Sure, there’s a Robert and a Gerhardt living down that dusty Khon Kaen road with their Phim and Tukta. But how does the local Somchai – possily Tukta’s ex – feel about their union?
While men in Isaan assume women there marry foreigners for their money, the women say they are motivated by how farang men care for their families. Either way, while there are relatively few such marriages, they are challenging assumptions about masculinity in the Thai northeast and diminishing men’s marital prospects.
That’s according to a sociologist who has conducted a census and multiple studies in two Isaan communities to examine how men there are challenged by women marrying foreigners.
While most academic studies of such marriages have focused on the spouses and their cultural or linguistic differences, Patcharin Lapanun of Khon Kaen University looked at the effects such relationships had on other men in in the communities, including ex-husbands, fathers and neighbors.
For Isaan men, cultural notions of what is masculine, Patcharin found, may inherently affect what they provide their families, not to mention faithfulness to their wives, and can contribute to them becoming gik mia farang – or casual sex partner to women with foreign husbands.
She presented her findings from studies conducted in 2016 and 2009 earlier this month at Thammasat University, the details of which were reported by Matichon’s Wajana Wanlayangkoon.
Patcharin’s findings are far from conclusive or airtight. In an interview Thursday, she acknowledged that her studies were anecdotal and based on interviews with 100 women and men in an Udon Thani town and another 20 in a Khon Kaen town with multiple interracial couples.
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Issan love triangle: Thai men found lacking by farang loving women
Issan love triangle: Thai men found lacking by farang loving women
Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed? - Hunter S Thompson