Strange living, eating habits

[Snackbar]

Cultural or tight-fisted?

 

Vis 'house' this week to be amazed by the way they live. No furniture in the house, a mattress on the floor and a two bob TV in the corner. Been in the 'house' for 4 years.

 

Another friend with a well paying job has a similar set-up. One room in a shady neighbourhood full of cheap and tacky plastic furniture. To reduce the B2,500 a month rent she shares the room and the bed with a friend.

 

Both also have odd eating habits. Microwaved snacks from 7-11, take-away street food, or Mumma noodles.

 

They are always complain about being 'tired', are incapacitated by a headache, and have frequent trips to the hospital for minor ailments any sensible person would shake off or ignore.

 

Some may say it's culture. I'm not buying it. They're cheapskates, but see them out and about they give the impression of being affluent, when the reality is they live like peasants.

[kkerry]

Brand new high spec Toyota Hilux parked out front.

 

Inside barely any furniture and a big screen TV.

 

Seen it numerous times. Not unusual.

 

People they work with see the Hilux but few work colleagues and non-family will ever visit where they live.

 

It's all about appearances.

Edited September 10, 2016 by kkerry

[tonray]

Many Thais, especially young women live this way. Share room with another (also many young men). Typical salary for Thai Uni grad is about 15-20K per month. Management level about 35K to 50K). Many young women, in fact most support parents and grandparents and send the lion's share of their pay home to the province. If you were working 10 _ hours a day for 15K and sending most to mom...you would likely live that too.

[poohy]

Yes pretty normal i would say

here just south of PKK they live in houses that are basically wooden shacks but with top of range pick truck outside

oh yes staple diet of the famer here mamma noodles an lao cao

[Snackbar]

Why would caring loving parents demand cash to spend on Lao Kao and noodles?

 

 

[steelepulse]

I lived in Singapore for some years and it's the same there, shiny new Benz, living in a one room hovel. All about looking the part out and about, who cares if you live in a pigpen, no one really sees that ( at least that's the attitude).

[LivinginKata]

2 hours ago, Snackbar said:

Why would caring loving parents demand cash to spend on Lao Kao and noodles?

 

 

 

Because that's the cultural normal ... expected ...

[KarenBravo]

2 hours ago, Snackbar said:

Why would caring loving parents demand cash to spend on Lao Kao and noodles?

 

 

 

Because at a very early age, children in Thailand are told that they owe their parents because those parents gave them life.

Those children then do the same with their children because they usually haven't saved any money as it's all gone to support the parents.

 

Money and income is thrown back to parents and not forwards to the children.

This is one of the reasons that it's very difficult to escape poverty if you are poor already.

[Snackbar]

Nothing to do with culture

 

Excuse, meanness, bad manners, littering, kicking someone's head in, stealing from people at traffic accidents, letting kids jump around, unrestrained in the front seat of a car, bad driving, selling ones children, neglect or violence, on culture is ridiculous.

 

losing face, telling lies, envy, back biting, ignorance, cheating, racism and down right stupidity is that culture? No it is ignorance.

 

As anyone with half a brain cell would agree.

 

Spanking new motorbike to take the kid to school and no cash for a helmet. Is that culture?

[Xircal]

I wouldn't call Thai girls cheapskates, but they do get addicted to money after working in places like Pattaya and Patong very quickly. For them it's a whole new way of life to the one they grew up in in Isaan where the family home is usually a wooden frame with a number of corrugated iron sheets nailed to it.

 

They have electricity, but no running water. The water supply comes from a central tank which supplies the village and is refilled every month or so and quickly accumulates algae which comes out in large blobs when you turn the tap on.

 

Taking a shower comprises of a large water container and a bowl. You use the bowl to wash off the soap after you've cleansed yourself. It's also cold water needless to say.

 

Similarly the toilet is just the squat variety comprising of a porcelain bowl in tthe ground and a bowl which you fill with water to flush it with. The excreta travels down a pipe into an underground tank which is emptied once every two weeks by a tanker which siphons off whatever is in there.

 

There's no rubbish collection and villagers just dig a hole in the ground, dump all the rubbish in it and burn it. Anything which doesn't burn just gets dumped at the side of the road.

 

 

Poor families can hardly afford to send their kids to school and pocket money amounts to just one or two Baht a day: enough to buy a bowl of rice, but not much else.

 

After growing up in that kind of environment it's hardly surprising that Thai girls maintain the way of life they grew up in when they go to the big cities. Somebody, - Stickman maybe? - made a 1 - 5 list of what is important to all Thai girls.

 

1. Family
2. Money
3. Possessions
4. Thai boyfriend
5. Farang

I think that's the right order, but I stand to correction on that point.

 

As other contributors have remarked a large proportion of the money they make gets sent back to the family to repay the debt they owe for taking care of them during they early years. Some famililies pressure their children to get a farang boyfriend as soon as possible so that they can lift themselves out of the grinding poverty they're used to. For the girls and gay guys, becoming a hooker is an easy way of achieving that goal.

 

As for sharing a room with other girls I can understand that too. Because the family is the focal point in their lives, sharing the room with other girls provides some degree of comfort for the loneliness they feel from not having their parents nearby.

 

Criticising somebody without knowing what their circumstances are or how they grew up is grossly unfair in my opinion. Just imagine yourself as a child in the conditions I've described here and perhaps you'll have a better understanding of why they choose to live as they do.

 

[Snackbar]

Thanks for stating the obvious.

 

Poverty and hardship? There is only one sustainable way out, Education. It's easy if you apply yourself as many Thais'do with a little bit of guidance and encouragement.

 

Ask any if they would like a nice big house and they will answer - no. When what they really mean is, of course I would.

[fiddlehead]

I'd say it's mostly culture.

I bought furniture for my wife's family up in Issan and they just used it as shelving. 

They slept on the floor and piled the clean clothes on the sofa, love seat, etc. 

They eventually sold it.   
I didn't buy them any more.

 

The sister who lives in Bangkok eats street food exclusively. 
 

They all dress nicely, even though they can't afford it. 
Spend their money on makeup, whitening cream, clothes. 

Brother spends his on booze and cigarettes. 

 

It's the culture. 

I'm OK with it, and no longer try to change their minds. 

 

Just enjoy it.

[Shot]

"A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff."

 

"Have you ever noticed that their stuff is shit and your shit is stuff?"

 

George Carlin

[NamKangMan]

The "assets" are being held for her, in trust, up in Issan, and she'll be retiring back to the village at 40, if not younger.   

Edited September 12, 2016 by NamKangMan

[Xircal]

On 9/11/2016 at 10:47 AM, Snackbar said:

Thanks for stating the obvious.

 

Poverty and hardship? There is only one sustainable way out, Education. It's easy if you apply yourself as many Thais'do with a little bit of guidance and encouragement.

 

Ask any if they would like a nice big house and they will answer - no. When what they really mean is, of course I would.

 

Education? It's an easy word to say, but who's going to pay for it? The elitist class has plenty of cash to chuck around, but not the families in Isaan who have to send their kids to school. Most of them are farmers and spend their whole lives in poverty. Sending their teenage sons and daughters to University is a dream many of them can't afford.

 

Not only are the fees considerable the Universities aren't located near rural villages. So the parents have to pay for food and lodging in addition to those fees so that their children can study without having to think about who's going to pay the rent next month.

 

Westerners have an easy time of it. If we fall out of work we have welfare systems to fall back on. We have health care provision and when we retire we get a pension. Thailand has none of these things. If you don't work, you go hungry. Thaksin introduced the 30 Baht health care scheme, but there's no doctor you can call to come visit you if you fall ill. You have to go to the local hospital and take your place in the queue. But before you can do that you have to pay one of your neighbors 500 baht to transport you there in the back of their pickup truck.

 

Villagers do get a pension when they retire, but it's only 500 Baht a month. It'll buy you a bowl of rice a day but not much else. But hey, there are plenty of mango and banana trees growing wild so there's always something to eat. And if the worse comes to the worst, there are always plenty of insects flying around. I have a few pictures of some being prepared for lunch and will upload them later if you like.

 

Even if adolescents graduate with a BA degree, they're looking at between 15,000 and 30k Baht a month if they're lucky. The rest have to contend with abysmal wages in factories, hotels and the like: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/thailand/wages

 

Probably most of what they make will be sent back to the family to repay the debt they owe them so they're almost always flat broke.

 

And then they see their peers working in the bars of Pattaya and Patong who can afford to go out and blow 25k baht on an iPhone and they want it too. All they have to do to get it is to open their legs to some fat 50 year fart with smelly armpits for 15 mins and they've made 3,000 baht already!

 

So much for education.