Isan women, the raw reality (part 2)

In part 2 we continue with the 26-year-old beauty who works in a jewelry store. As already mentioned in part 1, it concerns a farmer's daughter, a farmer's daughter who has successfully completed a university course (ICT).

She not only does the work of a saleswoman, but also the administration and inventory management. And she wins orders and draws up the contracts for them. Her latest success was delivering rings to all graduates of the police academy in Ubon. It wasn't just about rings, a photo book also had to be made. At the graduation ceremony she had to give a speech to 100-200 people. As a follow-up assignment, she had to supply T-shirts for the new recruits, for which she also designed the design. So at home in many markets.

Her boyfriend – they are getting married next year – is 10 years older and from Bangkok. Furthermore, he is her boss as the owner of the jewelry store. Yet she is clearly the superior in the relationship. For example, he had to give up drinking alcohol - he has indeed not had a drop in a year - and he is not allowed to smoke around her, even in the open air. However, she does not earn much: the minimum wage plus part of the (meager) turnover. But as an extra, she has a business in insurance via the internet. In any case, her income is sufficient to pay off a second-hand car plus the scooter she gave to her brother as a gift. But she lives very frugally, because she never goes out, she doesn't drink or smoke, of course, and she buys clothes together with a friend who has the same nice figure. Most Isan women do not drink or drink very moderately, although there are clear and sometimes extreme exceptions to this.

She also takes care of her grandfather who lives alone - she brings him every dinner - because caring for grandparents still seems to be reserved for daughters and granddaughters. She has done fitness and Thai boxing. And she sometimes practices on her boyfriend when she is angry with him. Has he become a spoiled child? Not quite. Until recently she helped her parents with the rice harvest, but that has now ended because she basically works seven days a week, although she still occasionally helps her parents in the evenings with, for example, packing the dragon fruit harvest. She is good with a casting net, a typical Isan custom. And she can cook well, which unfortunately many young women can no longer do. She also keeps score with farmer's bridge.

Why do I mention that? Because many farangs think that Thais cannot do mental arithmetic. This idea has been drilled into the minds of farangs because they are always confronted with a calculator at tourist markets. But that is only intended as a service to the farangs, because here in the local market no one uses a calculator. Everything is done from memory. Besides, there is absolutely no reason to believe that Westerners are smarter than Asians. A recent report from the Wall Street Journal indicates this: 73% of students at the eight most prestigious schools in New York, such as Stuyvesant High School and Bronx School of Science, have an Asian background. So only 27% remains for all other varieties. And you only get into those schools if you are extremely smart. As a farang, it would almost give you an inferiority complex. So for those who like to make derogatory comments about Thai people, remember that you are probably even dumber yourself. In any case, I don't dare to do it anymore.

A few final notes on our 26-year-old beauty: she speaks Isan with my wife, Thai with her boyfriend, and (fair) English with me. And when she happened to know that I had run out of whipped cream, she brought a liter pack of whipped cream. And that while she doesn't like whipped cream herself. I write this because many farangs assume it is a one-way street: money and goods from farang to Thai clean and sometimes services in the other direction. However, I certainly don't have that experience. I have received gifts such as T-shirts from various Isan women. And all without ulterior motives. But of course you can only expect that from women who can afford it financially. Sometimes, however, I get some from women who can't really afford it. For example, once I was given a fresh pineapple cut into pieces and presented on a plate by an employee of my wife who had won 2.000 baht in a lottery. All I had to do was put the whipped cream on the pineapple myself.

Recently I received another clear example of Thai willingness to do something for others: a niece of a friend of ours was involved in an inheritance case and was in danger of not getting anything out of it. When a friend of ours heard that, he called his father in Bangkok who is a lawyer there. That father offered to help the niece for just the travel allowance. He has already been, but after his trip to Ubon he still had to drive three hours - brought by his son - to get to the niece. He will appear in court for the second time next month. Of course, there are examples of the opposite. For example, two very elderly brothers dispute ownership of a piece of land. This got so bad that one of the brothers had to go to jail pending trial. Everything is possible here, no one will be surprised.

However, it is clear that our 26-year-old beauty is an independent woman who is definitely not afraid to confront her boyfriend. For example, she once had words with her boyfriend that left her only whispering for three days. Farangs who hope to find a helpful woman here who says yes and amen to everything can be disappointed.

My second example is also a picture of a woman, also a farmer's daughter and approximately 30 years old. She also demands that her boyfriend not consume alcohol (which he indeed no longer does) and that he pays her almost all the money he earns every day. He may only have a maximum of 100 baht left over. But unlike my first example, she has been a bit lazy and usually has no work. She prefers to spend the money and I sometimes meet her in Central Plaza where you don't normally meet the peasantry. So no woman to have a relationship with. Despite her good looks.

A third example concerns a woman who had her first daughter at the age of seventeen and her second three years later. She lived with her parents (rice farmers) in a hamlet wedged between the Mun River and a tributary. There was only one road to that hamlet. You would think she had no chance of building a reasonable life, but luckily that wasn't so bad. Her two very attractive daughters are now 26 and 23 years old and both have completed academic studies. They are now both teachers, but they are not yet permanent employees and, despite their academic studies, they are not paid the minimum wage even though they have to participate fully at school. The youngest is even busy with additional studies (during weekends and holidays) for a year and a half for which she has to pay another 14.000 baht. She must complete that study to be eligible for a government job.

The eldest married a childhood friend a year ago; Like many boys with little education, under pressure from his girlfriend - now wife - he was able to get a permanent job at a university. They recently had a baby boy. The preparations for the wedding only took a few days. The parents meet and some arrangements are made and a date is set (usually about 4-5 days later). Then a busy time begins and the bride is made up for some beautiful photos that will then be included on the invitation. The invitation will be personally delivered to the invitees. On the day of the wedding, the bridal couple must of course look their best. If there is plenty of money available, the preparations usually take a little longer, but there is usually not enough money available for Isan families.

What is the situation now? In addition to the parents, the mother's two daughters, son-in-law, grandchild and two bedridden parents live in the parental home. In a house without dividing walls, but only some curtains here and there, so with extremely little privacy for the young couple, among others. How do they manage financially? In any case, hard work. The daughters still help out in the fields - despite their academic degrees - and because their rice fields border the river they have two harvests a year. However, when the water in the river is low it has to be pumped up - with a communal pump from the village - but that costs diesel of course. And if the water in the river is too high, the harvest is lost, for which they receive compensation from the government, but it is extremely meager. The rice harvest could not finance the study - and the necessary motorcycles of course - so both father and mother had to look for extra work. The mother found that with my wife. That meant getting up at three o'clock to take care of the parents and do some other necessary chores and when she got home again there was of course plenty of work to do. My wife worked seven days a week and only took time off to work on her land, for cremations in the village and to take her parents to the hospital. So a hard life for her. Yet I know her as an exceptionally cheerful woman. My wife and I once took her to a restaurant in town. She had never experienced that before. She had never gone further than a simple food stall on the side of the road.

Now that she has become a grandmother, she takes care of her grandchild and only comes to work with us when her eldest daughter is free. When they were still students, her daughters looked for holiday work and weekend work. They did this as a sales assistant at Big C and also as a holiday worker for my wife for a few years. That's how I got to know them. The youngest daughter is actually quite ambitious and does not want to end up as a teacher. She sees that as an interim solution. Her motto is, first make a career and then find a boyfriend. And then of course a boyfriend on her level. That could be a farang, but an attractive farang. So not too old. But there is no real willingness to emigrate, so in practice farang as a potential life partner can be ruled out.

A fourth example concerns a 40-year-old woman from Laos (but what is the difference between a Laotian and an Isan?). She ended up in Bangkok at a very young age and was more or less kept as a house slave by a family, making her illiterate, unable to do arithmetic and unable to even cook. Helped by the neighbors, she managed to escape and subsequently met her current husband in Bangkok. They then went to a village near us and rented a shack there, a house without windows and very meager even by Isan standards. But cheap. They have been given some land by the government and are growing rice there.

In the meantime, they now have a 20-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter. The son works as a prospective mechanic and therefore does not yet earn the minimum wage. The daughter is a very smart girl and the mother does everything she can to give her a good future. She went to a good secondary school in Ubon and was able to keep up well, without the usual extra lessons. Unfortunately, she became pregnant when she was 14 and even made a fortunately weak suicide attempt out of shame. Her parents only found out about all this – with a month to go – when the mother of the girl's boyfriend came to visit to discuss the matter. That resulted in her marrying her 20-year-old boyfriend/future father. The friend's mother ran a catering company with her son, but that is not a big deal in Isaan and in the lean months that friend went to Bangkok for work. But because family members often help each other, the brother of the expectant mother offered to give 7000 baht of his 4000 baht monthly salary to her and her child. In the meantime, she has given birth to a son and was in good spirits to continue her studies after a year. So everything seemed to end well after all. Unfortunately, the marriage has ended - how could it be otherwise with a man in Bangkok - and she can no longer complete her intended studies. She now wants to study in the context of adult education, so that she can look for work.

How did it get to the point where the parents knew nothing about it? They often only came home from work after it had already gotten dark. And in the shack in question, like in most Isan houses, there would have been little lighting. By the way, her mother, like most Isan women, is future-oriented and certainly does not only have an eye for tomorrow, as many Isaan farangs think. She does everything for her daughter's future, even in better times she bought a gold chain worth half a baht (current value about 10.000 Thai baht) and then upgraded it once to a necklace worth one baht. Many Isan women buy gold (or land) for difficult times. Perhaps that is smarter than what the farangs do because they rely on their state pension and pension. We will have to wait and see whether that confidence is justified. Unfortunately, the fuss of the central banks does not bode well.

A fifth example concerns a more than 40-year-old Isan woman - farmer and food seller - who had been living with her boyfriend of the same age for years. However, that friend became interested in a childhood sweetheart again and he called her every day. And it may not have just been a phone call. At some point the woman got fed up and the couple broke up. So the problem was solved. Until her ex-boyfriend suddenly received a nice amount of money from his mother who had sold a piece of land. She wanted a share of the money, because when they lived together he had made more of the joint income than she had. She then strengthened her arguments by purchasing a firearm. He took that seriously because I didn't see him for months. In the end, everything ended with a whimper. Of course, I don't want to say that many Isan women are dangerous with firearms, but it does indicate that Isan women do not accept everything from their partner.

In part 3 (final) more Isan women are discussed.