Dear Hillary,
It amuses me when I read some of the letters that men send to you complaining about how the bar girls that move in with them seem to always want more money. You live with a bar girl until you are ready to move on or tired of being an ATM. You guys have it easy. I have been married to a Thai woman for eight years. When I met her she worked in a hospital, I guess you would call her a non-bar girl. Here’s my point; I have spent much more money since being married than I ever did when I had bar girl friends. When you marry a Thai girl, you also marry the entire family. My wife has six sisters, all married with kids. They never ask me for money; however, when I see that one of the them is having a hard paying off the bank loan because the rice crop was flooded out, a nephew or niece needs money for school, a brother-in-law is laid up in the hospital because one of his buffalos kicked him, or another bother-in-law drives around in an old rusted out P/U while I drive a New Nissan and our house is paid for, I help them. Do you think I turn my back on them and “move on”? The eight years I’ve been married to my Thai wife are the best years of my life and I hope for many more. Although I respect and admire the bar girls – theirs is not an easy life, they are just trying to survive – I will never go back to that kind of life.
Uncle Bill
Dear Uncle Bill,
Why didn’t you wait for me? I am having a hard time paying off a bank loan (tried to buy 50 kg of rice the other day and it was more than my salary, so I approached the bank for a food mortgage), and I have a rusty old bicycle as I can’t afford a pick-up (but I avoid buffalos at all costs). You have also correctly described the Thai families (that you marry into) – they are not (despite claims to the contrary) all standing in line with their hands out. They are ordinary people, who look after each other when needed. You sound like such a nice man, my Petal, I shall cry myself to sleep tonight having missed you. However, I am so happy to hear you are enjoying the “best years of my life”, and yet do understand the plight of the bar girls. Or rather, the trade of the bar girls, as they are not forced into working from around a chrome pole – they choose that existence. “Plight” is how they promote it, looking for (several) kind hearted gentlemen (ATMs) to give them their pin numbers and fantastic plastics. Stay well, Uncle Bill, we need you. Now about my rice loan, I know there’s been a bit of controversy about the rice price recently, but all that hasn’t helped poor widows like me. Unlike the bar girls, I didn’t choose this lifestyle, it was forced upon me!
