Author: Tilokarat » August 22, 2008, 7:07 pm
On taking the bus from Nakhon Ratchasima to Udon on Tuesday, a Thai lady, 28-years old, got on at Khon Kaen and sat beside me on the way to Udon.
She works as an interpreter for American military personnel at Khon Kaen University. She, and her Thai co-workers, are really upset with many of the American men who work in her office. Take her boss, for instance. This man, who is 39, attractive and bright, brought his girlfriend to meet the staff. It turns out the girlfriend is a bar girl from Laos.
The lady who was speaking said she cannot understand why foreign men spend their time, and money, on uneducated and unsophisticated bar girls. She complained, 'what about me? I have an education, I have travelled, I can carry on a conversation about many topics. This is so frustrating that the men do not pay attention to women like me. Furthermore, do these farangs not know that they lose all respect and dignity when they have the office staff 'wai' bar girls'.
The Thai driver for the American 'boss' told her that the Lao girl calls him all of the time to ask, 'and what did my boyfriend say about his and that'. The lady I was speaking to is very attractive, and is fluent in English. She kept complaining that they are so many 'good' women who are available but the farang men in her company go to the bar girls. She asked, 'why do these bar girls get all of the chances, why can't nice, intelligent and sophisticated farang men take note of office workers and ask us out for lunch or dinner? Many of us nice girls are right in front of the men working with them every day, why do they avoid us'?
She is from Nong Khai, and was certain that the recent flooding was owing to the building of dams by China. In fact, she made a number of intelligent remarks about China and the danger of Thailand becoming a semi-colony of China in the future, about Thai politics and so on.
Our conversation was halted by our arrival in Udon. She disappeared from view almost as soon as I completed my transformation into an Udon ATM machine for my very good friend in this city.
It is nice to be back here, and to stay at the Karin Hotel.
By the way, I wanted to post this under relationships, but I am not sure how to post topics under different headings. The one above here says, General Topics on Udon Thani, and I have left it at that.