Not sure about the rules of fair usage and plagiarism so obviously I won't post the full article on here but just to give a short description of it.It's basicallly about old tourists coming out to Bangkok looking for young girls,shopping trips to Loius Vuitton and buffalos also get a mention!
It also mentions that Thailand has the worst education system anywhere in South-East Asia which seems quite hard to believe,as if you are rich you can pay for some pretty good schools I would imagine.I suppose it means for people of less means from a poor,farming background though?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/9972174/The-Old-Sexpats-Club-members-and-their-young-Thai-women.html

Don't shoot the messenger!

Usual BS that I've seen a hundred times before, written by know nothing so called journalists to pay for a holiday to LOS.

For the Thai education system, I second that;

- Thai universities are nowhere near the top 10 or even 50 of best in the world (I think Chula is 101th), hence you need to leave the country to get decent higher education.

- As for International Schools Patana & ISB; yes they have a very high level students, and get better exams results than average Europe/ US, but it's easy to understand when you realize that 99% of their kids come from well-off expats privileged families who can offer high standard extra curriculum activities (great holidays, fantastic surrounding, selected friends) and if a kid is from the 1% and is a low achiever, the school does not make much effort to help him and just boot him out, so they keep their grade level high.

Well written article, clearly the author did her home work. In terms of research.

I'd have been happy to give the writer (a Canadian expat living in Bangkok and working as a blogger) the benefit of the doubt but then I got to the part explaining why women flock to Bangkok to work in the sex industry. That reason being that such a huge percentage of MUSLIM women are subjected to domestic violence. At that stage I closed the page and came back here where the old men actually have a clue.

Author is totally clueless and the article is filled with idiocy and ignorance, as per the course for this type of article.

Same regurgitations year on year , just gets repetitive and boring.......

Why bother to write a bitchy article like this? typical rant about The Older Guys with the Younger Beauties? it's been done to death so many times it ceases to have any meaning or impact,get used to it,nothings going to change what has been the norm for hundreds of years +!

"And, as for the men, trouble only arises when they forget the social context of the relationship and become delusional about its true nature, If they do not want to be part of the Old Sexpats Club, then they should not play the game"

Very well put article !

I thought fair enough as it goes but clearly from her own PC POV, not actually accurate in many areas and same old same old for anyone who lives here.

Education bit is of course spot on, a country with how many millions now and maybe a dozen world-class schools in the whole kingdom, servicing maybe 8000 students, averaging per tuition per head 2-3 times average total income.

Nearly all the rest a complete joke based nearly 100% on rote memorisation, and where the teachers themselves can't even pass the standardized tests in the subject they teach, not even touching the mega-joke that is the attempt to teach English in the normal school systems.

funny, not. . .

Author is totally clueless and the article is filled with idiocy and ignorance, as per the course for this type of article.

I think the author knows a lot more than you suggest. Of course the guys with their 20 year younger, uneducated gf will scream and shout at the untruth. The truth hurts.

Old guys do come here and take advantage of young, uneducated girls with no other option if they want a comfortable life.

My wife comes from a poor background and obviously wouldn't have married me if she came from a rich family. She is only 3 years younger. I am old enough and wise enough to accept the truth.

Firstly, one has to look at the rapidly shifting demographics of Thailand,
which have caused massive rural poverty. As the government concentrates on
encouraging industrial growth and expanding exports, it has poured money
into urban development and mainly ignored the needs of rural Thailand.

Which is just what every government in the western world did when they moved from an agricultural rural society into an industrial urban society.

It's called progress, like it or not. Thailand is just 100 years behind the USA and Europe. WW1 & WWII solved their population excess problem during that process.

Can Thailand find a similar solution?

I just stuck a reply up on that article, if you click through you can see it's quite clearly me Here it is..............

............and in next weeks article we'll be reading stories of fantastically successful marriages between Thais and foreigners which have lasted decades.

We'll be reading stories about Thai women nursing their ill husbands hand and foot while their wealth is drained away by medical bills.

We'll be reading stories about the children of these marriages being given far better educational opportunities than could ever be afforded to them otherwise.

We'll be reading stories about families working together to build successful businesses.

We'll be reading stories about Thai women insisting that they obtain Usufructs on the family homes so that their husband cannot be denied the use of them after their death due to arcane Thai property laws.

We'll be reading stories about Thai single parents working their finger to the bone to support their families, with no thought of entering the sex industry as they abhor it with the same venom as women in the West.

In short we'll be reading an article that actually tells the truth about Thai women. I challenge the editor to demand that article to be written. If this lazy journalist is incapable of writing it, contact me and I'll do it gratis.

This vilification of Thai women has to stop.

I'm just off to the pub, otherwise I'd write a counter article about abandoned mingers.

Author is totally clueless and the article is filled with idiocy and ignorance, as per the course for this type of article.

I think the author knows a lot more than you suggest. Of course the guys with their 20 year younger, uneducated gf will scream and shout at the untruth. The truth hurts.

Old guys do come here and take advantage of young, uneducated girls with no other option if they want a comfortable life.

My wife comes from a poor background and obviously wouldn't have married me if she came from a rich family. She is only 3 years younger. I am old enough and wise enough to accept the truth.

..............and yet, according to a relatively recent Thaivisa poll, the 20 year age gap is relatively rare. You are closer to the median age gap.

I must ask though, why do you say you are old enough and wise enough to accept the truth??

edited.......sorry My'Lord, it was a leading question

"She wouldn't be with me if it weren't for my relative wealth"

is not even close to

"the only reason she is with me is money".

Financial stability runs high in most relationship calculations......that's not exclusive to Thailand. Equally it's not misogynistic to say that, it's now getting to the point that young women in the West are routinely out earning their partners. Bizarrely there will soon come a point where the pool of suitable men will be too small for this demographic.

Role reversal is on it's way

Umm, I haven't read the article, but I too wish to condemn whatever was written.

Where can I climb aboard the band wagon, and will there be cake? I like cake.

Umm, I haven't read the article, but I too wish to condemn whatever was written.

Where can I climb aboard the band wagon, and will there be cake? I like cake.

I didn't read it either but it didn't stop me from answering.

It must be great to be a 'journalist' in 2013 - one eye on the Twitterverse while you bang out rehashed excrement like that before heading off to the kind of boozy lunch most of us had to farewell sometime in the mid 90s. Throw in the fact that the small 'f' feminist who wrote this dirge didnt even have the guts to put her own name to it and I'd like to thank the OP for 60 seconds I'll never get back. Has anything good ever come out of Canada other than Rush and PSB loudspeakers ? Where are the gun nuts when they are so sorely needed ?

Laura Fearn is the nom de plume of a Canadian expat who lives in Thailand and works as a freelance writer and blogger reporting on life in Asia.

Hey OP - when does the "Interesting" part start?

It must be great to be a 'journalist' in 2013 - one eye on the Twitterverse while you bang out rehashed excrement like that before heading off to the kind of boozy lunch most of us had to farewell sometime in the mid 90s. Throw in the fact that the small 'f' feminist who wrote this dirge didnt even have the guts to put her own name to it and I'd like to thank the OP for 60 seconds I'll never get back. Has anything good ever come out of Canada other than Rush and PSB loudspeakers ? Where are the gun nuts when they are so sorely needed ?

Laura Fearn is the nom de plume of a Canadian expat who lives in Thailand and works as a freelance writer and blogger reporting on life in Asia.

Good find..............I enjoyed this bit right at the end.

Currently with sixteen months experience in Thailand, Laura has lived and worked in four countries and explored an additional 67. Although Thailand is one of the top ten destinations for expats, she intends to write from the perspective of living in a number of countries. Indeed, the nature of her observations may make relocation compulsory. In much of Asia, any criticism of crown, country or government can incur up to a twenty-year prison sentence; face is everything and difference of opinion are too often settled by hired hitmen riding on the back of motorbikes. A life-long political activist with a need-to-know nature, Laura holds an MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics. No ‘blue dress’ but her internship was with President Clinton’s Global Initiative Foundation. Her writing background includes work as a Script Analyst/Editor for Home Box Office, The CBC and Spelling International. She has also had articles published in a variety of newspapers. Laura writes here under a nom de plume for reasons of safety.

Right......who is it? Which TV member joined 16 months ago???

Sixteen months experience in Thailand! Sounds better than "just over a year", that.

"She wouldn't be with me if it weren't for my relative wealth"

is not even close to

"the only reason she is with me is money".

But according to your own statement, you have no money and will soon be on the run:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/632473-enforcement-of-thai-debts-on-my-way-out/

Have I got this wrong? Or are you contradicting yourself?

I think the article is sending out the wrong messages and gives false hopes to those over 50s considering retiring in Thailand.

Firstly, although it mentions that Thailand will issue long term visas for Western pensioners, long term being one year, and these visas can be easily extended year by year, it fails to mention all the strict requirements and regulations attached with these visas.

Also, it gives the impression that there are beautiful young Thai girls literally queuing up to be the girlfriends of expats who would be considered well over the hill in they’re own countries. Sounds like a paradise where dreams and fantasies come true, but the days of the sweet, loyal, subservient little Thai princesses are long gone, although this is the general perceptions of them put out in the West. Perhaps this was the case some years ago, but in reality most of the liaisons between young Thai women and much older western guys is strictly business, a tied wife, rather than a Thai wife and fidelity to one partner is not guaranteed.

The article fails to make clear that money is needed here and lots of it to be able to live these fairy tale lifestyles. Probably the same in all the other South East Asian countries mentioned in the article.

The problem is that there are Westerners plonking themselves here ill prepared financially and without a full understanding of what is required from them under the imposed Immigration regulations, believing that the streets of Thailand are paved with gold and getting themselves into all sorts of problems. Those of little or no wealth are simply not wanted here and those who fit into that category should not be hoodwinked into believing that Thailand is a final grazing ground for old has beens, but rather it`s a case of, what can they do to benefit Thailand, other than vice versa.

I just stuck a reply up on that article, if you click through you can see it's quite clearly me Here it is..............

............and in next weeks article we'll be reading stories of fantastically successful marriages between Thais and foreigners which have lasted decades.

We'll be reading stories about Thai women nursing their ill husbands hand and foot while their wealth is drained away by medical bills.

We'll be reading stories about the children of these marriages being given far better educational opportunities than could ever be afforded to them otherwise.

We'll be reading stories about families working together to build successful businesses.

We'll be reading stories about Thai women insisting that they obtain Usufructs on the family homes so that their husband cannot be denied the use of them after their death due to arcane Thai property laws.

We'll be reading stories about Thai single parents working their finger to the bone to support their families, with no thought of entering the sex industry as they abhor it with the same venom as women in the West.

In short we'll be reading an article that actually tells the truth about Thai women. I challenge the editor to demand that article to be written. If this lazy journalist is incapable of writing it, contact me and I'll do it gratis.

This vilification of Thai women has to stop.

Please post a link to those stories once they are published, because I rarely read them on the Thai expat forum called Thaivisa.

Author is totally clueless and the article is filled with idiocy and ignorance, as per the course for this type of article.

I think the author knows a lot more than you suggest. Of course the guys with their 20 year younger, uneducated gf will scream and shout at the untruth. The truth hurts.

Old guys do come here and take advantage of young, uneducated girls with no other option if they want a comfortable life.

My wife comes from a poor background and obviously wouldn't have married me if she came from a rich family. She is only 3 years younger. I am old enough and wise enough to accept the truth.

I'm not one of those old guys with a girlfriend 20 years older. I'm younger than the majority of 'mia farang' I see in Thailand. She says most are barely legal but most of them are in their 30s and 40s (the author is probably old and bitter so they look that way to her however), the vast majority have children of their own, often already teenagers or adults! Than she goes on to write BS about how normal it is for a Thai woman to have multi farang 'boyfriends' and how the Thai husband won't care and how most Thais wouldn't consider this prostitution or objectionable in any way (it is a small minority among 70 million Thais that engages in this and everyone else thinks it is bad), and BS about how there high unemployment and bargirls have no choice, and BS statistics from the Durex survey. The woman is extraordinarily ignorant and I don't say this as a member of the old sexpat Club but as a young expat who is tired of this kind of exploitative, racist (against Thais), and ignorant journalism.

I reckon she got most of her "information" from right here, with her own assumptions and selective interpretation for maximum sensationalism.

Sad thing is she probably got paid less than 20 pounds for the piece, state of "journalism" these days, that profession's pretty well gone now.

Some old western men definitely do take advantage of poor uneducated Thai women. Every one that pay for it, joins that group too

I'd have been happy to give the writer (a Canadian expat living in Bangkok and working as a blogger) the benefit of the doubt but then I got to the part explaining why women flock to Bangkok to work in the sex industry. That reason being that such a huge percentage of MUSLIM women are subjected to domestic violence. At that stage I closed the page and came back here where the old men actually have a clue.

You get work permits for that ?

I'd have been happy to give the writer (a Canadian expat living in Bangkok and working as a blogger) the benefit of the doubt but then I got to the part explaining why women flock to Bangkok to work in the sex industry. That reason being that such a huge percentage of MUSLIM women are subjected to domestic violence. At that stage I closed the page and came back here where the old men actually have a clue.

-

She probably recycled a piece she'd just written about Jakarta or Bali, forgot to check after doing a search and replace.