone who has not lived in Thailand – this comment isn’t meant to be racist….. Thais often make fun of each others skin colour. being black ‘pew dam’ in Thai is something urban Thais look down upon…) During my time there I tried hard to be polite and respectful to everyone I met but the only Thai women I ever managed to make friends with were those who, like me were considered outsiders and looked down upon, (or envied and gossiped about) by the dominant local group.

I too live in Thailand, but Bangkok, not a small village.  You are describing life among teachers and in a small town.  I taught for a semester at a Thai public school and was glad to get out of there partly because of all the public corporal punishment I witnessed even though it was against both the law and school policy.  And with an average of 45 in a class I was wasting my time.  There was no feeling of accomplishment from it.  But I agree there was some inherent stuffiness, and traditional demure behavior there and I assume there is a lot more in smaller places.  Teachers didn’t know what to do with me because I was older then they were and so they had to be more respectful than they where to other native speakers younger then they were.  It all kinda played out weirdly.  I also suspected that some of the older female teachers would have liked to know me better in ways that would have been improper.  And, since I lived close to the school, I was surprised to see 14, 15, and 16 yo female students hanging out around the neighborhood with much older men.  Your entire experience is simply incongruous  with life in Bangkok.  Girls dress super sexy in BK – but not teachers, I grant you.  People smile at me and we do have sex sometimes after meeting due to a smile.  That has happened three times.  Its amazing and it is why foreign men find Thailand  appealing.  Men in Thailand are rarely pedophiles and they don’t have to be with prostitutes.  Thai women like foreign men.  They seem to like them at all ages and they like some tummy too.  Strange, but true!  Katherine if men in your village thought you might have sex with them just because you smile, then they are both right and also will not bother you when you say “NO!”  No seems to work here too. 

Let me share a recent experience.  I am in my early 60s.  I am 167 cm and weight about 80 kgs.  I cut my hair very short because there are so many thin spots up there.  A few days ago I got off the SkyTrain and saw a beautiful, but young, girl.  It was late afternoon and she had no school uniform on which meant she was older than high school age since every school kid wears a uniform.  She was so cute I followed her toward an exit that was a little further for me.  I walked behind her and admired her attire and her, well,  her ass.  This girl looked sooo normal and nice I was just impressed.   I glanced at her very cute face as I went by.  She had smart eyes!  But went ahead of her and kept walking.  I basically forgot about her and had reached a quiet walkway over the sidewalk near a theater.  I was looking at a big display of movie poster when I almost fainted.  The same beautiful girl stepped up next to me and asked if I was going to a movie.  We talked about “War Horse” by Speilberg.  Woooow!  She literally hit on me.  I know I could have suggested that if she wanted to see the movie I would be glad to pay.  If the timing was right we could eat first or afterward – and who knows where that could have gone.  We were well on our way to a new friendship, if not to bed.  I was NOT in an area where there is any prostitution.   I did not take advantage of her initial approach because I had other places to go, but this is not unusual.  It simply isn’t strange at all in Thailand.   If you consider this you will have new insight into why foreign men are with young women and why it seems odd that a foreign women has such a different experience.  It’s the school experience and the experience in a smaller town that Katherine described.  If it is a man reading this when was the last time a woman of any age initiated a conversation with you in this way?  If you are a woman reader I ask the same.   It seems like we are all afraid of each other in America.  But Asia, and the whole world for that matter, is different.  It is quite amazing.