seonai Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 I thought it would be cool to hear all you girl's experience with Thai female friends. The idea of the thread is that we are exclusively discussing thai female friends. I'll just start with a few... My first encounter with someone I could call a real friend was with a woman who helped run a little bar near Thammasat Uni - all uni owners so nothing to do with bars with women for sale (The Hemlock). She was cool and liberated and wonderful. Many a good debate had over wine there. The second was with a hairdresser very near the bar I just mentioned - an extremely switched on woman in a relationship with a Nepalise guy and really cool. We became mates after about two visits to her as a hair client. I guess the third (it's hard to remember the times and dates) were a few women I worked with at the Thailand Times newspaper around 1995-1996. Really cool women who were very Thai but also Western in a way and could manage both 'worlds' I have loads more but tell about your Thai female friends... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Misty Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 Hi Seonai, This is a nice idea. Problem is it's hard to due justice in a single post to the wonderful Thai women I've gotten to know over the years! Several have been my colleagues. Generous, friendly, hard working, intelligent, well-educated. A couple of those friendships have gone on for over ten years and extend well past the work place. Others I've met through free time activities--sports, dance, etc. So busy right now don't get to pursue those much at the moment. Just have to look forward to the time when I can participate again and meet up with them. Some are married to farangs--I wouldn't have met them but for the marriage, but I do enjoy their company. And then there's a coupld I've met only a few times, but whom I talk to and email regularly for business. I guess these are more acquaintenances than friends, but the relationship have always been on a friendly level. Cheers, Misty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alaina Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 Yes, this is a good idea for a thread! I was very fortunate to be introduced to three Thai women friends soon after arriving here for the first time. I owe them so much as they took great care of me, they showed me around Bangkok, made sure I learned to get around myself and went so far as to never allow me to put money in for our restaurant bills. Now, when we go out, there is still a fight for the check bin, but I know how to win. One of my friends owns a jewelery factory in Silom and absolutely loves Patpong. What I really love about her is that she does not believe in the class system in Thailand (although she's not poor and well educated) and will wai anybody that wais her. I have to be careful when I accept an invitation out with her because she will talk to everybody and by the end of the night (which is more like 5 am) we have a big entourage of tourists, bar girls, expats and just about anybody. (I just can't stay out that late anymore!) I can never remember who we've met and where we ended up after hours. The Thai teachers that I've worked with have always gone out of their way to be helpful as well. (I try very hard to make them happy too.) They always bring me all kinds of food and do more than their share of the work if they see that I am busy. There have been many times when Thai women have helped me out and I'm not sure how I would have managed without them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sutnyod Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 Yes, that's a good idea. I had been thinking about where to brag about my Thai friends . I just admire them. One has been divorced from her husband (Thai) for 17 years, but they had agreed to share a house until the children are grown. The husband is a drunkard and womanizer. Seventeen years! Seventeen years of not being able to sleep because of the fear he might forget to lock the door when he comes home at three in the morning. Seventeen years helping him to get out of one mess after the other (car brakes down - he takes hers). She developed cancer last year, but has had a successful operation. I would have never have thought her to have any problems in her private life; she is such a power-woman! There is now only one child left still with them; moving out soon. Then my other friend whom I had the thread about the strange friends who wanted to marry her off in Farangland. She is still going strong and I have just visited her four days ago (1000 km AND railway strike couldn't stop me). The friend whom I asked whether people would be interested to have a mobile hairdresser. She is also incredibly strong, lived together with a Farang as a common-law wife for more than 20 years. Then one day he decided he wanted out, took a younger wife, married her and is now having all sorts of problems. She is still alone (although there are lots of candidates lined up, because she is incredibly good-looking). She has decided to not come to Bkk for the time being, so the mobile hairdresser thing is not to be before too soon. There are many more (one more bringing up a handicapped child very normal, another one struggling to make ends meet after her husband died unexpectedly when the children were still young, a friend in Laos being the daughter of a shaman and experiencing all sorts of strange things etc.), but just a general question: don't you have the feeling Thai women open up more easily to a foreign woman? I mean if they told those things to Thai friends they would be FINISHED. In almost all cases it is only the immediate family who knows about those issues. If I ever find the time I shall write books about them. Cheers to all our good friends! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seonai Posted November 5, 2007 Author Share Posted November 5, 2007 Yes I think Thai women in general feel that it's easier to tell farang women stuff because of the cultural upbringing probably. It made me really smile just now when I read all your posts (above) and flashes of memory of some Thai female friends came to mind: Laughing and hanging on to my arm in the street, sitting on my lap and looking for white hairs on my head, bringing me little treat of fruit and peanuts, cooking me food, poking my boobs, pulling my nose, crying with me when telling of a failed love situation - one very elderly lady where we live comes up the steps of the house silently to give me a fright then feels to check if I'm wearing a bra and pants as she's seen a lot of farangs dress impolitely - when she discovers my bra she announces to everyone what a good 'girl' I am (of course she calls me 'nong' which is rather nice) Continue with the stories girls (I guess men can post too but only about 'friends' not partners) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donna Posted November 7, 2007 Share Posted November 7, 2007 i have some great women friends who are thai. probably my best one stayed with me every night when i was in hospital with malaria. she held the bucket when i spewed, she helped me to the toilet, she fed me, she helped bathe me and when i was in the throngs of fever, she did all she could to warm me, despite feeling so hot just from touching me. nak would be one of my best thai girlfriends. another girlfriend of mine is Wasa. a thai girl of about 35 years of age. we have been mates for a few years now and used to work together. her and i talk about sex and stuff that she just doesnt talk about with her other thai girlfriends. she is trying to hook me up with her very lovely older policeman brother too. she would make a great sister in law. that would cut the sex talk, though, as i dont think i could talk about her brother like that! they would be my two best thai girlfriends and i love them to bits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kat Posted November 7, 2007 Share Posted November 7, 2007 I had some great Thai female acquaintances, but it was hard to find female friendship the way I experienced it amongst Western women. That was partly because in the beginning I was travelling a lot for my job, so those contacts would be hard to sustain with anyone. So, in terms of heart-to-heart discussions, passionate but very real arguments, or just honest feedback and all night girl chats or silliness, I did not find that in Thailand with Thai women. I really, really, missed that, and was fortunate to meet a great girl group of buddies the last 2 years from England, France, The Philippines, and the states to chum around and process things together. But, my sweet memories of Thai women: I had a young assistant from Issan, who was educated, serious, sweet, patient, and kind, and who worked very hard with a lot of integrity. I took her out to her first Japanese meal, and lavished her as a way to thank her. She came back and gave me a watch as a going away present, and I still tear-up thinking about it. A couple of sweet co-workers who could easily misunderstand you, or take the side of Thai bureaucratic figures who most definitely do misunderstand and judge you. And then, in their sweet, subtle way, they make these small appreciative but significant gestures to show that they DO understand and sympathize with you. My everyday, random contacts: the young woman who sold me my newspapers, and would engage in interesting and heartfelt discussions about what was happening in the Country at the time; the people who worked in the coffee shop where I went every day, who went out of their way to make me feel like a regular in my own living room. The young journalist that I met who would have honest discussions with me about the status of women around the globe, and in Thailand. The grad student and NGO worker that I met in a Som Tam shop on Si lom, with whom I would have probably become good friends, but she left the country to go to school. The ladies who ran the internet shop near my first residence, who became my first friends, and despite our limited language with each other at the time, would confide things in me, show me their latest internet prey, and hang all over me, share their food, and touch me affectionately with absolutely no cultural barriers or shyness, as if there was not doubt that we knew each other despite the limited language. This wonderful sweet woman that worked in the gym that I frequented. And in Indonesia, not friendship, but: A group of Indo women that went after the bus touts and handlers, after they found out I was robbed and these guys were still trying to harass me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andiamo Posted November 8, 2007 Share Posted November 8, 2007 Great topic Seonai Txs all for sharing - great to read your stories and also gives us all an insight into the REAL WOMEN behind our Avatars! Here's my contribution! My Landlady who lives next door in the same compound and her 2 little boys who come ringing the doorbell to ask me to play out! She is a treasure and we can discuss literally everything - Food and diet , Make up, Cosmetics & Skin care, Stuff that is in the news, Gossip about Brad Pitt, Angelina, Jenifer Aniston etc etc......, Body shape - she wants my boobs, I want to give her some of mine! - Any men issues, Travel destinations, Anything that bugs us actually! etc etc. The List is long and varied. Suffice to say, she is a True Friend and I really value her friendship. A Thai friend of a friend from the University when I first came out here on a Sabbatical from my Job in London. We consequently became colleagues for a period and are now still buxom buddies. I visited her LARGE family in Phrae last August and was treated like one of the family - Wonderful memories! We are Gossip, Celebrity and Movie Buddies so we often chat on the phone here in BKK. You cannot believe how we can dissect ER or the Mexican soap with Diego & Paloma in it (I forget it's name - it was "pants" but curiously addictive). We kept each other updated if one of us missed an episode - sad but true! Another very good Thai friend from my swimming pool and gym, she is so kind and we have travelled to Burma & Chiang Mai together and had a blast. Again, we can talk about anything and know we can trust each other to be discrete. Too many other lovely, smiling, kind & funny gals & ladies to mention - a lovely lady from the Tailors down the road who invited me in when I got caught in a torrential downpour - we sat chatting for an hour and she is the first one I call in on now if I need any alterations. The lady and the girl in the local coffee shop who always serve my iced coffee just how I like it! The lady and her husband who make banana roti in the evening and we always exchange a few words, the Smiling Pad Thai lady, the Yam Talay girl.... The list goes on.... They are part of what makes this whole experience of living abroad so fab. As my Mum always says, you get out of life what you put in, so I just hope the people I meet also get something out of our interactions, because I know I do! Other than that, similar to Kat, have been lucky enough to meet up with a great Filipino friend and some lovely Italian friends who will also remain friends for life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kat Posted November 8, 2007 Share Posted November 8, 2007 (edited) One other thing: Two Thai ladies that I met who sided with me while confronting a farang jerk that threw beer all over me. We really were united that night, and it was great. *and this is definitely not an afterthought, because it was a very significant incident that happened to me with Thai women involved. I will never forget it, and I'm still friends with the women (whom I met right on this forum) Edited November 8, 2007 by kat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mssabai Posted November 8, 2007 Share Posted November 8, 2007 Although I have had some great times and chats wth thai girls here I think I am yet to meet a thai girl who is on par with my western best mates. Maybe it's because I always have my friends around here that I don't need to find that level of support with anyone else, maybe it is where I live and my job I don't know. The girls I work with are lovely, but we are world's apart. They are good southern girls who don't drink, don't smoke, don't sleep with their boyfriends (apart from a couple of exceptions) and I know it may seem petty but I find it hard to get a real bond with them because of these differences. I can never be truly honest about my antics at the weekend as they would be gossiped about and not understood. I am not a party beast but like many western women, I probably act more like a Thai man than a Thai woman. I have met some girls in BKK that I could definitely see myself being close friends with but unfortunately I don't live there so my friendships have never really progressed beyond seeing them on nights out. Probably the best Thai girlfriend that I have has actually grown up in the UK and only comes here for holidays. I do have other friends but I have met them through my boyfriend and again they are lovely, but I don't feel I can always be truly honest about my relationship because of their own relationship with my boy (usually family). My friends really are my life and I devote a lot of energy to them so I do feel that I need to be completely comfortable about divulging all aspects of my life in return. I just haven't found anyone here that I have felt able to do that with yet....sad but true! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bina Posted November 9, 2007 Share Posted November 9, 2007 (edited) once again, the definition of 'friends': from whatever culture u come from... one of the only thai woman i was good friends with screwed me over big time: a single mother of a 13 yr old, divorced from her israeli husband and fired from her job (i met her when she still worked for a manpower company she was the thai interface for the workers and the company, visa etc)... she fell on very hard times and i let her live with me for a while until she found an apartment, let her feel like a sister in my house, and lent her a sum of money. this was only after we had known each other for a year. she had a sister here also but a thai women of the 'player' type, snobby (they arent issaan women), nasty and not my cup of tea. we could talk about anything at all, had fun, and since i dont make friends easily (i am not a 'chummy' person, i have few friends and lots of people that i know and can blabber with but not depend on in times of trouble) for some reason she did click with me and my kids. i didnt have a thai husband yet (but was the mia noi of an other, if some of u remember past long ago posts). she btw was muslim thai!! previously married to a jewish israeli. she had managed to adapt well to israel and was different than the majority of the thai labourer women here, more urban, cosmopolitan and our relationship was indeed friendship (we spoke hebrew english and thai) and not me just helping her. she has disappeared with a thousand shekel still out of the amount i lent her... even though i had sent messages thru third parties (phone nu. changed, no address)that i didnt care, but wanted to know what has happened to her since she went back to thailand and returned here. the thai men say she just used me. i think she was just very confused and embarrassed sia na and all that. i would still like to find her. this was 6 yrs ago. i still ask around to find her in some moshavim, cause i really liked her. she was different, whimsical, special, a little, no , alot impulsive, flaky smart.... some thai men mentioned that they had run into her living in a shack in some moshav and that she gave birth a year ago after marrying an other thai worker. she has never looked me up again. i was very good friends with a thai woman my age, a mia noi of a thai worker here; also, three years of talking about everything that she probably couldnt talk about with her family. she was my age, single and the mia noi of an other worker. she went back when her visa finished. when her 'boyfriend' went back, he ran away with her for a month before going back home to his wife and kids. (someone from the same muu baan reported that she has since given birth to his child and he supports her also, but they are five hours away from eachother) as a thai women among mostly men while she was in israel, i think she liked speaking with me as an equal and not as a worker/employer, and as a woman with children and not involved in home family matters. also, with a different perspective on things. she was from a muu baan near nong khai but with a college degree!!, but working as a old peole's caretaker here to make money. when she went back to thailand she broke off the connection im assuming due to costs of phone cards and language difficulties over the cell phone, and also home problems. also, i assume that it was easier to speak with me heart to heart (phuut jai) face to face and not over the phone. i am also like this so.... not sure if i would have thai women friends in thailand as i dont have too many friends here either. its just my personality trait. not counting the people on this board. which is virtual friendship of a different sort. Edited November 9, 2007 by bina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seonai Posted November 9, 2007 Author Share Posted November 9, 2007 just a wee reminder girls, we were going to keep this on positive experiences with thai female friends nah... let's not talk about the bad experiences even tho we all have some to tell Do you all agree? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bina Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 seonai, i didnt say they were negative or postitive, just experiences....friendships are never one thing only, they are for good and bad... and i would have continued with those two if the circumstances had allowed them to be continued. in general, i;m with mssabai in this: the cultural differences dictate how and what u see as 'friendship' and often those people from different cultures dont use the same 'qualifications'... for me, having a pleasant chat every few days with a woman is NOT friendship, its getting along with someone. its when they stick up for u or come thru for u no matter what, thats my definition. and in some cultures, this type of action is reserved for family members only i.e. sisters/aunts etc. bina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boo Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 I agree Bina, I too had a very good thai women friend for many years who's 5 year old daughter used to complain that we were talking too much all the time & who used to tell people who asked that me & her mum were sisters. Cute We used to gossip, go out partying (very unusual as she had a thai hubby but they were both educated, liberal, had their own sucessful business, loved to socialise & threw a party every night at their place which was a free for all) she was headstrong, opinionated, a wicked cook, could party til the wee hours then go to work & be the sweetest most helpful person, came on numerous occasions to help me out with misunderstandings when me & hubby were first starting & would explain to both of us what the differences meant & how to understand each other, in fact I credit her for us being together to now as it is very easy to walk away in the beginning (should I thank her or not though!!!. joke ). They also helped me out with money when my cards got damaged & ALWAYS bought all the booze & food at their parties & when everyone was out. There were many things I would do for her & her family but this is about her so..... Sadly after many years of freindship between us we had a falling out over something very insignificant that I didn't even know would be a problem & the first I knew it was a problem was when they just stopped talking with us & started bitching about us to mutual freinds. These mutual freinds of ours (thai) couldn't understand the problem either but I just left them to get on with it as I wasn't prepared to toady to them for their own issues & was very upset at how easy they had thrown away a good relationship with no intention to discuss with us what they saw as a problem. I was told & do beleive, that my female freind was not happy over it & didn't want it to be this way but as her husband had instigated it she felt she couldn't bridge the barrier. After about a year of this, they made moves to apologise & we accepted it but sadly the damage had been done & for me, I couldn't go back to how it was & neither wanted to as there was now far too much bad feeling. We still see them when we go back to thailand & can chat casually & be pleasant but our relationship will ever go back to what it once was. BUT, I will always cherish that relationship as she taught me a lot about thai women & thai people in general, the most inportant lesson being that they aren't so different, even with cultural conditioning, as me And as for them being subservient, well if you saw this women & her thai friends out & about dealing with overzealous tourist & thai guys, well, some of the put downs could make a sensitive mans hair curl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seonai Posted November 10, 2007 Author Share Posted November 10, 2007 Hi Bina - I'm an eternal optimist and I was just trying to have a sweet thread about the good bits that's all... something gooey and scrumptious to read amogst all the dismal stuff in here And I'm not daft... of course friendships are not always perfect Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kat Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 (edited) seonai, i didnt say they were negative or postitive, just experiences....friendships are never one thing only, they are for good and bad... and i would have continued with those two if the circumstances had allowed them to be continued. in general, i;m with mssabai in this: the cultural differences dictate how and what u see as 'friendship' and often those people from different cultures dont use the same 'qualifications'... for me, having a pleasant chat every few days with a woman is NOT friendship, its getting along with someone. its when they stick up for u or come thru for u no matter what, thats my definition. and in some cultures, this type of action is reserved for family members only i.e. sisters/aunts etc. bina I agree with you entirely here, and you are not the only one who views it this way, because it is just a fact. However, some threads dictate the topic more than others, and to get around this we could start a discussion thread on the experience of Thai female/farang friendships, period. *In fact, I just started a new thread to carry this discussion further, so that we have this thread and another discussion thread. Thanks Seonai. Edited November 11, 2007 by kat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bina Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 hey seonai, well gooey but not scrumptious would only be my boxer bitch, nala but she's not thai although she eats thai food... the only friend that i allow to lick inside my ..................nostrils.........5555555.... sorry...couldnt resist.... bina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seonai Posted November 11, 2007 Author Share Posted November 11, 2007 Your nostrils Bina ???? Eaaaaaggghhhhhh !!! (I wish my dam_n smileys worked !!!) Good idea Kat, I can now pop in and out of the two threads... and the body shape one too !!! Well girls we certainly have livened up this forum and... have any of you read Bina's amazing accounts and info about animal training in 'News, Frenchman gauged buy elephant' - I take my hat off to that woman !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bina Posted November 12, 2007 Share Posted November 12, 2007 well i'm off to work, and getting ready to take flak on the dog eating thread.... bina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seonai Posted November 12, 2007 Author Share Posted November 12, 2007 Hey if I am well enough one day I'd like to fly to Israel to meet you Bina, have a fun day (That's the only smiley I can do right now) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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