Reader Submission: Her First Time (continued)
Our stay in the Netherlands has been behind us for some time now and my wife was a little nervous at first. How will it fare in a foreign land. But faster than I had adapted, about ten years ago in Thailand, she adapted to the Netherlands.
Like visiting my family, where we are used to kissing each other welcome, the wai stayed back and just kissed along.
My son had bought new herring at my request, but after seeing how it is eaten, even a 1000 baht reward for eating it could not convince her. While in Thailand she eats just about anything that moves.
Back home through the city, she notices that everyone is cycling. She absolutely loved the cargo bikes! What she also noticed was that men in the Netherlands also take care of the small children. She sees them sitting in the front and back of the bicycle, and just walking behind the pram with the little ones, just like the women do. I actually never noticed, but the men in Thailand usually do not take care of the small children.
Having seen the Netherlands, as far as possible in six weeks, we are happy to return to Thailand.
It is early September, in the middle of the rainy season. The first work to be done upon arrival is the work at the rice fields such as mowing the grass around the rice fields. I leave the mowing to my wife, my job is to regularly sharpen the blade and supervise the work from a distance.
Unfortunately, I tell my wife, I would like to do more but I don't have a work permit. To which she says: “Do you see the police anywhere?” She has a point there and so I also do my work illegally. And then just wait and wait for rain.
Dried rice fields
After two months of waiting, the winter period has arrived, unfortunately almost no rain has fallen here, about 20 km from Khon Kaen. The rice is beyond saving. All the work and investment is lost. Fortunately, the government is helping my wife through the crises. She can get 1000 baht, for which she has to make some effort. But you can still turn on the air conditioning for a month.
Will we still grow rice next year? I doubt it. My wife can earn more in a few weeks illegally in the Netherlands than the net income from the rice fields in a year. Only the work in the rice fields is so in my wife's genes that it is difficult to stop. Fortunately, she also has her fruit trees and a vegetable garden around the house. Where we do have water, so that this is not lost either. But for many rice farmers in the village, climate change has now marked the end of rice cultivation for a second year. In addition, I doubt whether many young people would still want to become rice farmers.
Guest workers from Laos on the rice fields might be possible, just as they already work for hundreds in the shoe factory near our village.
We will see what 2020 brings us….
Submitted by Pete
Always nice to see how easily people sometimes adapt to the new environment. A wai or a kiss, a matter of switching.
When my wife came to the Netherlands more than 20 years ago and I drove to Twente via the A1, she asked in Thai whether they were rice fields that she saw when passing the IJssel near Deventer, which was flooded.
Funny, right ?
A very nice story Piet and recognizable. My wife marveled at the same things as your wife. But she was already 40 years old with a business mind and not nervous and the herring went in with pleasure.
When she came to the Netherlands the second time, she was on her way to the fishmonger to get herring within 20 minutes of arriving home.
She stayed with me in the Netherlands for almost 5 years and now we have been living in Thailand for almost 18 years. We miss the herring
What a great fun story.
Always like how mixed couples work and live.
Although my wife is very proud of her native Thailand, when she came to Europe she was immediately struck by how clean and well-maintained everything was.
Of course, I first had to teach her that all benefits come with a price tag.
She also thought it was great that, just as Piet already wrote in his above, that very many young Fathers did a lot with their children.
In the village where she comes from you see many Fathers, who in their spare time are almost exclusively occupied with their own pleasures.
The upbringing there very often lies solely with the mother or grandmother, who then also have to take care of most of the household.
Many men, forced by their meager education to bring home at most a very meager wage, amuse themselves in the spare time of their underprivileged life, only with alcohol and gambling.
In the area where my wife ended up in Europe, she immediately saw an enormous contrast to what she was usually offered in her Thai village.
Many advantages that she saw in the first years compared to Thailand have moved her to visit her Thai homeland at most during the European winter time.
Now and then she still likes to eat a Som Tam with some Thai friends she met in Europe, but is now also looking forward to a stew of kale or even a new herring.
With all the good things that prevail in Europe compared to Thailand, she cannot understand at all Farang who complains about his own country, while he thinks everything is good in Thailand.
If I want to immigrate to Thailand myself, she will come to visit me, as she says, only in winter at the most
Dear Pete,
Nice story and very well written.
In the beginning when my wife came to the Netherlands I did the same, me
thought, let her eat a herring, which I didn't dare to eat in Thailand.
And sure enough' she didn't eat it in our usual way by putting the herring in her mouth
hanging, but in pieces.
There I had again missed the mark, what a nice wife I have (with no balls but comes
near).
I find many similarities in your story which is well written.
Such a woman 'really' leaves everything behind her, which gives me great satisfaction.
Good luck.
Yours faithfully,
Erwin
When my wife first came to the Netherlands and I picked her up from Schiphol, she looked outside along the A2 and said, all the trees are dead here, it was December and those bare trees made her fear the worst.