Statement of the week: If you were born for a dime in Thailand, you will never become a quarter
After being paused for a while, the series 'Thesis of the week' continues again and the statement for this time is: 'If you were born for a dime in Thailand, you will never become a quarter.'
This Dutch expression means that someone's origin and background influence the possibilities and opportunities they get in life. If someone was born into poverty, this will probably continue to determine how many opportunities they get and how far they get in life. It suggests that no matter how hard one tries, one can never completely escape from this situation.
The proverb “born on a dime” dates back to before the seventeenth century. At that time, society was based on status, not class, and one's social status and role was determined by his or her birth. Those who had grown up in the aristocracy were lucky and belonged to that class for the rest of their lives. In contrast, the poor were less fortunate and would probably not be able to move up, never making the proverbial penny.
“Born for a dime” is also a famous song from the musical film “Op stap” from 1935, sung by Louis Davids, a famous Dutch singer, cabaret artist and actor from the interwar period. Because of his performance, the proverb probably became even more famous in the Netherlands.
Born in Thailand for a dime
In my own environment I see it with my own eyes, like with my friend's sister. She has a family with two children and a husband who works as a night watchman. Both are low-skilled, but certainly not lazy or easy-going. She herself helps with the harvesting of fruit and vegetables in the neighborhood and occasionally receives some extra money. Very sweet and caring people, but it is every day to make ends meet to make ends meet, with two school-going and growing children.
They live in the countryside on a piece of land belonging to his parents. The house looks reasonable at first glance, but looks can be deceiving. No money for a tan on the outside. No tiles on the floor but concrete. The bathroom (that's not really the right name for a room with a barrel of water and a hole in the ground) is a paradise for cockroaches that thrive there. Poverty and more poverty. They got the TV and the refrigerator from my girlfriend. They have no money for themselves.
Of course, my girlfriend also helps them with some monthly financial support. However, it is a drop in the ocean. Although they live frugally and certainly don't drink or gamble, they don't get ahead. Life is therefore more or less hopeless for them. There will probably never be more than what is now.
There is hardly any savings, so in case of emergency such as illness, money has to be borrowed. Maybe one day my daughter will run into a farang man who wants to sponsor things, but that will take another 10 years, given her age.
The readers themselves are probably familiar with such examples. But it is also possible that you know examples of Thai people who were born for a dime, but have become a quarter through study or hard work and perseverance.
So respond to the statement of the week: If you were born for a dime in Thailand, you will never become a quarter!
About this blogger
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Known as Khun Peter (62), lives alternately in Apeldoorn and Pattaya. In a relationship with Kanchana for 14 years. Not yet retired, have my own company, something with insurance. Crazy about animals, especially dogs and music.
Enough hobbies, but unfortunately little time: writing for Thailandblog, fitness, health and nutrition, shooting sports, chatting with friends and some other oddities.
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The statement is correct. Although I have never met such poor people in more than fifty years. Like as described here. Mai Oh ma.
If you have a good income in Thailand, then you have bought your food. You get the better job. Not someone of low birth who always fishes behind the net.
Indeed, that dime never becomes a quarter.
I know a super intelligent woman. University study paid for by the government. Had to pay them back. She has been working for years at a large car importer behind the “Customer Service” counter. There has never been a better job.
Another woman also super intelligent from a wealthy background. Finished uni in London. She is a deputy in a large hospital. Such a job was already there at birth.
Well number three. Dad had money and status. Daughter studied. Head nurse in Bamrungrad. Salary 80000 Baht per month.
And number four is from the Esan. Mom and Dad poor. Study refunded. Chief nurse at a private hospital, head of ICU, a lot of responsibility.
Salary 15000 Baht per month. Can barely get by.
Will never get better, never a quarter.
That makes me sad.
Dear Andrew,
The fourth example you cite, that of the head of ICU (who barely 'gets' 15000 Baht a month) is indeed distressing.
This is in stark contrast to the message I read here just last week, namely that of an unskilled gardener, who also earned 15000 THB.
So that gardener can indeed turn a dime into a quarter 😉
A government position after a good education is highly sought after. That has many advantages.
But……..before you get that job a lot of money has to come under the table and you almost never have that.
A rich dad solves that for a while, he still has some lying around, he plays waves and has the connections.
But only a few have them
The mud of the earth often turns that dime into a quarter.
And that damn sludge is everywhere…………
30 years ago my wife and I paid B30.000 for her little brother to be admitted to the boys in brown. He was trained as a car mechanic and he worked in a garage. He is now about 50 years old and has 2 sons who now also work for the police. That's how it goes.
Dear Jack,
What I have known for a long time is that knowledge does not prevail in life. It is much more important that you know the right people.
Perhaps off-topic: Just look at the father-son succession in Belgian politics, there are plenty of examples there too... the same in many other companies.
There is nothing wrong with trying to help your own children with a bright future. But this is often at the expense of knowledge and quality.
Yes!
The great thing is that they all think to get Buddha's luck and win the lottery.
A simple calculation says that the chance is nano-nil.
Regards,
jos k.
In the Netherlands we are familiar with the discussion about inequality of opportunity: not having the same outcomes at equal starting positions. But in Thailand it is even worse: in Thailand there are almost no equal starting positions. And results are by definition not comparable. So yes: if you happen to end up in a cradle with people, for example in the Isaan or in a slumb in Bangkok, then the start you make is as good as seen. It is surprising that in 2023 this situation is fully accepted by society. Likewise, in the reports regarding upcoming elections at the beginning of May, politicians do not talk about improvement plans regarding this problem. There is one who reports that he wants to lift 20 million people in Thailand out of poverty. I say that by mid-May no one will remember what has been suggested. It is so, it was so, it will remain so. Because everyone just does it. That's it!
The statement is completely correct, I have neighbors across the street who have a snack bar with 2 children, the eldest daughter is 18 years old, intelligent, the best in her class and gives extra lessons to classmates.
I was surprised she didn't continue studying and thought it had something to do with finances.
However, the hard truth is that she is the daughter of a snack bar owner and that doesn't help her get a good job that you also have to buy.
The only way is to marry beyond your means, which is not easy here, build up a business or excel in sports or music.
After 40 years of getting to know my wife's family in Thailand, I do not agree with the statement.
Of course the wealthy families pass on their wealth to the next generation.
I also see people from families that were really poor and now have a steady job, a car and a house.
I also see members of the family who are too lazy to do anything except hold up their hands and have a drink.
My imprinted Dutch social mentality of who was born for a dime, never becomes a quarter has therefore suffered a considerable dent.
My wife's son has had every chance to live a good life, but I have never seen him work in the last 30 years. Well 4000 friends on facebook and many on tik tok.
Shop set up for him, bought 3 tuc tucs, built a house, bought land.
Nothing can incite him to do anything.
Around 12 o'clock he gets out of bed and goes out with friends at night, of course at his mother's expense.
Steals stuff in our house which then ends up in the pawn shop.
My wife's daughter has a great government job, a nice house and a nice car.
Both different fathers.
I think DNA and upbringing are the reason for the difference.
The Thai boys are often spoiled too much and the girls are kept tight.
I also think the statement is correct: if you are poor and come from a low family, you can never afford a good education, even if you are super intelligent.
It's bad, because you shouldn't expect spoiled high schoolers to ever come up with an original idea.
Although I have my questions here: there is, I think, a large group of young people from the upper middle class who do know English (or rarely even another foreign language. I know a few who know French well) and who therefore know damn well what kind of medieval system they are in, and work on it in their groups. We as farangs see little of that, but I have hope: there is a whole generation ready to sweep away and replace the stale military dictatorships (by people who are absolute nitwits but do have power).
Moderator: Please respond to the statement instead of to each other.
True, but it was no different in the Netherlands, I was born in a farming village just after the 2nd World War. The wealthy farmers were called gentleman farmers and the others were farmers. If you worked hard you could go far, regarding your own house, car, refrigerator, etc… .. We lived in a factory house that was rented, my father was a butter maker, although he wanted to become a pilot, but there was no money for that because they were at home with my father with 10 children: the 'rich' Roman life. You have to do something to get 'higher' through studying and hard work, for example, but with the help of the Marshall plan we have recovered in the Netherlands. So it is now: those who were born before 10 euro cents will never become 25 euro cents…..
Actually it's a short answer, no money and the fact that you were born in a so-called wrong family, often determine the further life of a Thai.
No money often means that you are excluded from a good education, and even if you have money and a good education, you are often still dependent on your family, who must have access to certain circles.
Such a family is often a network of connections that can help even someone with less talent find an acceptable position.
If you only have the education you have received, this is still no guarantee to get a good job somewhere, and if you don't have the right family with connections, it becomes doubly difficult.
A system where a lot of real talent is actually lost, where one may rightly ask, which country can still afford this in a time of global competition.
The statement is only very true
The rich indeed, bought a living, but that is only 10% of the population. My wife comes from a family of 14 children, all had to help in the shop, 10 of the 14 finished university and found great jobs that put them in the middle class
You have to want it and that is lacking with many
So be critical of yourself and don't give up on the rest
Pim
I also know many who have a good education with a ditto job, despite the fact that the parents have a poor background. Look at Bangkok and the surrounding industrial areas and watch Songkran and New Year when millions of Thais return to their rural families, many of whom have made a better life for themselves thanks to work elsewhere in the country. The story that you become a penny often depends on opportunities, study and offer elsewhere and the will to move. The middle class is there, when I look at my Moo job and there are many of them, I see wealth in houses, cars and good jobs in companies that make many do well.
The anecdotal answers, of course, prove both sides of the poverty problem.
The exceptions should not be mentioned so close to the election: those who have risen from the lowest levels through the military, border patrol, and police ranks on merit. I have enough work experience to know examples.
In addition, we all know the examples of boys – unfortunately fewer girls – who “made it” on the basis of scholarships. They often forget where they come from later and that not every young person has hair on his teeth enough to get somewhere by brute force.
In a conference years ago, with the ethnic Chinese gentlemen professors-patriarchs among the attendees, I got into trouble because I claimed that the women in the families are the real workers and the men prefer to talk, for example in parliament and that more.
Finally this: around 1900 Charles Buls, in his Siamese Sketches, already lamented “the lightness” of character in the Thai men with whom he had to deal.
That exceptions could exist on the basis of merits, although in Thailand some exceptions do not confirm the rule that you can become a quarter as a dime. It does confirm the rule that quarter positions are bought, that patronage reigns supreme and that in the higher regions clans maintain each other. These 3 social aspects of normal Thai life also keep things as they were - conservative as the political elite is. The patriarchs disagree with you for a reason. And indeed: what they do not see is that, for example, in agriculture, road construction and house construction, in the markets and in the large shopping centers, in families and households, etc etc etc: it is the women who put their shoulders to the wheel! Does it make a lot of difference in terms of change, or does the next generation have it better? An acquaintance of my wife, abandoned by her husband because of the alcohol at the time, emigrates to Australia after a conscious search for a farang to get better with her 3 children. The daughter of another acquaintance who was allowed to continue her studies in Bangkok came home with a surprise package: a 7-month pregnancy, a "boyfriend" whose name she didn't even dare to mention, and the care of a child left with the grandparents. The son of one of my wife's sisters-in-law did well at a college in Chiangmai, even did an internship in Seoul for a month, but afterwards was completely useless. Sister-in-law now bakes satay herself on a stick that her dear son has for sale in a stall along the street. Well, I have enough Thai experience to give more examples.
The above statement contains a lot of truth. If you are born into a poor family, you have a good chance of having to live in poverty for the rest of your life.
The main reason for this is the lack of resources to study. Many children of poor parents are not stupid, but simply do not get the chance to receive a decent education, let alone to ever start higher education.
No degree is no decent job. No decent work is doomed to a pitiful life. A vicious circle that is difficult to break.
Please refer to the website below:
http://www.projectissaan.be
I don't think the statement is true in an absolute sense. There are exceptions. More important is the question of how social processes ensure that someone from poorer circles gets stuck in it for the rest of their lives. For me, the most important factors, not in order of importance, are: 1. Education; 2. Cronyism; 3. Motivation; and 4. Buddhist values.
Education: more and more children from poorer families study through secondary school and rajabhat universities. The level of education (subject matter, teachers, facilities) is below par, but most children don't make anything of their studies either, are not eager to learn. They 'study' for the piece of paper, not for society and even less for their own individual development. I advise the Thai young people I know to learn English every day for 20 minutes on their phone and assure them that in a few months they will be able to speak and understand a decent amount of English, more than going to English classes. Nobody does. Tiktok is much more important.
Cronyism: those who already have a reasonable education (because they have made something of it themselves) are confronted with cronyism when entering the labor market. Employers pay more attention to origin than to individual competences. This is changing rapidly due to the rapid changes in the labor market. There is a dire labor shortage, in virtually all sectors. And the elite are also making fewer children.
Motivation: I detect little motivation among the children from poorer families to get further in life than their parents. In view of the foregoing, this is perhaps not incomprehensible, but there are only a few who take their fate into their own hands in a positive sense. Those who do, also take the step to leave the country as a graduate and work abroad. This will increase in the future because the shortage on the labor market is not limited to Thailand. Canada alone is now advertising that it is seeking 400.000 workers and has significantly simplified visa requirements. And for the first time in history, China's population has shrunk. The result is that there is a brain drain of good Thai young people and the unmotivated remain in their own country.
Buddhism: resigning yourself to your fate is a value in itself for Buddhism. Getting angry at the circumstances, protesting (eg against bad education or cronyism) is not of the Buddha's. Moving abroad (for a few years) and not taking care of your parents (except sending money) is also not very Thai.
Yes Chris, the exceptions prove the rule.
Although you refer to it indirectly, you could have mentioned nepotism ('family politics') in addition to cronyism (favorite politics).
Due to the poor level of the Thai social safety net, family ties are important and therefore family members are first helped to find a job. Then people from the circle of friends are helped to find a job. Qualifications play a (very) minor role in an appointment.
The level of public education, nepotism, cronyism and Buddhist values are, in my opinion, the main cause of the lack of motivation.
Thinking for yourself is hardly or not at all stimulated in public education, if you are part of a certain clan you have bought your living or you are screwed and as you wrote: you have to accept your fate, because that is the result of the actions in your past life.
And the government, read: the powers-that-be, likes it that way, because this feudal system does it no harm.
@TheoB
I'm glad you mentioned nepotism. Wage determines whether employees want to work for a boss for a short or long time and Thailand is known for employees with a salary of up to 15.000 baht per month to be notorious job hoppers.
Such salaries are not feasible at every company and then a good middle ground is to make use of family and acquaintances. It is up to the owner to ask for what is desired and if you, as a family member or acquaintance, cannot meet this requirement, then the end of the exercise is over and the urgency to provide help with a problem in the future is not an urgency.
Like a dime you get a chance to gain experience and if you do well and think you're going to be a dime then that's only good to explore.
Compared to 30 years ago, the average Thai has become much richer and poverty is sometimes just a personal choice. I know plenty who chose the latter because they had a different priority when it mattered.
Nepotism is not necessarily bad. It is about the structure that should be preserved in a company and show the Thai with Chinese ancestors where it can lead.
And what's wrong with giving your children a more carefree life because a parent leaves it behind?
The government in TH is a necessary evil with far too many civil servants and that should also be accepted.
It is what it is.
"Whoever was born for a dime will never become a quarter."
We also had a similar proverb in Flanders:
"If at birth your father wears a PET and not a HAT, you better return whence you came."
Where your cradle stands, your future is determined.
There are certainly possibilities to get out of such a situation, but it is not easy, of course, but one has to want to. And that is where the problem often arises because they think that everything should fall out of the blue… You are not going to break through this with an amulet or a temple tattoo or something like that, but by working hard at school and continuing your studies (there are also scholarships in Thailand ) and character is perhaps the most important…
Unfortunately I also know many (and not only in Th and NL) who were born as a quarter but were devalued to a dime.
Maybe this:
I have a cousin who is 15 years old. Goes to a school of a reasonably good level and achieves good results. However, what surprises me is that many times he stays home from school for no reason at all.
I wonder to what extent all this is allowed here in Thailand? When I read above that there are many young people who do not even go to school, it does not surprise me that there are so many uneducated citizens walking around. Is there no school or compulsory education here?
If you then have the misfortune of being born in poverty and you HAVE to work from a young age to provide for the family's necessities, then I fully understand that this is a hopeless situation for many Thai people.
Apparently there is still a lot of work to be done. I'm afraid this problem won't go away any time soon.
roger,
We had arranged a good school for my wife's Thai grandchildren, where they were picked up at home with the school bus and brought back. Swimming pool, doctor, English lessons by Farang, everything available at school.
Pricey but we wanted to give them a good future.
Every year we had a meeting with the school management.
As it turned out, the children got off the bus on the way, lounged around all day and in the evening they got back on the bus that took them home again. All 3.
Another member of the family was advised by the school board to keep him at home.
He sat staring into space all day without paying any attention to the lesson.
There will be compulsory education, but as long as it is not enforced, this means nothing.
Some parents don't care at all whether or not their children go to school.
At home they can still do some hand and span services.
I share this statement that there are people who started out with shoe shine and who have become very wealthy and prosperous in doing business.
Not all dimes turn into a quarter, most certainly don't (knowing the social context of Thailand), but fortunately there are also exceptions.
Broadly speaking, you could say that investing in education is the most common solution to combat poverty (worldwide).
Well, when I see many who, after a 12-year education, from the age of 4, work for a baht or 10.000 to 15.000 baht for the rest of their lives, I think of the Matrix, which is very applicable to Thai society and the millions workers. Even with an income of up to 30.000 per month, people remain entangled in the system because a car has to come, which in turn swallows up the extra salary. Know people yourself who are entrepreneurs and have even traded in a government job (and years of training required for this) after a few years because there is only one way why people (almost always) get ahead and that is that they become entrepreneurs and then earn a multiple if that you are employed. For this I look around and see many examples, this applies both in Thailand and the Netherlands or Belgium
ger,
Comparing apples with pears
Civil servants are among the better paid employees in the Netherlands.
Do realize that as a self-employed person you have to put more than 500.000 euros in a pension pot in order to receive a pension of 1000 euros per month on top of your state pension.
Just deduct that 500.000 euros from the salary of a self-employed person and then compare it with a civil servant.
About benefits such as the right to dismissal, sick pay, which cannot be mentioned for a civil servant.
In Thailand, civil servants also have various rights such as health insurance and pension accrual that self-employed people do not have.
Khun Moo, and Ger, doesn't this generally apply to the person employed by the entrepreneur? Being a civil servant used to be gold-edged! Isn't that what the juice is from?
But what remains is the often mandatory pension accrual that the employee has and that the entrepreneur has to miss unless he makes the cut himself. Incidentally, the employee also pays that entire pension pot himself because it comes from his budget. But for an employee the budget is fixed, the entrepreneur just has to see who asks for his services.
The subject does expose what you see if you spend a little longer in Thailand. Your future is determined by the luxurious cradle or the Spanish wood that you are placed in after your birth….
We are not going to talk about numbers because I can count to ten: at retirement, an average life expectancy of 18 years after the retirement date is assumed (also applies to AOW). Then 1000 per month is 12.000 per year x 18 years = approximately 200.000 is required because the assets pay off during retirement. Have practical examples of this of pension accrual and benefits that correspond nicely with this.
In addition, a civil servant in the Netherlands is comparable to a normal employee and really does not stand out in terms of income.
The following applies in both the Netherlands and Thailand: become an entrepreneur and earn much more than you are employed, this will make you a quarter and you won't stay a dime. Or do you know someone who has become rich or wealthy by working as an employee? So no, you remain a prisoner in the system (Matrix) and people do not realize it.
Why do you think there are many officials in Thailand?
With an individual pension accrual, the collective is missing, whereby people who die young compensate those who live longer.
Retirement Insurance does not take any chances that you will be 95 or older.
A clear site to calculate how much money you need is
https://affluent.nl/financieel-plan/een-miljoen-en-met-pensioen/
When such a theme is addressed, you suddenly see all kinds of reactions from farang, who are so lucky with their Thai wife and her family, that you immediately get the feeling why and where they came into contact with these women.
To shine their wives in an even better light, she comes from a poor family, but has managed to get herself a good job through consistent discipline and study.
All wonderful women who could take care of themselves and their family in terms of income, and if they hadn't suddenly fallen very much in love with them, they didn't really need a farang at all.
It is possible, but the vast majority, who may try to justify something here, or who do not respond at all to the above statement, know otherwise.
My wife was the youngest of her family where there were 9 children, her parents who were simple poor rice farmers, she hardly remembers because they didn't grow very old.
After the death of her parents, her eldest sister, who was 18 years old herself, took care of and raised her since she was 4 years old.
The home was abject poverty, and though she was by no means stupid, she still felt compelled to get to work as soon as possible to help ease her eldest sister's expenses.
Other than studying, she went to the city at the age of 13, to play the service and nanny for businessmen.
She had room and board with these people, and the few extra Bahts she earned there went as gratitude to her older sister.
When she got a little older she started growing vegetables on the family plot, which she later tried to sell in her village and on the market in Chiang Rai.
An old moped / motorcycle with a trailer as a trailer was her only wealth with which she could earn her meager income.
Her other sisters, who worked in the village for a company that processed ginger for export to China, paid them 15 baht per hour, so that they could only survive together as a family.
When I met my wife at the market in Chiang Rai I visited, she caught my eye because she tried to teach English herself in a small book of Thai-English.
Because her friendly smile and her small talk have not left me, I went there again and again over the next few days, to get in touch with her.
Even when I was forced to return to Europe for work, we kept in touch, so that she later became my wife.
Much later she admitted, because some of her underprivileged friends also had a farang, that she too had dreamed of this.
To keep the story as short as possible, this is a story of which there are thousands and more in Thailand, and is usually the main reason why a farang comes into contact with a Thai woman in the first place.
All stories of women who also come from a dime family, and dreamed of becoming a dime one day, for the most part end up like this in almost comparable situations, and not that an already educated woman with a good income is still looking for a farang . (This, although many like to sell their love story in a creamy way, is a minority at most.
It is often a deep social pit, where many who have only experienced poverty and despondency, lack the motivation to get out of this on their own.
Those who do manage often come from other family circumstances, who have brought it from a dime to at least 20 cents through pre-lived motivation and less poverty.
I actually only agree with the statement.
The gap between rich and poor has to do with many aspects where man has to deal with many things [secondary].
It often takes more than a generation to not always have to look at your bank book or count the few satangs in the jar.
On the square kilometer or hundred square kilometers for me with a second third fourth relationship, the last of which is a 'rich' foreigner, it is sometimes easier to talk, although many pensioners very often have a nicer story than that, of course often still increasingly better than no foreign partner.
The poverty percentage has indeed dropped over the last many decades with downward waves without a foreign partner.
Of course, the problem is often that the Thai have a strong tendency to approach the balance between income and expenditure negatively. [who not?]
And the governments in those many years often had / have a different priority.
A site like this [see link], although the covid period again had a negative impact in Thailand and many other countries, still indicates that things are actually going in the right direction nationally
.
https://bit.ly/3E5TDFi
There are also plans for the future, not always as desired, but that is impossible.
There is always an unequal start, where your place is after a number of years in society, after a number of years with an equal start in person also depends on your commitment as an individual.