Dear Hillary,
My hairdresser lady said the other day that coming to Pattaya and finding a farang husband is like winning the lottery for a Thai woman. This amazed me, as there appears to be so much strife with the farang-Thai households, one would hardly consider it to be a lucky lottery ticket. What is your take on this, Hillary? You are the one who gets all the moans and groans.
Charles
Dear Charles,
You are thinking only from the foreign male’s viewpoint, Petal, and if you are basing your letter on the moans and groans on these pages, then you are ignoring all the other lucky lottery ticket holders, who have no need to write to me. For a young Thai woman (or any age, for that matter) to come to Pattaya and form a relationship with a local farang means they have opened the door to an opportunity otherwise impossible. Luxury condo living is certainly better than sharing one concrete walled room with three or four other refugees from the North-East. Do you wonder why amongst ourselves we can describe the relationship as being like winning the lottery? So the relationship can go sour, but that is the risk that all couples have to take. Fifty percent of first marriages fail in the UK and the US I am told (and not all of them are married to Thai ladies).
