Papa_Lazarou

Lawrence Lynch, the 'dream weaver' - I remember him from the Louis Theroux documentary.

Perils fail to deter Thai bride boom

By Jonathan Head

BBC News, Bangkok

Lawrence Lynch (right) and his wife Tapanee, along with some Thai clients.

Women pay 400 baht (US$10) to join Lawrence Lynch's agency

The case of Toby Charnaud, the Briton murdered on the orders of his Thai ex-wife, has highlighted the growing number of British men travelling to Thailand to find wives, often arranged over the internet.

The British Embassy in Bangkok is one of the busiest anywhere in the world.

More than 660,000 people from Britain came to Thailand last year, and the Embassy finds itself dealing with those who get into trouble.

It also deals with those who want to get married - it records around 70 couples a week coming in to get marriage documents processed, nearly all of them older British men marrying younger Thai women.

Never mind that the Thai "mail-order bride" has become a subject of ridicule in the UK, parodied in TV comedies like Little Britain and mocked in the tabloid press; never mind a number of recent cases of foreigners in Thailand who were murdered after their marriages to Thai women went wrong.

The number of Thai-British marriages keeps growing, many of them arranged through internet websites, which post pictures and videos of hundreds of would-be Thai brides, from which prospective British husbands can choose a potential partner.

Matt Lucas as Ting Tong and David Walliams as Dudley in Little Britain

In the UK, Thai mail order brides have become a subject of ridicule

Some of these sites have a dubious reputation but Lawrence Lynch, a British man from Kidderminster, in Worcestershire, is proud of the service he offers through a company called Thai Professional Introductions.

I met him in his office in Bangkok on a Sunday morning - his busiest time, he explained, because the women who want to put their faces on the website are free to come in then.

There were several waiting nervously in his lobby, all young.

They took turns to make themselves up, helped by Mr Lynch's Thai wife Tapanee, and then posed in front of a wall-length photograph of an idyllic Thai beach, complete with plastic palm tree.

We've arranged around 750 marriages over nine years, and I can count the number that have gone wrong on two hands

Lawrence Lynch

"The girls pay just 400 baht ( £6; US$10) to join," he said, "but that's a lot of money to some of them."

His foreign clients pay a lot more - £1,650 (US$3,000) - but for that he offers 12 months membership, unlimited introductions to the women on the site, translation (crucial this, as many of the women speak little English) and help arranging hotels, travel, visas and marriage documents.

He showed me another wall plastered with photographs of satisfied customers and their smiling brides.

"We've arranged around 750 marriages over nine years and I can count the number that have gone wrong on two hands," Mr Lynch told me.

Culture differences

But there are yawning disparities that have to be bridged, in age, language and culture.

Most of the men know little about Thailand, perhaps only what they have experienced on a short holiday.

They are drawn by the prospect of a short and easy courtship with much younger and often strikingly attractive women.

The women seem drawn to the agency by a desire for financial stability and what they believe is a more caring attitude among Western men.

Nui, a 22 year-old hairdresser, was typical of the customers in Mr Lynch's office.

"I think Western men are more kind-hearted." she told me. "I don't want a relationship with a Thai man. They are not responsible in helping with children and they are not faithful."

John, a 43-year-old businessman from East Anglia, told me why he had flown out to Bangkok.

He wanted to meet a woman who was serious about marriage, he said, which is why he was using the agency.

He had been married before and described a number of unhappy relationships back in Britain.

"There's this 'lad' culture with the ladies in UK these days. I don't want to be messed about any more. What I'm looking for is how it used to be in Britain in the 40s and 50s, where the family unit supported each other."

Mr Lynch says he screens the women to make sure none has a background in bar work or prostitution.

The men he has less control over, although he believes most of his clients are sincere.

"Any guy can come out here and meet a girl in a go-go bar, because let's face it, a lot of the men who come to Thailand are sex tourists. But those are the marriages that end in disaster."

Some of the couples end up living in Thailand, like Jim, 58, from Nuneaton, and his wife Prapaporn, 30.

Was the age gap a problem, I asked?

"Not to me it isn't and it doesn't seem to be for her either. The only people who have a problem with it are those who aren't in the same boat."

Toby Charnaud

Toby Charnaud's Thai ex-wife is serving life in jail for his murder

Most of the couples, though, will end up living in Britain, where, warns Bangkok-based writer Christopher Moore, author of a book about emotional expression in Thailand, the culture and language gap could put severe strains on the relationship.

"All the building blocks of relationships - the idea of family, friends, love, work - are viewed in a very different way in Thailand. So one of the things the man is going to have to deal with is the importance of family to his Thai wife. It may be she will need to come back to Thailand three or four times a year."

John has spent two weeks meeting women on Lawrence Lynch's books but he is taking his time. He has gone back to Britain and plans to return later this year to renew his meetings with the women he liked, to decide if any would make a suitable wife.

Nui is now registered with the agency and must take her chances with the 1,600 other Thai women there looking for husbands. She says she would prefer an age gap of no more than 10 years but may in the end settle for a much older man.

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Q: How many croc hunters does it take to capture a sting-ray?

A: Apparently more than one. Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo is now serving Sting Ray...

Love the smiley!

I agree about the smily, its good that something positive has emerged from this incident.

Yeah, close it.

The jokes were all rubbish anyway.

RIP person i've never heard of.

Yeah, i've seen better.

You can still have a small sherry every now and again.

Is it okay if I start a separate topic about my Mum's bowel theory? Or discuss it in my glory hole topic.

My wife gives her spare clothes to a one-armed woman selling jasmine garlands on the corner of Witthayu and Petburi.

Q: How many croc hunters does it take to capture a sting-ray?

A: Apparently more than one. Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo is now serving Sting Ray...

In many ways not the world's wittiest joke, nor the cleverest-constructed punch-line, but it was on an Eastern Europe website so, bless, they're trying their best.

He's the bloody Prime Minister

I propose a booting. The booting to be delivered by the Chief Justice of Australia.

David Attenborough is like 100 years old and still doddering along producing good television. He's not daft enough to allow himself be eaten by a infuriated haddock.

I'd like to know how Lehman Brothers structures their purchases of hotels.

Not the Grande Asset deal, which is done via nominees, but the direct purchases of hotels eg the buildings it bought from Natural Park.

Steve was a lover of all of God's creatures.

Hey Papa, dont you have your own thread you can go play in...all alone and lonely like.

David Attenborough IS Jurassic park.

David Attenborough discovered that you could take a piece of amber, containing a fly, and extract prehistoric DNA from a dinosaur.

Scientist? ..........Yes, I think so.

It has been announced that a tribute song to Steve is to be released.

David Attenborough also made Jurassic Park.

Round the lunch table at prep school.

All the ten yr olds talking about 'rubber johnnies' and 'bumming'

Sincerely doubt that any of these upper-middle class brats put their money where their mouth was.

I always feigned diffidence.

"The defence lawyer told Reuters all four would appeal."

On what grounds? They pleaded guilty !

Here's what old rancorous Aussie shinkicker Germaine Greer has to say.

'That sort of self-delusion is what it takes to be a real Aussie larrikin'

Germaine Greer

Tuesday September 5, 2006

The Guardian

The world mourns. World-famous wildlife warrior Steve Irwin has died a hero, doing the thing he loved, filming a sequence for a new TV series. He was supposed to have been making a new documentary to have been called Ocean's Deadliest, but, when filming was held up by bad weather, he decided to "go off and shoot a few segments" for his eight-year-old daughter's upcoming TV series, "just stuff on the reef and little animals". His manager John Stainton "just said fine, anything that would keep him moving and keep his adrenaline going". Evidently it's Stainton's job to keep Irwin pumped larger than life, shouting "Crikey!" and punching the air.

Article continues

Irwin was the real Crocodile Dundee, a great Australian, an ambassador for wildlife, a global phenomenon, a superhuman generator of merchandise, books, interactive video-games and action figures. The only creatures he couldn't dominate were parrots. A parrot once did its best to rip his nose off his face. Parrots are a lot smarter than crocodiles.

What seems to have happened on Batt Reef is that Irwin and a cameraman went off in a little dinghy to see what they could find. What they found were stingrays. You can just imagine Irwin yelling: "Just look at these beauties! Crikey! With those barbs a stingray can kill a horse!" (Yes, Steve, but a stingray doesn't want to kill a horse. It eats crustaceans, for God's sake.) All Australian children know about stingrays. We are now being told that only three people have ever been killed by Australian stingrays. One of them must have been the chap who bought it 60 years ago in Brighton Baths where my school used to go on swimming days. Port Philip Bay was famous for stingrays, which are fine as long as you can see them, but they do what most Dasyatidae do, which is bury themselves in the sand or mud with only their eyes sticking out. What you don't want to do with a stingray is stand on it. The lashing response of the tail is automatic; the barb is coated with a bacterial slime as deadly as rotten oyster toxin.

As a Melbourne boy, Irwin should have had a healthy respect for stingrays, which are actually commoner, and bigger, in southern waters than they are near Port Douglas, where he was killed. The film-makers maintain that the ray that took Irwin out was a "bull ray", or Dasyatis brevicaudata, but this is not usually found as far north as Port Douglas. Marine biologist Dr Meredith Peach has been quoted as saying, "It's really quite unusual for divers to be stung unless they are grappling with the animal and, knowing Steve Irwin, perhaps that may have been the case." Not much sympathy there then.

The only time Irwin ever seemed less than entirely lovable to his fans (as distinct from zoologists) was when he went into the Australia Zoo crocodile enclosure with his month-old baby son in one hand and a dead chicken in the other. For a second you didn't know which one he meant to feed to the crocodile. If the crocodile had been less depressed it might have made the decision for him. As the catatonic beast obediently downed its tiny snack, Irwin walked his baby on the grass, not something that paediatricians recommend for rubbery baby legs even when there isn't a stir-crazy carnivore a few feet away. The adoring world was momentarily appalled. They called it child abuse. The whole spectacle was revolting. The crocodile would rather have been anywhere else and the chicken had had a grim life too, but that's entertainment at Australia Zoo.

Irwin's response to the sudden outburst of criticism was bizarre. He believed that he had the crocodile under control. But he could have fallen over, suggested an interviewer. He admitted that was possible, but only if a meteor had hit the earth and caused an earthquake of 6.6 on the Richter scale. That sort of self-delusion is what it takes to be a "real Aussie larrikin".

What Irwin never seemed to understand was that animals need space. The one lesson any conservationist must labour to drive home is that habitat loss is the principal cause of species loss. There was no habitat, no matter how fragile or finely balanced, that Irwin hesitated to barge into, trumpeting his wonder and amazement to the skies. There was not an animal he was not prepared to manhandle. Every creature he brandished at the camera was in distress. Every snake badgered by Irwin was at a huge disadvantage, with only a single possible reaction to its terrifying situation, which was to strike. Easy enough to avoid, if you know what's coming. Even my cat knew that much. Those of us who live with snakes, as I do with no fewer than 12 front-fanged venomous snake species in my bit of Queensland rainforest, know that they will get out of our way if we leave them a choice. Some snakes are described as aggressive, but, if you're a snake, unprovoked aggression doesn't make sense. Snakes on a plane only want to get off. But Irwin was an entertainer, a 21st-century version of a lion-tamer, with crocodiles instead of lions.

In 2004, Irwin was accused of illegally encroaching on the space of penguins, seals and humpback whales in Antarctica, where he was filming a documentary called Ice Breaker. An investigation by the Australian Environmental Department resulted in no action being taken, which is not surprising seeing that John Howard, the prime minister, made sure that Irwin was one of the guests invited to a "gala barbecue" for George Bush a few months before. Howard is now Irwin's chief mourner, which is only fair, seeing that Irwin announced that Howard is the greatest leader the world has ever seen.

The animal world has finally taken its revenge on Irwin, but probably not before a whole generation of kids in shorts seven sizes too small has learned to shout in the ears of animals with hearing 10 times more acute than theirs, determined to become millionaire animal-loving zoo-owners in their turn.

3 live topics actually.

I don't know why my topic has been neglected with a meagre 48 hits, since as you see from the time of the OP, it was extremely prompt. (3 minutes later than the other one)

Throw me a bone here....

It was not until I saw the date of Irwins' death on a computer screen that I realized he died on the same date, different year. Sept 4 has, for some 30 years, had a huge emotional effect on me. Clearly, Irwin's death is unsettling for me, but it is interesting Sept 4 has come up again.

Right....."he died on the same date, different year"...... what he died once before already.

Anyway...as you say, spooky dude.

Joke:

Whats the difference between Mother Teresa and a stingray?

You call that a hot ass?

Is Gary Stretch in it? He's got a flat in Pattaya.

I worked with him on Kingmaker.

<Him in more of a star capacity, and me in more of an Extra capacity>

Steve can still watch over us from heaven.

Gawd bless ya Stevo.

We love you and miss you.