FarangOnTour

Hi, I have just been to Thailand for two months and I am absolutely hooked on the place (I am sure this is not uncommon). I can see myself living there full-time somewhere down the road (I am only 31 at the minute, and I have a few things to do in my own country before making such a move) I met some Thai ladies while I was staying there and was interested to find out as much as I could about their perspective on Farang/Thai relationships. One thing that kept coming up was the concept that the Farang must pay what is effectively a salary to his Thai girlfriend for the duration of the relationship. Excuse me if I sound like a "cheap Charlie" but this does not seem 100% correct to me. Is this the case across the board, by which I mean; do all Farangs pay their Thai girlfriend/wife? If this is the case how does one go about assessing the appropriate amount to give to a partner? Under what parameters are such assessments made? Do Thai men pay for Thai partners the same way Farangs do? For clarity, I couldn't help but run some maths in my head after a lovely girl I met (from Issan) told me that if she wanted me to take care of her it would cost 50'000bhat per month (I could barely contain the laughter as it would effectively be half my monthly wage after tax). I asked her what the average daily wage was in Issan, she said 300bhat. I multiplied this by 7 (assuming the worker works every day) = 2100bhat Then multiplied by 4 to the get average monthly wage for the average Issan worker = 8400bhat (i.e. a far cry from 50'000bhat) I then did another approximation assuming the worker was a pretty female and left Issan to work in e.g. Patong, Phuket. Assuming she commands a good fee of 3000bhat per customer and meets 4 customers per week her weekly income is 12000bhat 4 weeks per months, leaves her with a monthly average of 48000bhat Assuming she meets an average of 16 customers per month and yields approx 50'000bhat she is looking for a Farang to supplement her current income when she gives up working upon entering a relationship. I find this hard to accept on a number of fronts, namely; As the years progress she will become less of an attractive commodity to sex tourists and therefore her fee will naturally have to reduce from 3000bhat per customer in order to attract customers, therefore does the amount she expects from Farang boyfriend also depreciate proportionally? Also, assuming Farang marries her and buys house for them to live in etc... and she does not contribute and does not pay rent then how can he still be expected to pay a non-reduced salary to her? Also, this business of also paying some bills towards her family, is this in any way negotiable? Now, I will admit, the information I am using to make the aforementioned assumptions is based on a very small number of samples but it is consistent across all samples. Just looking for thoughts from you guys, if the above estimations/assertions it almost seems cheaper to stay living in Farang land and get a Farang wife? I will admit much of the attraction for living in Thailand for me (besides the sun, beautiful women and community based culture) is a minimised cost of living, but this does not seem possible if I have to pay money hand-over-fist to the woman who allegedly loves me.