The documentary about a 60 year old Englishman and his 27 year old Thai wife is filmed through the eyes of the son of the Englishman who is a similar age to his Dad's new wife.
Anyway you can watch the documentary yourself and read the raft of articles that relate to it at your leisure by just searching "Mee and my Dad" on Google since I have no wish to repeat here what others have already said.
However the documentary does raise some questions for me about cross cultural marriage and particularly older men marrying young Thai women.
- What do Thai women understand by the word love?
- Are all similar relationships about money rather than love?
- Why would a young Thai woman be attracted to an aging Western male in the first place?
- Do most Thai women have a similar outlook to Mee?
- Given that Mee is quite open in the video about her attraction being purely based on money how does this affect your view of Thai women?
- Do Thai women have similar values when marrying a Thai man?
- Would you go ahead with a marriage that you know is based on money rather than love?
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5 comments:
I'd be interested to know some of your own answers to those questions. I see you've been playing around with your layout. I did like your old header though.
I agree with Emm, I would definitely be more interested in your experiences and answers as they relate to the film.
As for me...I have yet to buy a water buffalo but the new pump on the farm was named after me.
Mike apologies for not commenting for a few days, I have read your posts but my workload has left me very tired and short on time.
I think with the odd exception any Thai/Western relationship is based from the Thai's side as a pure money thing, why else would they want someone years older and from a culture that is to them a little loud and rather coarse. Over time a proper relationship can be built and the Thai half of it will become reliant on their partners money, more accustomed to the stranger western ways and see that the older half is sincere about making the relationship work. At the end of the day if the couple break up I believe the Thai person can walk away and start afresh a lot more easier than the falang, they are losing money but generally the falang is losing someone he/she genuinely cares about and that bites a lot harder. As far as your last question goes then I am in a relationship that started about money and has built into a strong partnership whose vehicle is fuelled by money. I am old enough to know that if my money dries up then our life together will eventually fade and die, but in the western world money is also one of the main reasons why marriages fail. In answer to your question I would however not marry someone if it was purely based on money.
Emm/Talen. Thanks for the input guys. I will answer the questions in another post (planned) and try to relate them to my own personal experience.
Martyn I agree, which makes me think more and more that the "no money no honey" quote is perhaps not that far off the mark. Of course there are exceptions but there are also a lot of relationships like Mee and my Dad.
I've just come across a quote today, from a social psychologist, Erich Fromm, which tends to paint all relationships in a similar light. It's an idea I've come across before, that relationships are merely the best you can get with whatever bargaining tools you have.
"Love is often nothing but a favourable exchange between two people who get the most of what they can expect, considering their value on the personality market. "
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