Tiger

[kiakaha]

Not a massively indepth interview, but none the less touches on Tiger's realtionship with his mom, the thai values she instilled in him, his ability in the thai language etc....

http://www.sportsline.com/golf/story/10175057

[younghusband]

Not a massively indepth interview, but none the less touches on Tiger's realtionship with his mom, the thai values she instilled in him, his ability in the thai language etc....

http://www.sportsline.com/golf/story/10175057

Thanks.I found the interview quite touching and was pleasantly surprised to see he has absorbed good Thai values from his mother.I can better understand his irritation with the "African American" label which only partly defines his background and values.

[blizzard]

what i want to know is why thais dont embrace tiger? is it becoz of papas ethnic makeup. tiger is a superstar everywhere except thailand.

thais take to tata real good.

[astral]

Remember when they tried to woo him, offering him a Thai passport?

He turned them down

[steveromagnino]

what i want to know is why thais dont embrace tiger? is it becoz of papas ethnic makeup. tiger is a superstar everywhere except thailand.

thais take to tata real good.

Well Tata lives here, speaks fluent Thai and is proud to be Thai. Tiger Woods has never really shown the same interest in Thailand, and hence his 'Thainess' is perhaps less relevant.

There are several other celebs such as Joey Bazoo with exactly the same make up (1/2 African American 1/2 Thai) and no issues who are completely accepted as 'being Thai 100%'. No doubt some 'experts' will weigh in with dark skin stuff, but simply, Tiger isn't that interested in Thailand or being Thai, hence his reputation here is not so strong with the general public; almost all Thai people understand he has some Thai blood, but the lack of language and interest means he isn't really considered Thai. Golf is also not the mega sport, so even someone like Thongchai Jaidee is not a big star like say Leesaw (football).

Tiger can speak a small amount of Thai, probably about on par with Miss Norway in the Miss Universe pagaent held here in 2004 I think it was. However, it is about on par with a farang who can speak a little Thai at least AFAIK; by comparison Tata speaks fluent non accented Thai and simply cannot write it - hard to be Thai if you don't speak the language. I have some 100% Thai friends from USA who would be considering to be Thai but not really Thai because they don't speak it, they don't act like a Thai person with the mannerisms and customs; and for look krueng the non Thai bit can either make a look kreung seem not like Thai at all, or like a Thai who doesn't look Thai; depends.

Also...the mother is not exactly what some Thais consider to be a shining example of Thai beauty and some might say she dresses in a very nouveau riche kind of way and some of her media exposure locally has been perhaps less than flattering. By comparison Tata Young's mother was much more off the radar (similar to Sonya Couling, Willie/Katheleeya Mac et al) than Tiger's mum; part and parcel of being a celeb vs. a sportperson I guess. Obviously, in the case of many/most look krueng, there are also questions asked as to how a woman from Nakorn Nowhere would end up with a foreign soldier husband; a number of newspapers in the past have looked at and shown that some of the claims made on 'how they met' simply didn't stack up; can't recall the exact details in the Tiger Woods case.

Incidentally, Tata is admired for her talent and ambition but she isn't particularly well liked for the most part. Well liked look kreung would be people like Willy, Senator Meechai, P'Bird, Hugo - those sorts.

[blizzard]

come on now. someone comment on the race issue. thais tend not to like dark skin, even their own dark skinned people.

if tiger turned down thai citizenship at least we know he has good handlers. no offense to thais. but everyone wants to be american .

id bet even his mom would say stay american, if she wanted whats best for her son.

one thing abiout america , they dont care about your background they care about if you good at what you do.

no offense but who is joey bazoo.................lol. americans know joey from "friends", but mr.bazoo..........lol.

Edited May 11, 2007 by blizzard

[kiakaha]

Tiger was awarded honorary Thai citizenship by royal decree.He just doesn't use his thai citizenship. He also has an honorary degree from a thai university.

[Crossy]

if tiger turned down thai citizenship at least we know he has good handlers. no offense to thais. but everyone wants to be american .

I don't, shouldn't it be 'nearly everyone' or even 'some people'

[kiakaha]

if tiger turned down thai citizenship at least we know he has good handlers. no offense to thais. but everyone wants to be american .

I don't, shouldn't it be 'nearly everyone' or even 'some people'

I'd turn down American citizenship in a heartbeat if you offered it to me

[blizzard]

i thought that was undrstood. i generalize when i post. but my choice of using everyone was misguided.

maybe i should have said if you could be thai or american which would you choose. only those who lived in both places can answer.

Edited May 11, 2007 by blizzard

[Crossy]

i thought that was undrstood. i generalize when i post. but my choice of using everyone was misguided.

maybe i should have said if you could be thai or american which would you choose. only those who lived in both places can answer.

Yeah, I know and agree, the smiley was there for a reason

[aussiestyle1983]

Tiger was awarded honorary Thai citizenship by royal decree.He just doesn't use his thai citizenship. He also has an honorary degree from a thai university.

I remember reading somewhere that another reason for Thais not liking him was his attitude towards this degree or the attitude he showed when recieving the degree. I can't remember what he actually did, but apparently is was not to polite in the eyes of the Thais................

As for Tiger, dad and his mother have done the correct thing by distancing him from Thailand and Thai culture as far as possible, which shows how smart his mother is. If he had more Thai influence in his life as a youngster or was more involved in Thailand, there is no way he would of achieved the success he has achieved today. His mum knew that is was best to get away from here and stay as far away as possible, and by doing this, now look at who she has as a son, possilbe the future best golfer ever! Maybe because of his talent, his detirmination he would still be a pro golfer, but he would not of had a lot of the money making, endorsement oppourtunities he has had if he were more connected with Thialand, especially from the USA companies. Apart from himself and his family, it is America who has given him the oppuortunity and chance to make the money he has, not Thailand. So can you really blame them from wanting to be as far away from Thai influence as possible? I can't. Good for him.

[steveromagnino]

come on now. someone comment on the race issue. thais tend not to like dark skin, even their own dark skinned people.

if tiger turned down thai citizenship at least we know he has good handlers. no offense to thais. but everyone wants to be american .

id bet even his mom would say stay american, if she wanted whats best for her son.

one thing abiout america , they dont care about your background they care about if you good at what you do.

no offense but who is joey bazoo.................lol. americans know joey from "friends", but mr.bazoo..........lol.

1. Not everyone wants to be an American; besides which there is also the concept called dual nationality. Of course there are a few people like Bill Heineke that actually renounce being Americans to avoid the taxes

2. Given that we are talking about Thailand, it isn't really important whether Americans know who Joey Bazoo is, I thought this was about what THAI people thought - Joey Bazoo would be pretty well known, my guess is maybe a little lower than Tiger Woods but certainly popular enough to address and disprove any issue of 'dark skin'

3. Mother marries an American then moves to USA and never looks back; why do you think she would have even great desire to return here or encourage Tiger to be anything other than an American with mixed blood??? There are countless bar girls and working class people from Isaan that marry westerners and move elsewhere then raise their kids to have nil connection with Thailand at all - this isn't exactly uncommon among Thai people (not implying that Tiger Woods' mother is a former bar girl of course); in many cases the person they marry has an obsession with trying to make their child speak only english; apparently 'english is the world language so why do you need to know any other languages' (this is pretty apparent even among Thai/western marriages even here in Thailand, especially IMHO ones involving Americans)

Like in boxing, sailing or golf, being an American gets you more money than being a foreigner for the most part. That's a benefit of being part of the richest large country in the world. Up to him as to how he pursues things and he has chosen to push things in America for probably many reasons. Good for him; he is a true champion :-) He could easily have had more Thai culture most likely, so I don't really get your point about distance from Thailand in that respect Aussie1983; however I totally agree, by being an American and having the access to American education system, golf courses and the American marketing machine, he has made more money and become a truly great golfer.... who knows what he would have acheived coming from here. The women from Korea seem to do just fine in the LPGA but they all have to go to USA just as Michael Campbell and Bob Charles had to go from NZ to compete.

Edited May 11, 2007 by steveromagnino

[Tarragona]

Tiger was awarded honorary Thai citizenship by royal decree.He just doesn't use his thai citizenship. He also has an honorary degree from a thai university.

I remember reading somewhere that another reason for Thais not liking him was his attitude towards this degree or the attitude he showed when recieving the degree. I can't remember what he actually did, but apparently is was not to polite in the eyes of the Thais................

Rather than go and receive it at a university ceremony, he had them come and present it at his hotel. Though to be fair, there was quite a lot of criticism of the university (not sure, was it Kasetsart?) for awarding it in the first place - it looked a lot like jumping on the publicity bandwagon.

[aussiestyle1983]

Tiger was awarded honorary Thai citizenship by royal decree.He just doesn't use his thai citizenship. He also has an honorary degree from a thai university.

I remember reading somewhere that another reason for Thais not liking him was his attitude towards this degree or the attitude he showed when recieving the degree. I can't remember what he actually did, but apparently is was not to polite in the eyes of the Thais................

Rather than go and receive it at a university ceremony, he had them come and present it at his hotel. Though to be fair, there was quite a lot of criticism of the university (not sure, was it Kasetsart?) for awarding it in the first place - it looked a lot like jumping on the publicity bandwagon.

I think you are correct, Kasetsart.

[dumspero]

Interesting interview. Also interesting to me that Tiger refers to "Asian" as opposed to "Thai." That's a common pc-type term on US campuses. But of course it's meaningless to talk in terms of "Asian" values and things like that. It's just too sweeping a term.

Good for him that he is who he chooses to be and that he doesn't feel hemmed in by the chance of his blood mix.

I also think he's uncomfortable around Thais and Thai things because he doesn't know enough Thai or about how to act. I have luk kreung nices that are like that. Nothing wrong with it, just an observation.

[blizzard]

bazoo is not enuff to disprove issue of dark skin.

so now thais dont care what color skin one has. he may be the exception that proves the rule.

[Misty]

Here's an interesting article from 1997 about Thai politics and Tiger Woods:

http://www.pathfinder.com/asiaweek/97/0214/feat6.html

[mittheimp]

Here's an interesting article from 1997 about Thai politics and Tiger Woods:

http://www.pathfinder.com/asiaweek/97/0214/feat6.html

.............despite the ban on dual passports and controversial laws that restrict land-ownership for Thais married to foreigners.

is or was there a ban on dual passports?

[sonnyJ]

is or was there a ban on dual passports?

Yes, there is a law. Everyone does it anyway, even the family we can't talk about.

[klikster]

Remember when they tried to woo him, offering him a Thai passport?

He turned them down

One of my Thai friends told me that Tiger approached this issue before he became a megastar and the Thais weren't interested.

[lazeeboy]

is or was there a ban on dual passports?

Yes, there is a law. Everyone does it anyway, even the family we can't talk about.

there are a lot of americans sponsoring tiger how many thais? if he embrased the thais how many yank fans would he upset .and sponsors would he lose ,after all after austrailia thailand is the most racist country in the world polled in 2003 as i recall and after all he is half negro

[lannarebirth]

After reading the interview I would have to say Tiger's mom seems different than any Thai woman I have yet met. Notably, her rearing and interactions with her son and her approach to Buddhism.

[maccaroni man]

Remember when they tried to woo him, offering him a Thai passport?

He turned them down

One of my Thai friends told me that Tiger approached this issue before he became a megastar and the Thais weren't interested.

I was thinking the same thing, here the man is a great college player and the Thais give him no recognition, then when he hits it big as a pro, all of a sudden he is thai..He is no fool he knows when someone is trying to ride on his back and that is exactly how thailand treated him; as an avenue to promote themselves and as for the degree, he had to be laughing, he had just graduated from STANFORD one of the best universities in the world. IMHO Thailand played him all wrong and he did not buy in to their weak efforts to embrace him.

[klikster]

Remember when they tried to woo him, offering him a Thai passport?

He turned them down

One of my Thai friends told me that Tiger approached this issue before he became a megastar and the Thais weren't interested.

I was thinking the same thing, here the man is a great college player and the Thais give him no recognition, then when he hits it big as a pro, all of a sudden he is thai..He is no fool he knows when someone is trying to ride on his back and that is exactly how thailand treated him; as an avenue to promote themselves and as for the degree, he had to be laughing, he had just graduated from STANFORD one of the best universities in the world. IMHO Thailand played him all wrong and he did not buy in to their weak efforts to embrace him.

I'm not sure that Tiger graduated.

I agree 100% with you about Tiger being able to see through the opportunism.

I was a big TW fan even when he was a youngster .. just keeping track of him in the local newspapers.

Then I was fortunate enough to meet Earl Woods and K. Kantida(?) on two occasions while they still lived in California. I didn't get to meet Tiger. He happened to be playing in an NCAA tournament in Hawaii the first time I visited their home.

I got a rundown on Tiger from Mrs. Woods while Earl was on the phone. Apparently Tiger had been a near straight A student in high school, but was making B's at Stanford .. and that was really bugging him.

Then when Earl got off the phone, we talked for several hours. He was a very interesting guy. I saw him one more time after that, but never got to meet Tiger.

Edited May 11, 2007 by klikster

[pumpuiman]

My wife doesn't care for him. She says Thais don't like him because he was so "un-Thai" on a previous visit.

Apparently not bowing, improper attire, and general disrespect for elders were factors.

His mother is blamed for his terrible upbringing.

The wife says it was a huge topic of discussion in Thai media.

She won't watch the TV if I'm watching him play!

(she was pleased when I informed her of his Masters Tournament loss....she said he "deserved it")

She really holds a grudge

I hope I never have to endure such a fate!

[sbk]

Here's an interesting article from 1997 about Thai politics and Tiger Woods:

http://www.pathfinder.com/asiaweek/97/0214/feat6.html

.............despite the ban on dual passports and controversial laws that restrict land-ownership for Thais married to foreigners.

is or was there a ban on dual passports?

I don't know about 1997 but it is not illegal now. Several members and quite a few members wives hold two passports

[aussiestyle1983]

is or was there a ban on dual passports?

Yes, there is a law. Everyone does it anyway, even the family we can't talk about.

after all after austrailia thailand is the most racist country in the world polled in 2003 as i recall and after all he is half negro

Australia number one for racism...................really?? Could you post a link to something that supports your claims?

I being an Aussie am very interested in seeing this. I know our nation is a racist nation, as well as every other single nation on the palnet, but I didn't think we have what it takes to beat the Thais to the number one spot

[torito]

are a lot of americans sponsoring tiger how many thais? if he embrased the thais how many yank fans would he upset .and sponsors would he lose ,after all after austrailia thailand is the most racist country in the world polled in 2003 as i recall and after all he is half negro

Absolutelly 'lazeeboy', on the spot! but I think that Thailand is far, far behind......

[cdnvic]

after all after austrailia thailand is the most racist country in the world polled in 2003 as i recall and after all he is half negro

Please show a source to prove you aren't just talking out your on this. I'd love to see how places like Zimbabwe are less racist than a country with laws explicitly outlawing racial discrimination.