Isaan . . . where The Land of Smiles gets its name from

[TukTuk]

10 hours ago, KaptainRob said:

We lived in the village for 3 months, mainly to rewire & replumb the house.  I also helped with our family rice harvest.  Mae had cut virtually all by hand and had hired help for the threshing & bagging.  The boys drank whisky during breaks, starting at dawn.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/wCnSAfZyY2hUfzptA-di_RREwAo8UFozx5T4b82fIPq9s4vN-91LwkcadbYoB2rqnk24xW0wSBZGKEucz0wiuXIu6v2lqeX_CVvYg6Uwn67MDEyKy7AZuLglSTLy0wfdVVWvvc2VG42BYSZMKhgYzKN7P9r8oCK8kTF1910_WTmaqxjfawyKcJKyF6hv__sB6Yv3sxUhqScxgpWomzipxu-HMMlWR0I1yJZ61H-ApLiQKrcY-K74_r2ug4-4XnZHwm6OrbPqqI0rPiqjfwCMrnb0K78uUpC4mu_EiCIrfTZxunjB80ricmAeQ7DbMUWm8npe9m1FCbNMeVr6cF_9RodLoC5jqSpv35oKrMhJdr2THSKQrbEbTp3i4stwUS7WJn04KOyA1JO4PHYZIR2CbhkkysoavLhPGrnIw1e7qFROYXKGqyu0FAH1_pkH5wEdmDd05q427FVvKop1d7kkHXcljThXxiLj1zNnn26knYj5NIf8QntXVtePt2IjHew1nwXTqwUuYuR8041TmDTt-ZyTMaEwYRwsI_eGpWHPtdjSfv6hipoYucILts1TL5hBbEH8bMYNR372Zj4O9t8PFgkfFSGtlIYnfOn2CWGnClYh74XK72zqFW74UDQr-krVDFdwHO5iHfXOMLWs5iuecT_Z-XNZXNXwG2p7hJotvoP2M8N-OT9ZkMXZPyMihZciVpHSOsIwxJlbg4PUDIRP9K49=w1024-h768-no?authuser=0

Now well into her 80's, Mae still plants several rai by hand, also weeds it (no chemicals), but now hires a harvester when available.  

Nice photo, brings the story to life.

[JamesR]

19 hours ago, TukTuk said:

The point being, they eat what ever they can find.

My BIL has gone out several times and cannot even find 1 rat to eat.

There are also no birds, which I thought was odd, until my wife told me they ate them all.

I can tell you for a fact, you will NOT find one fat, overweight Thai in our village anywhere!

Just happens to be where my wife is from.

I actually love the place, large extended family in same village, but then again, I don't have to scrounge for rats to eat.

They live there as they have no other choice and as usual the most uneducated have the most kids thus making themselves poorer, the richer educated Thai have two kids.

The Thais from other regions would not want to do work and live as the people you are describing are living, the rest of Thailand looks down on the people you are talking about as they are uneducated, have little drive to get out of poverty over the generations and have too many kids.

What I can not understand and what many educated Thais can not understand is how a Westerner can decide to marry women from such regions as they are uneducated so once the initial physical 'wow' has gone what do you talk to them about, how can you discuss and explain complex situations with them?

None of what I have written is meant to be nasty in any sense, it is what I have been told by the Thais I have known for the last forty years and based on what I have seen over the many accumulated years of going to Thailand.

[JamesR]

13 hours ago, Lowseasonlover said:

You should come to Phuket and go in 7/11 early in the mornings and see the kids buying junk, they are huge

Most school kids are not fat in Phuket as I have seen over the last 30+ years.

Now Rayong that is quite the opposite, there are many fat people, mostly kids and women. 

[RobMuir]

12 minutes ago, JamesR said:

They live there as they have no other choice and as usual the most uneducated have the most kids thus making themselves poorer, the richer educated Thai have two kids.

The Thais from other regions would not want to do work and live as the people you are describing are living, the rest of Thailand looks down on the people you are talking about as they are uneducated, have little drive to get out of poverty over the generations and have too many kids.

What I can not understand and what many educated Thais can not understand is how a Westerner can decide to marry women from such regions as they are uneducated so once the initial physical 'wow' has gone what do you talk to them about, how can you discuss and explain complex situations with them?

None of what I have written is meant to be nasty in any sense, it is what I have been told by the Thais I have known for the last forty years and based on what I have seen over the many accumulated years of going to Thailand.

True.

I sort of see Issan people the way I see Aborigines in Australia. Very friendly, but you shake your head at the decisions they make, financial, raising their kids without any pressure to educate them, female promiscuity, teenage pregnancies, alcohol abuse etc.

And their stubborn disinterest in getting out of the poverty cycle.

A lot, but not all, of the blokes who do marry them, then spend their lives complaining about "Thais and Thailand" without realising what you outlined in your post.

[JamesR]

20 hours ago, billybob said:

This is well worth a watch when the BBC take a group of young Brits to see if they can hack it in the rice fields of  Issan. Backbreaking work not far removed from slavery in some respects. 

Every Thai person I have ever met could also not live the way shown in the documentary. 

In the South there are also small villages but not as poor as the one in the documentary, they live in 'real' solid houses, I have been there many times, it is ok for a few days and then I want to go back to the more modern parts of Thailand. 

[JamesR]

3 minutes ago, RobMuir said:

True.

I sort of see Issan people the way I see Aborigines in Australia. Very friendly, but you shake your head at the decisions they make, financial, raising their kids without any pressure to educate them, female promiscuity, teenage pregnancies, alcohol abuse etc.

And their stubborn disinterest in getting out of the poverty cycle.

A lot, but not all, of the blokes who do marry them, then spend their lives complaining about "Thais and Thailand" without realising what you outlined in your post.

Quite, the educated Thais see them the same way as you describe, they would not associate with them directly unless they were employed as house servants living in seperate quarters to the owner.

They have asked me many times why do farangs marry such girls and why can they not find a nice educated Thai girl, I tell them not all farangs are educated so they marry at their level, or if they are old and want to find a girl decades younger then only this type of girl would marry them. 

[Marc26]

2 minutes ago, JamesR said:

Quite, the educated Thais see them the same way as you describe, they would not associate with them directly unless they were employed as house servants living in seperate quarters to the owner.

They have asked me many times why do farangs marry such girls and why can they not find a nice educated Thai girl, I tell them not all farangs are educated so they marry at their level, or if they are old and want to find a girl decades younger then only this type of girl would marry them. 

The ironic thing about you going on about "educated Thais" judging people......

I would say, I find "educated Thais" some of the least intelligent people I have met, if we are just judging people with higher education.

Obviously that doesn't apply to all educated Thais, I know many very intelligent ones.

But on a whole? They get blown out of the water by most of their Asian counterparts(and it's not even close)..........

 

[JamesR]

1 minute ago, Marc26 said:

The ironic thing about you going on about "educated Thais" judging people......

I would say, I find "educated Thais" some of the least intelligent people I have met, if we are just judging people with higher education.

Obviously that doesn't apply to all educated Thais, I know many very intelligent ones.

But on a whole? They get blown out of the water by most of their Asian counterparts(and it's not even close)..........

You can not educate a person to a higher level if they do not have intelligence, but it seems like you are saying it is better to be uneducated rather than educated, so next time you go to see a doctor ask if they have been educated to allow them to work in the medical field and if they say yes then walk out and go and get treatment by a rice farmer. 

"You said, But on a whole? They get blown out of the water by most of their Asian counterparts(and it's not even close).........."

Which of course means the people you are trying to defend are even more blown out of the water.

[Marc26]

Just now, JamesR said:

You can not educate a person to a higher level if they do not have intelligence, but it seems like you are saying it is better to be uneducated rather than educated, so next time you go to see a doctor ask if they have been educated to allow them to work in the medical field and if they say yes then walk out and go and get treatment by a rice farmer. 

"You said, But on a whole? They get blown out of the water by most of their Asian counterparts(and it's not even close).........."

Which of course means the people you are trying to defend are even more blown out of the water.

What I am saying is they are quick to judge others(and you to lap it up) when they are far behind their Asian counterparts.

I find it a bit ironic because if they were judged by their Asian peers, they couldn't stand close to them.

 

I

[Fluke]

10 minutes ago, JamesR said:

You can not educate a person to a higher level if they do not have intelligence, but it seems like you are saying it is better to be uneducated rather than educated, so next time you go to see a doctor ask if they have been educated to allow them to work in the medical field and if they say yes then walk out and go and get treatment by a rice farmer. 

 

Doctors need to have a high education, rice farmers do not . 

[Marc26]

51 minutes ago, JamesR said:

Quite, the educated Thais see them the same way as you describe, they would not associate with them directly unless they were employed as house servants living in seperate quarters to the owner.

They have asked me many times why do farangs marry such girls and why can they not find a nice educated Thai girl, I tell them not all farangs are educated so they marry at their level, or if they are old and want to find a girl decades younger then only this type of girl would marry them. 

You seem to take pleasure in looking down on people.

They were born into poverty, with no real, true access to higher education 

 

You seem to value "educated" Thais

Unless they went to University overseas, I would say you could look down on them more so.

They had the advantages, the education and chose to be educated in one of the worst education systems in Asia, where their degrees outside Thailand are almost worthless.

[TukTuk]

1 hour ago, JamesR said:

They live there as they have no other choice and as usual the most uneducated have the most kids thus making themselves poorer, the richer educated Thai have two kids.

The Thais from other regions would not want to do work and live as the people you are describing are living, the rest of Thailand looks down on the people you are talking about as they are uneducated, have little drive to get out of poverty over the generations and have too many kids.

What I can not understand and what many educated Thais can not understand is how a Westerner can decide to marry women from such regions as they are uneducated so once the initial physical 'wow' has gone what do you talk to them about, how can you discuss and explain complex situations with them?

None of what I have written is meant to be nasty in any sense, it is what I have been told by the Thais I have known for the last forty years and based on what I have seen over the many accumulated years of going to Thailand.

My uneducated Isaan wife, as you call them, now a US citizen, is finishing her Bachelors Degree in Nursing in the USA. 

If you never went to school because you were working the fields to eat, doesn't mean you are a stupid person.

Means you never had a chance, which most in Isaan have no one to give them that chance.

What do the people that move all the may to Thailand, get married to a person that has NO western education talk about? How do you discuss and explain complex situations with someone with a Thai education that you married?

Edited September 21, 2021 by TukTuk

[TukTuk]

10 minutes ago, Marc26 said:

You seem to take pleasure in looking down on people.

They were born into poverty, with no real, true access to higher education 

You seem to value "educated" Thais

Unless they went to University overseas, I would say you could look down on them more so.

They had the advantages, the education and chose to be educated in one of the worst education systems in Asia, where their degrees outside Thailand are almost worthless.

Marc's comments are all true. A Thai education is worthless outside Thailand.

Where I work we have employees in 142 countries, a multinational fortune 50 company.

Chinese, Indian, South Korean, Japanese, Middle East, etc.

Zero Thai's

That should tell you something.

People born into poverty, in villages where there are NO jobs and no opportunities, remain poor their entire life.

Many from Isaan are enticed to move to other locations and work in factories for 6,000 thb a month just to survive. You think they have opportunities to become the VP?

[TukTuk]

43 minutes ago, Fluke said:

Doctors need to have a high education, rice farmers do not . 

Ask yourself how Thaksin got a PhD from N Texas U in the USA when he can hardly speak English?

[TukTuk]

1 hour ago, JamesR said:

Quite, the educated Thais see them the same way as you describe, they would not associate with them directly unless they were employed as house servants living in seperate quarters to the owner.

They have asked me many times why do farangs marry such girls and why can they not find a nice educated Thai girl, I tell them not all farangs are educated so they marry at their level, or if they are old and want to find a girl decades younger then only this type of girl would marry them. 

Your opinion is your opinion only, however, it is a far distance from the truth.

You couldn't possible have any factual idea WHY all the 10,000's of foreigners got married.

How many educated Thai girls are divorced?

How many educated Thai wives are sharing the dosh with a mia noi, gik or others?

The coin always has 2 sides.

[JamesR]

4 minutes ago, TukTuk said:

My uneducated Isaan wife, as you call them, now a US citizen, is finishing her Bachelors Degree in Nursing in the USA. 

If you never went to school because you were working the fields to eat, doesn't mean you are a stupid person.

Means you never had a chance, which most in Isaan have no one to give them that chance.

What do the people that move all the may to Thailand, get married to a person that has NO western education talk about? How do you discuss and explain complex situations with someone with a Thai education that you married?

"If you never went to school because you were working the fields to eat, doesn't mean you are a stupid person."

It does mean you are uneducated though.

"Means you never had a chance, which most in Isaan have no one to give them that chance"

Well they hang around for a farang to pay their way it seems, many Thais ask me why do farangs do that.

"What do the people that move all the may to Thailand, get married to a person that has NO western education talk about? How do you discuss and explain complex situations with someone with a Thai education that you married?"

I have never met a Thai educated person who is married to an uneducated person, they won't do it.

I have seen may old farangs though married to very uneducated girls, 99% of them are usually from Issan as for most of them that is the only ones they can get.

[JamesR]

23 minutes ago, Marc26 said:

You seem to take pleasure in looking down on people.

They were born into poverty, with no real, true access to higher education 

You seem to value "educated" Thais

Unless they went to University overseas, I would say you could look down on them more so.

They had the advantages, the education and chose to be educated in one of the worst education systems in Asia, where their degrees outside Thailand are almost worthless.

The old bleeding Liberals are out in force again today I can see.

Not all of us were born rich, many of us were born poor but we worked crappy jobs and went to night school at the same time, then onto high school, university, while washing dishes etc to pay our way, then good jobs, married, had kids who were then educated and thus create a wealthy, educated family who would do the same for the next generation.

It is the same in Thailand , not all Thais were or are born rich, they push themselves and their main objective is to get an education and thus change their lives for themselves not wait for someone to give them a free ride, Thailand is full of stories of wealthy successful business people who came from nothing. 

But I hear it all the time from girls mostly from Issan when they are talking to farangs nearby, I no money, my father dead last week (he has died 20 times already), you give me money, and many farangs fall for it.

 

[TukTuk]

1 hour ago, JamesR said:

Every Thai person I have ever met could also not live the way shown in the documentary. 

In the South there are also small villages but not as poor as the one in the documentary, they live in 'real' solid houses, I have been there many times, it is ok for a few days and then I want to go back to the more modern parts of Thailand. 

This is exactly how it is in our village and area.

People live like this day in and day out, year after year.

[JamesR]

15 minutes ago, TukTuk said:

Your opinion is your opinion only, however, it is a far distance from the truth.

You couldn't possible have any factual idea WHY all the 10,000's of foreigners got married.

How many educated Thai girls are divorced?

How many educated Thai wives are sharing the dosh with a mia noi, gik or others?

The coin always has 2 sides.

"How many uneducated Thais are divorce" you ask, the same question applies to the uneducated Thais as well, as does the mia noi comment.

Most of it is not my opinion, it is the opinion of the thousand of Thais I have met over 40 years. 

These things are happening in Thailand, it is more balanced between rich and poor (we don't have any real poor) in the UK. 

I am just stating the reality of Thailand. 

[JamesR]

25 minutes ago, TukTuk said:

Marc's comments are all true. A Thai education is worthless outside Thailand.

Where I work we have employees in 142 countries, a multinational fortune 50 company.

Chinese, Indian, South Korean, Japanese, Middle East, etc.

Zero Thai's

That should tell you something.

People born into poverty, in villages where there are NO jobs and no opportunities, remain poor their entire life.

Many from Isaan are enticed to move to other locations and work in factories for 6,000 thb a month just to survive. You think they have opportunities to become the VP?

"Marc's comments are all true. A Thai education is worthless outside Thailand."

Not true, my wife's degree from the top university in BKK got her a job as a programmer in the UK many years ago.

"People born into poverty, in villages where there are NO jobs and no opportunities, remain poor their entire life."

True, not unless they get off their ar-ses and do something about it like many other Thais do. 

What is common though in Issan is to send a good looking daughter to Pattaya for example and see if they can catch a simple minded farang to subsidise their income by marriage. 

[Marc26]

2 minutes ago, JamesR said:

The old bleeding Liberals are out in force again today I can see.

Not all of us were born rich, many of us were born poor but we worked crappy jobs and went to night school at the same time, then onto high school, university, while washing dishes etc to pay our way, then good jobs, married, had kids who were then educated and thus create a wealthy, educated family who would do the same for the next generation.

It is the same in Thailand , not all Thais were or are born rich, they push themselves and their main objective is to get an education and thus change their lives for themselves not wait for someone to give them a free ride, Thailand is full of stories of wealthy successful business people who came from nothing. 

But I hear it all the time from girls mostly from Issan when they are talking to farangs nearby, I no money, my father dead last week (he has died 20 times already), you give me money, and many farangs fall for it.

What an out of touch post.......

 

You are comparing yourself, born in the UK, to a person born into poverty in a far reaching village?

Do you know how out of touch you sound?

I grew up poor in the US, homeless at times(not on street), lived in the housing projects, Mother went without food at times

But we had access to education, our parents were mostly educated.

Do you not understand that advantage?

You can't compare that to someone born into poverty, whose parents likely didn't go to school and are illiterate.
 

The post/pics you were replying to aren't your run of the mill Issan villages, they do have the opportunities you talk about, the exposure to education.

The post in question were talking about the way out villages

 

[JamesR]

35 minutes ago, TukTuk said:

Ask yourself how Thaksin got a PhD from N Texas U in the USA when he can hardly speak English?

Because he went to study in a country who's citizens can not speak real English as well.

[Marc26]

14 minutes ago, JamesR said:

"Marc's comments are all true. A Thai education is worthless outside Thailand."

Not true, my wife's degree from the top university in BKK got her a job as a programmer in the UK many years ago.

 

What University did she go to?

 

And of course there is anecdotal instances, but just going by facts and statistics, Thailand's education system is ranked extremely low in world rankings.

In Asia alone, they don't have a University in the top 50 rankings, globally not anywhere in the top 200!

Of course, that diminishes their degree and worth on a global stage.......

Edited September 21, 2021 by Marc26

[JamesR]

6 minutes ago, Marc26 said:

What an out of touch post.......

You are comparing yourself, born in the UK, to a person born into poverty in a far reaching village?

Do you know how out of touch you sound?

I grew up poor in the US, homeless at times(not on street), lived in the housing projects, Mother went without food at times

But we had access to education, our parents were mostly educated.

Do you not understand that advantage?

You can't compare that to someone born into poverty, whose parents likely didn't go to school and are illiterate.
 

The post/pics you were replying to aren't your run of the mill Issan villages, they do have the opportunities you talk about, the exposure to education.

The post in question were talking about the way out villages

"The post in question were talking about the way out villages"

The tell them to get off their ar-ses and move.

"You are comparing yourself, born in the UK, to a person born into poverty in a far reaching village?"

I did say, "it is the same in Thailand , not all Thais were or are born rich, they push themselves and their main objective is to get an education and thus change their lives for themselves not wait for someone to give them a free ride, Thailand is full of stories of wealthy successful business people who came from nothing."

There is a simple solutions though, if all the bleeding heart liberal in the West feels so bad about it they could put together a fund and get these people out of their poverty, the problem is they might just use the money to have more kids.

[Marc26]

1 minute ago, JamesR said:

"The post in question were talking about the way out villages"

The tell them to get off their ar-ses and move.

"You are comparing yourself, born in the UK, to a person born into poverty in a far reaching village?"

I did say, "it is the same in Thailand , not all Thais were or are born rich, they push themselves and their main objective is to get an education and thus change their lives for themselves not wait for someone to give them a free ride, Thailand is full of stories of wealthy successful business people who came from nothing."

There is a simple solutions though, if all the bleeding heart liberal in the West feels so bad about it they could put together a fund and get these people out of their poverty, the problem is they might just use the money to have more kids.

I think you are confusing the run of the mill Issan villages, which I agree, they have no excuses vs an outward village......there is a difference.

(Although I would point out that Thailand has a horrendous caste system that makes people like computer programmers from a very low ranked globally university think they are better than others  :) )