What's On This Page?

• Playing Games [more]
• Misinterpreting Signals [more]
• Thai Men [more]
• The Oldest Profession [more]
• Thai working girls are not representative of Thai girls [more]
• Extreme Conservatism [more]
• The Bride Price [more]

Thailand - Girls Page 2

Playing Games

Last updated: 28th April 2009

A correspondent who was trying to keep a long distance relationship going with a girl in Bangkok wrote in one of his e-mails that he didn't want to 'play games'. He was sending money to the girl every month but had the usual problems where she wasn't available at certain times or had her phone switched off.

He didn't know what was going on and was even thinking of getting a private investigator to check up on her - a complete waste of money, in my opinion. I understood where he was coming from but like so many foreign men who meet Thai girls, he didn't have a clue about how Thais think or act.

After sleeping and eating, play is the next favourite Thai activity. In Thailand, life isn't taken seriously. To be seen to be worrying about something or thinking too much (kit maak) is almost regarded a crime and will most likely result in an admonishment.

Ask Thai students what they did over the weekend and if the answer isn't that they slept, it will be that they played. Thais do not 'use' or 'work on' computers; they play with them. The common verb for interacting with a computer is len, which means to play.

I am firmly of the opinion that idioms provide accurate insights into cultural behaviour. If an idiom exists, it means two things. Firstly, that what the idiom describes is fairly common behaviour and, secondly, that everyone understands the idiomatic meaning. Now, consider this.

The Thai idiom for flirting is len huu, len dtaa. It translates to 'play with ears, play with eyes' and it is uncannily accurate. There couldn't be a more accurate expression to describe how Thai girls behave.

It's easy for me to pick out newly-arrived farang males who don't understand Thailand or Thai women. They are the ones who walk around grinning from ear to ear like young boys in a toy shop. The men who do understand Thailand and Thai women don't have the same stupid grin. (And a few even end up throwing themselves off tall buildings after a few years of living in Thailand.)

Everywhere I go in Thailand, I meet pretty young girls who openly flirt by smiling sweetly and telling me what I want to hear. My eyes and my ears are constantly played with. I know from experience though that unless the girl is a prostitute, it is very unlikely anything will happen beyond the flirting stage.

It's kind of strange how Thais girls you meet never admit to having boyfriends but you can guarantee that any reasonable looking girl past the age of 15 will have a Thai boyfriend (maybe more) in the background. Something as minor as this doesn't stop them flirting and playing games though.

I like to back up what I say with examples so here is an example.

A group of Thai women were trying to set me up with one of their colleagues who they swore was single. This kind of thing isn't unusual but normally it is fairly obvious why the girl/woman in question is single.

On this occasion though, the girl wasn't old or ugly. On the contrary, she was young and extremely attractive. I had severe doubts that she was really single but the teasing continued for a couple of months with the group trying to set us up.

While this was going on, the girl herself just smiled at me sweetly and alluringly, thus playing along with the rest of the group.

After ignoring them for a while, I thought I would test the situation so I asked around about the girl and sure enough, I was told she had a boyfriend. This was exactly what I expected.

However, the teasing continued. I told the group I was going travelling and they suggested I take the girl along with me. My response was to tell them that her boyfriend wouldn't be very happy. Now, knowing that I knew, her response was to tell me that she wasn't married yet. That might have been true but having a boyfriend - even without being married - wasn't exactly the same as being single. They were just playing with me and I knew it.

To my correspondent who said he didn't want to 'play games', I would respectively suggest that Thailand is not the best country to visit if you don't like playing games.

So, why do the girls do it and what's the answer?

It has a lot to do with the Thai culture of not taking life too seriously. Thinking a lot and getting heavy too early on in a relationship is not a good thing. But it's more than that.

Many Thai men and many foreign men in Thailand on vacation just want to play games as well. They are not interested in a serious relationship but just want to have their fun with as many girls as possible. The girls know this so they play games too, as a kind of defensive action.

There are different ways you can react. You can just say, "I don't want to play games," dump the girl and find another. However, the same thing will happen every time.

From my own experience in the past - and from what I have heard from other men - another reason the girls play games is to test you. Most suffer from terrible insecurity and want to know how serious you are.

If you leave after a few games, then you couldn't have been very serious. However, if you put up with lots of nonsense but still stick around, they know you are serious. All of a sudden, the games will stop and they will even apologise for having messed you around.

I have lots of sympathy for Thai girls and understand why they act the way they do. There are good Thai men around but there are a lot of rascals. It's the same with farang men in Thailand. Along with the good guys, there are a lot of sex tourists and sexpats who don't really respect individual girls.

If you don't like playing games in relationships, avoid Thailand and Thai girls. If you want a Thai wife or partner for a serious relationship, expect lots of games initially but if you hang in and pass the test, you might still achieve a happy ending.

It also helps if you treat everything in Thailand as a game - a joke. If you are old, fat, bald and ugly without much money and you tried to date a gorgeous 19 year-old girl in the Western world, everyone would think it was a joke and they would laugh.

It's the same in Thailand except that the gorgeous 19 year-old is also in on the joke and makes out that she is serious about you. When she leaves for another man who is better looking, younger or richer, don't be sad. Remember that it was only a joke in the first place. How could anything so utterly ridiculous have been genuine - even in Thailand? Think about it.

Misinterpreting Signals

Last updated: 28th April 2009

It starts with the famous Thai smile.

If I had one Baht for every time a good looking Thai girl has smiled sweetly at me, I would be a wealthy man by now. It started the minute I stepped off the plane on my first trip to Thailand in 1987 and it has never stopped.

A sweet smile from a pretty girl in the Western world might mean that she is interested in you. Thais smile for all manner of reasons but I heard from a resident farang (who had been told this by a Thai) that only one kind of smile is good. What a sweet smile doesn't mean - necessarily - is that she is interested in you. Even girls who are as uninterested as it is possible to be will still smile very sweetly.

It's not a problem. It's better to receive a smile than a scowl or a mouthful of abuse. It's only a problem if you start misinterpreting smiles and other actions and, as a result, start to get the wrong ideas.

But it goes beyond smiling. If a Western girl agrees to a dinner date, it probably means that even if she may not be that interested at the time, she at least wants to find out more about you. It's generally a good sign. To a Thai girl a dinner invitation means free food.

A large proportion of Thais baulk at the thought of spending more than about Bt100 on a meal. However, many like pizza. Pizza isn't considered an expensive meal in the West but it is in Thailand compared to the cost of a standard Thai meal of rice or noodles.

It is therefore no coincidence that on several occasions in the past when I have invited Thai girls out to dinner they have wanted to eat pizza. Also, when a meal offer comes along from a 'rich' farang (Thais believe that all foreigners have bottomless pits of money at their disposal) it isn't unusual for the girl to invite several of her friends along to share in the feast.

She may not even mention this but what you thought was going to be an intimate meal with just the two of you turns into a party for a bunch of hungry Thais and your primary responsibility is to pick up the tab at the end of the meal.

If it's a first date where she is nervous and wants to bring along a friend, that's fine, but on the occasions when I've fallen for this it has been obvious her friends were just there for free food. Also, the argument that she is a little afraid of being alone with you - which is why she brought a bunch of friends along - doesn't quite wash if you have already been out alone together.

I thought I was wise to all this but even so, I was taken again by a girl I once met in Bangkok. We met and got chatting, and she hinted she was hungry so I invited her to eat. She didn't have a chance to call any hungry friends and there were no pizza restaurants nearby. We went to a very ordinary Thai-style restaurant near the main road.

She browsed the menu and told me she wanted fried rice. It was about Bt30. However, when I wasn't paying attention she slipped in an order for a huge portion of the biggest tiger prawns I have ever seen in my life. They were the most expensive item on the menu.

I was waiting for a couple of plates of cheap fried rice to arrive but Moby Dick's younger brothers, covered in batter with a sweet sauce, arrived instead.

There was so much meat on the prawns that she couldn't eat them all but so long as a stupid farang was picking up the bill, she did her best to get through as much expensive food as she could. She wasn't going to miss an opportunity like this.

The prawn dish she ordered was about Bt600. I spoke to her a couple of times on the phone afterwards while I was in Bangkok but we never met again. She wanted me to take her and a group of her friends out dancing so that I could pay for their evening out but I declined her generous offer.

I tried calling her again after I returned home from Bangkok but she just stopped answering her phone. I had served my purpose and she had now lost interest.

Exchanging phone numbers is something else that means very little with Thai girls. This may be a good sign in the West but in Thailand it means little. Even if things start off well, the girl's interest can end very abruptly.

When I used to come to Thailand as a tourist I made lots of observations. I noticed - naturally - lots of lovely girls. But something else I noticed was the behaviour of farang expats who had been around for a while. I noticed that the girls they were with weren't exactly anything to write home about, and also that the men didn't seem to pay much attention to very attractive girls.

That seemed most strange. You could spot the tourists because they were the ones with their tongues hanging out, but the expats just ignored the good looking girls. Why, I wondered? Well, now it has become a lot clearer.

I have been led down the garden path so many times by Thai girls before I realised they weren't interested (and they had never been interested in the first place) that now I can't really be bothered.

At a place where I worked, I taught mainly females but didn't show any interest in any of them. One day I heard some gossip along the lines that I must be gay. I asked the girl who told me why people thought this.

She said some very complimentary things about me to the effect that I was quite eligible but they couldn't work out why I paid no interest to any of the girls. I told her that I don't like to get involved at work because if a relationship doesn't work out it can get very awkward.

But also - and more to the point - I knew that any girl I was interested in was 99.9% certain to already have a Thai boyfriend so there wasn't any point in making a fool of myself. She thought about this for a moment and then told me, "You're right." I know I'm right.

So, is all lost? Is it possible to find a great girl in Thailand who isn't just after an ATM on legs to provide for her, her extended family, and any sick livestock?

Of course it is; there are still plenty around. However, it is not as easy as it may first appear when you arrive in Thailand. When I first arrived, I honestly thought I could pick any girl I wanted. Experience has shown me that definitely isn't the case.

The only thing that has changed is my knowledge of Thai behaviour and that now I no longer misinterpret signals. If a beautiful Thai girl smiles at you, smile back, feel good, let it boost your ego, enjoy the moment, but don't be misled.

There is a very good reason why Thailand is known as the Land of Smiles.

Thai Men

Last updated: 28th April 2009

This page is supposed to be about Thai girls but much of their behaviour is shaped by the behaviour of Thai men. Generally, I like Thai men because they are friendly and non-aggressive but I don't hear many good things about them from Thai girls.

After hearing so many times that all Thai men were untrustworthy and unfaithful, I knew this couldn't be true so I spoke to some female friends. Their estimate was that 70% are bad and the other 30% are OK.

The major problem appears to be playing around with other girls and I have noticed that many are quite lecherous. In the past I have been out with a Thai girl, and groups of Thai men have just stared, completely disregarding the fact she was with me. It's quite funny when it happens.

The girls tell me that Thai men keep existing girlfriends on the go even if new ones come along. Serial monogamy isn't a big thing but polygamy seems very popular. The concept of having major and minor wives still exists although it is no longer spoken about in polite company. To some extent, men with power and money are still expected to take advantage of their position in life by having a few mia noi on the go.

The apparent surplus of females in Thailand that I mentioned earlier makes it easy for the men to mess around, and the patron/client culture lends itself well to wealthy male patrons looking after pretty, young female clients financially while the pretty, young clients take care of them sexually.

What has surprised me on a few occasions is how married Thai men chase after female colleagues, making no secret of the fact. One female friend is constantly hounded by a male colleague who is married and has children. She also had a boyfriend but none of this has deterred him.

Incredible as it seems now, when I used to visit Thailand as a tourist I thought that Thai men weren't interested in girls very much. That couldn't be further from the truth. What is true is that they aren't interested in the type of girls that most farang men head straight for (and neither, these days, am I).

Most Thai girls would prefer a Thai man if they could find one they could trust completely. Relationships are a lot easier with a shared culture and language. What is most strange is that one of the reasons cited by Thai girls for looking for a Western man is they are more faithful. I've never understood that one. Perhaps the girls watch too many romantic Hollywood movies and think all foreign men are like movie versions of Richard Gere or Tom Hanks?

Contrary to popular belief, Thai girls do not dream about sad old farang sex tourists and sexpats sitting on bar stools in various parts of Thailand. Their ideal partner would probably be Thai but evidence suggests a strong liking for Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and other Asian men.

In the past there has been a Thai fascination with Japan - and there still is - but the current craze is for Korea and all things Korean. Some of the most popular Thai TV shows come from Korea and many younger Thai women lust over Korean actors and singers. One of the biggest individual heartthrobs to appear in Thailand in recent years was the Prince (now King) of Bhutan.

Nonetheless, the Thais are a pragmatic race and even though a Korean movie star or Himalayan prince might be a Thai girl's dream, she will settle for a lot less if the man is a good person and a reliable provider - especially if she has children to raise.

Thai men succumb to the same weaknesses as many foreign men in Thailand. Alcohol addiction is a big problem for the weak-willed and it ruins relationships as well as lives. There is also a temptation to trade in partners for newer models.

There is no class distinction. I knew two very well educated female university lecturers who had (past tense) equally educated husbands. One woman's husband (a doctor) decided he no longer wanted her after she hit 40 so went off with an 18 year-old. She laughed when she told me. The other lady's husband was an alcoholic and died of liver failure in his early 40's.

A Thai friend of mine who includes being a DJ among his various occupations left his very charming wife and was last seen chasing young beer girls who work at the bars he DJ's at. Even I could see that he was chasing rainbows. He's a really nice guy but this is the effect Thailand can have on men - even Thai ones.

My conversations with massage girls over the years have given me quite a lot of insight into the behaviour of Thai men further down the social scale. Being able to enjoy frequent massages is a benefit of living in Thailand and I go often. I make a point of talking with the girls as it allows me to practice my Thai, it makes them feel more relaxed, and I learn things I wouldn't normally find out.

Seven or eight times out of ten I have almost exactly the same conversation. The girl is from somewhere in Isaan with at least one child back home being looked after by her parents or a sibling. The father of the child ran off before, or shortly after, the child was born.

The girls generally have nothing good to say about the fathers of their children. They say the men don't want to work and are only interested in drinking beer with their friends and taking it easy. With the responsibility of a child (or children) the girls go off to find work elsewhere in the country while living as cheaply as they can so they can send as much money home as possible.

It's an awful life for them and they miss their kids growing up. Lots of them do it though and they don't feel at all sorry for themselves.

There is also a sinister side to some Thai men which scares the girls and allows the men to control them. Just as Thai students are afraid of Thai teachers but not foreign ones, it's the same with Thai girls and Thai men.

One of my regular massage girls started getting strange phone calls from a Thai guy she didn't know. He wanted to meet her and seemed to know lots of personal details about her but she didn't know how he knew. He stalked her by phone for a while and she was terrified.

With another girl, as soon as we got inside the massage room after I had chosen her she started getting undressed once she realised I could speak and understand some Thai. Although this is highly commendable, I normally expect a bit of a massage first so I was a bit taken aback!

It turned out the reason she had started disrobing was to show me the bruises that covered her body - and there were lots of them. She had been in an abusive relationship for a long time but after yet another beating she had finally decided to leave.

She went to stay with her sister and - needing money - got a massage job. She didn't know anyone at the massage shop but was desperate to tell someone her story instead of keeping it all bottled up inside. As a result, I got to hear everything.

She had been working hard in a beauty salon in Phuket. Her Thai boyfriend only worked a few months a year in the high season buying bottled beer for Bt16 a bottle and selling it to stupid farangs for Bt50.

He liked to drink and was apparently very social among his friends but when he got home drunk he would beat her. This must have turned him on because after beating her he would also have non-consensual sex with her.

He ordained as a monk for less than a month and told her the experience had changed him forever but the drinking and beatings continued. Leopards never change their spots, or rather tigers can't get rid of their stripes as the saying goes in Thai.

She bought a pickup truck in her own name and was paying instalments of Bt11,000 a month but he used the truck for his beer business. He would also steal money from her to fund the drinking sessions with his friends.

After the final beating he ran off, taking the pickup truck and her money with him. She told the police but they weren't really interested. She fled for her own safety with two children to take care of and some serious financial difficulties.

There doesn't seem to be any equivalent of the UK Child Support Agency in Thailand. I met another girl shortly after the above incident who was seven months pregnant and extremely stressed out.

The father of her unborn child had run off with one of her friends after getting her pregnant. The pregnancy had forced her to give up work and she was so short of money that she couldn't even afford a Bt600 ultrasound check for the baby.

The father obviously didn't have any kind of a conscience and there seems to be no mechanism in Thailand for forcing men by law to be financially responsible for offspring they have fathered.

Thai men. There are good guys too but you do tend to hear a lot of stories about the bad ones. The Nation also reported how Thailand is becoming a more dangerous place for women with increased incidents of spousal abuse cases, gang rapes, and violence against women.

Thai men can also be very possessive, jealous and insecure regarding women. I've not encountered this very much but have had two notable personal experiences.

When I first started seeing my first Thai girlfriend she had a Thai admirer who was hoping to marry her. The only problem for him was that she wasn't interested in him. Nonetheless, this didn't stop him from calling and sending me messages.

He was innocuous enough as a person but this went on for rather a long time and got a little boring. He did give me a laugh though when one message he sent said "Fluck you." In the end he realised he was on to a loser and gave up. He may even have married another girl.

The other incident involved a girl who works near to where I live. I walk everywhere and have got to know a lot of the local Thais, who I chat to. This particular girl works in a laundry and although she is quite cute I have never had any desire to begin a relationship with her.

I hadn't seen her for a while but as I walked past one day she was there. I wasn't in a hurry so stopped to chat to find out what she had been up to. I was aware of a Thai male in the shop but thought nothing of it.

After chatting to her for about 10 minutes the lad approached us and put his arm around her as if to tell me she belonged to him. He then started speaking to me. At first I didn't realise what he was going on about but the seriousness registered when I saw the look on his face.

He stood between her and me, and told me in Thai that she had a boyfriend now and that he didn't like me speaking to her. He seemed to be almost in tears. At first I was angry with his childish behaviour but later I felt sorry for him.

Thai society is all about face and the amount of face a person has is determined by social status and wealth. These boys from poor backgrounds have nothing. Their only possession is probably a motorbike, they have no money, probably received only a minimum education, and are unlikely ever to earn much money throughout their whole life.

When farangs turn up in Thailand, even if they aren't particularly rich by farang standards, they are very rich compared to poor Thais, and the boys can't compete.

The reason I haven't experienced many problems like this is probably because in the south there aren't too many mixed marriages. However, I'd be interested to know how much resentment there is from Thai men in places like Isaan where lots of girls get involved with foreigners.

The Oldest Profession

Prostitution and Thailand are synonymous. This isn't a fact many Thais like but they only have themselves to blame if they don't like it. Lots of Thais (and not just the girls directly involved) make a very good living from the industry.

Prostitution is actually illegal in Thailand but the Thais have convenient ways to circumvent laws. The huge massage parlours in Bangkok officially just provide a massage service so there is nothing illegal about that. Whatever else happens is just between two consenting adults.

It's a very difficult subject to discuss and evokes very emotional debates.

The girls I have met who sell sex weren't forced into the industry. They come from poor backgrounds and have little education. Because of their social status and education they will never get a decent paying job in Thailand.

They have the option of doing menial work for a pittance of a salary, or they can live in a fun tourist area where they can sleep until noon and let foreign men pay them to take them out eating and dancing.

They can earn a lot of money this way so what is the best option? Hard, menial work for a very small salary or a high monthly income just by having fun? The latter option means having to have sex with strangers but for many poor Thai girls it is a small price to pay.

There is a huge difference between prostitutes in Thailand and elsewhere. In most countries men just use prostitutes for sex. In Thailand, foreign men fall in love with them.

It's not impossible to find a good partner this way but the fact the girl has chosen this career path means that her primary concern in life is money.

A genuine good Thai girl would be horrified at having to sell her body to make money.

Thai working girls are not representative of Thai girls

On the first page about Thai girls I spoke about the different types of Thai girls. Many Internet resources I have read purport to be talking about Thai girls when actually they are talking about Thai prostitutes. There are apparently many men who have encountered bar girls in Thailand, have been ripped off, and now have a view of what 'Thai girls' are like. This is a little unfair, to say the least.

They are not the same and this is a very important point to make. This career option is not the only choice, but for some it is an easy and convenient choice. By choosing to do it the girl has prioritised money as the most important thing in her life above morality, trust, integrity and honesty.

If you choose to get involved with a bar girl and end up getting cheated, what did you expect? However, this is what happens. Foreign men arrive in Thailand and within a matter of hours encounter bar girls. I understand why they do it and it is because of some very basic human needs but there are big risks attached.

Have fun with them but don't believe anything they say and try not to get emotionally attached because that's when the problems begin.

Extreme Conservatism

When I speak to farangs about how conservative many Thai girls are, there are still some who roll their eyes in disbelief as if I am completely stupid. One guy told me the girls' supposed virginity was all an act just to make them more desirable.

After all, Bangkok is the sex capital of the world, isn't it? It only follows then that Thailand is the nearest thing we have these days to ancient Rome - just one big orgy.

I'm sorry to shatter illusions but actually it isn't and it says a lot about farangs living in Thailand who think otherwise. It also says a lot about the kind of Thai girls they associate with.

I know lots of Thai girls in their late 20's or early 30's who have never had a boyfriend and have no sexual experience. They are quite scared of men and terrified of sex although many are very inquisitive. I don't believe this to be true; I know this to be true.

Southern Thailand is the most conservative area of all but this type of conservatism exists everywhere. The Thai term riep roi is often applied to good Thai girls who don't mess around. Getting involved with such girls means several things.

Firstly, they will be very reluctant to meet you alone and will often bring a friend. Forget about going to their place or them coming to your place. Not only will they be scared of what you might try to do but they will not want to be seen by other Thais going to a man's place. They have their reputations to think of.

Intimate contact can take a very long time. It is not a case of waiting three dates before making your move as might be the case in the UK or the USA; it may be a case of waiting years. One girl I know had a Thai boyfriend she saw for two-and-a-half years and all he was ever allowed to do was kiss her on the cheek.

Thailand is full of contrasts and this is just one of them. There are thousands of bar girls and naughty massage girls everywhere, but if you want to find a good girl you go to the other extreme.

It can be confusing because even the good girls like to flirt.

Quite a few girls that have flirted with me and suggested meeting later haven't bothered turning up. I know for a fact that many riep roi girls flirt online these days with foreign males. They can explore what it is like having contact with a male while being very safe, thousands of miles away sitting behind a computer.

I would say to any man who 'chats' online to a Thai girl to be very wary and not to have high expectations. Some girls deliberately lead men on but some just have no idea why foreign men are chatting to them.

One of my Thai friends is a very respectable, well educated girl. She has a boyfriend and is planning to marry. She told me she had been using MSN to chat to a foreign man. Naively, she only did this to improve her English.

I don't think the foreign man was chatting to her to improve her English though. The conversation started off normally and they must have exchanged photos. She's a very attractive girl.

She said that he then started asking 'bedroom' questions. After this, he declared his love for her and said he wanted to marry her.

She explained she had a boyfriend and wasn't interested, at which he told her to f*** off. Nice guy. What this demonstrated to me is how so many farang men don't understand Thai girls, and how so many Thai girls don't understand farang men.

The Bride Price

Last updated: 28th April 2007

Unlike countries such as India where a dowry is paid to the groom by the bride's family, the culture in Thailand is the other way round. When a marriage takes place, the groom must pay the bride's family.

The first point to make - an important one - is that this isn't another scam dreamt up by the Thais to squeeze a bit more money out of unsuspecting farangs. It's a very traditional part of Thai culture.

When a man takes a wife, this is the way he expresses his gratitude to the girl's parents for raising and educating her, and turning her into the woman he deems worthy enough to be his wife. After many years of care and nurturing, he is taking away a valuable asset from them so some compensation is required.

There is also an aspect of 'face' involved. The amount is not a closely guarded secret. People will know what it is and obviously a higher price is good for the girl and her family. If, as a farang man, you plan to marry a Thai girl, don't think of this as a con. It's not and you need to be very sensitive about the issue because there is a lot of 'face' at stake.

There are two basic components associated with the bride price although it seems to get a bit more involved with very 'hi-so' girls - more about that in a moment.

sin-sot (สินสอด) is a gift of money and kong-mun (ของหมั้น) is a gift of gold.

Naturally, upon being told about this, I was interested to hear what kind of amounts are involved. There is no set amount and - to some extent - it is open to negotiation between the groom and the bride's parents. There are various factors involved.

How old is she? How beautiful is she? What kind of family does she come from? How pure is she? (You can start to understand now why Thai society continually drums into girls the importance of remaining chaste.) What kind of education has she had? What kind of work does she do? How many female siblings does she have?

The girl who told me about this is very virtuous and well-educated. She is very good looking, from a good family, an only daughter, and has a good job. Her sin-sot value was assessed at Bt400,000 and her kong-mun value at five baat of gold. (One baat of gold is equal to 15 grammes and worth about Bt10,000 at current market rates.) In addition, her boyfriend has already bought her a new car and various other gifts.

The lowest values would be about Bt30,000 to Bt50,000 in cash and one or two baat of gold for a country girl with a very basic level of education.

With the very best girls that Thailand has to offer - actresses, singers, and the general 'hi-so' crowd, there are apparently no limits. A lot more money and gold obviously but also land, a Benz, a condo, a large diamond ring. The list can go on and on.

The payment can be made in one instalment at the time of the wedding or, if the couple decide on a period of engagement, half can be paid when they get engaged and the remainder when they marry.

I mentioned the 'face' aspect and a big bride price buys a lot of public face for the bride and her family. However, once the sin-sot and kong-mun have been handed over, the bride's parents can (if they so desire) give some of it back to the groom privately without anyone knowing. This is purely a face-saving measure.