Stating the obvious here, but in an attempt to nudge the discussion forward a little, let's express the matter in a slightly different way :

Generally speaking, foreigners who leap into "relationships" with prostitutes & buy land for them within weeks/months of meeting are unlikely to be people with the skills or attributes required for sustaining stable long-term relationships.

and

Generally speaking, foreigners who proceed more cautiously into relationships with people who have not had to sell their bodies, who work in "normal" jobs & have a more "normal" lifestyle, are more likely to be people with the skills and attributes required for sustaining stable long-term relationships.

BTW, it hadn't really occurred to me until I read this thread, but the fantasy of living off the land in a tropical paradise must also combine, in some people, with the fantasy of new love with an "exotic" stranger .

Edited May 11, 200719 yr by WaiWai

As anyone who reads the farming section will know, Maizefarmer has been a goldmine of information and suggestions to us budding Farmer Giles. I see he also has also stepped into the jokes forum with his pun- apparently missed by everyone

-' It's not strictly an agricultural matter but it's a matter that crops up time and again'

His point about bargirls I think can be widened to include most women that farang meet in cities, ie what do they know about farming? The answers can be written on the back of a stamp.

For our kids and my nieces, none of them have gone into farming, they all prefer to work indoors away from that terrible sun which will turn them dark and unattractive, so they believe.

I'm just lucky that my wife is enthusiastic and keen although our farm is nothing compared to MF, just 30 rai of sugarcane, a few rai of chillis and some cows. The parents are dead so there's no pressure from family, just useful advice and help from brothers, in return we offer some work,ie ploughing etc, it's a good relationship.

But if a girl from Big C, Tesco Lotus or Nana Plaza asks her farang boyfriend for money for the farm I'm 99% sure she's not going to be the one operating it, so her and respectively the farang's control over it, is zero.

I would advise any potential farang donor to take his other half back to the village for a few weeks first, observe her willingness to 'muck in', dig out the weeds.Do her family members have any potential for farming, can they make a go of it?

In our village and nearby, Bandung, Udon there's plenty of Thai women with farang husbands, very very few do any agricultural work, in their mindset the point of having a farang husband is to avoid any sort of hard work.

But I don't know what the farang husbands(mostly retirees) and Thai wives do all day, probably watch UBC and Thai soaps respectively.

In my view farangs interested in helping rural Thai women should meet their partners there. Roam the villages, observe the farming life and they could meet plenty of women who'd be capable of using an opportunity to upgrade their farms. The trouble is the women maybe a little tougher than the Bangkok naraks, ie they don't carry poodles, they'd sell any useless dog to the Sakon Nakhon vans for a plastic washing bowl and they'll crunch on insects caught the night before for breakfast rather than waste money on some pastry nonsense at 7-11.

Why is any of this worth debating again in any (sub)forum?

Why is any of this worth debating again in any (sub)forum?

Whether anything is worth debating or not, the anecdotes & arguments & attitudes expressed have made for some interesting reading.

I am really interested in the lives of foreigners in the farms & villages. Most are probably far too busy to post much, but it'd be good to hear more from them, I think.

P.S. chanchao - don't forget not everyone was here for the "debate" / discussion the first time around (or the second, or the third ... )

Edited May 11, 200719 yr by WaiWai

Why is any of this worth debating again in any (sub)forum?

Why are you asking this question at all if it's not relevant? Or are you cruising the wrong thread? This one is obviously of interest to some BMs.

> I am really interested in the lives of foreigners in the farms & villages.

I don't think it's much different from anywhere else? Most guy's wives/girlfriends seem to come from farms & villages actually, they just don't live there 24/7 but for sure are familiar with the typical goings on there..

I don't think it's much different from anywhere else?

No ?

Most guy's wives/girlfriends seem to come from farms & villages actually, they just don't live there 24/7 but for sure are familiar with the typical goings on there..

Perhaps, but I am not, thus finding the discussion interesting .