Thailand vs PH Romance

[ladislav]

The Philippines is way better than Thailand for romance/true love for non Oriental guys. In Thailand, a huge part of white man- Thai woman relationships originate in the entertainment industry. It is not easy for a white man to court a regular Thai woman. The stigma for them to date a "white devil" ( the farang) is still too big. In addition, you have a bigger cultural gap and much lesser English skills. And you are required by the custom to pay a bride price.
Plus, the Thais would rather have fellow E/SE Asians in their country than the farangs. They have no bond with the West the way Filipinos do.
In the PH, there is way less stigma, and most guys seem to get GF's and wives from regular ranks of society. The ladies are nurses, sales ladies, college students, office workers and it's way better accepted. There is also no " bride price" unless it's a Muslim lady.
The PH wins hands down.
These things are better in Thailand though:
Land transportation
Food
General infrastructure.

[Yohan]

Really a good summary. I see it in a similar way.

I found to date a regular Thai woman makes only sense, if you can communicate also in Thai language (and only few Western man can do this) AND if you live permanently in Thailand with her. In case you travel and leave her alone, you never know what the woman will do behind your back. Moral feelings are rather low in Thailand among women.

About a bride price, this is only required when the girl is still living with her parents. However Thai women always find some argument to extort money from foreign men. Interesting, not so many Thai women are cheating in a criminal way. A Thai girl in general is patient to stay with the foreign man and to pursue him to give her a totally unreasonable amount of money voluntarily often over years.

Philippines is a totally different country with a different way of living. Communication is easier as English as it is fully accepted as a second language, for example any rent or sale contract is legally binding if written only in English between a foreigner and a local. Foreign movies in English language in a cinema are running in general without subtitles, everything regarding to office work with a computer is in English etc.
Women in Philippines are quite different from women in Thailand.

The PH wins hands down.
These things are better in Thailand though:
Land transportation
Food
General infrastructure.

True!
Thailand is also safer considering street criminality, aggressive beggars, impoverished children gangs, gun culture etc.
Water and electricity supply is much more stable in Thailand, not many brown outs and black outs.
It is also better in pricing if you consider to buy your own condo-unit. Rooms are much larger for the same price often with a large swimming pool etc.
It is also cleaner considering garbage, restrooms, there are also plenty of laundries everywhere.
Much more frequent and often cheaper international flight connections etc.

[jerryrigged]

In my experience the only guys who managed to marry upper class thais were often more successful than the average farang anyway. To get quality in thailand you just generally need to be higher quality yourself for starters. There are plenty banking and international business women in thailand willing to date foreigners. However even with these upper tier type women there is still the propensity to get burned which just happened to yet another old thailand farang axquaintance actually. He wasn't cheated on but she wasn't really fair or honest with him about the way she spent his money (and wantonly took out of his savings, too..). She was also a middle classed, uni educated, Thai girl. There's horror stories which come out of the Phil's too but nothing close to old thailand. The one huge plus thailand has is up until covid it was just a much better place to live. I think it still has this benefit. You can also butterfly in thailannd more without being judged too harshly by locals yourself. Many of us don't even want to entertain the idea of marriage anymore and I am one such former expat set to return to Siam myself..

[publicduende]

The Philippines is way better than Thailand for romance/true love for non Oriental guys. In Thailand, a huge part of white man- Thai woman relationships originate in the entertainment industry. It is not easy for a white man to court a regular Thai woman. The stigma for them to date a "white devil" ( the farang) is still too big. In addition, you have a bigger cultural gap and much lesser English skills. And you are required by the custom to pay a bride price.
Plus, the Thais would rather have fellow E/SE Asians in their country than the farangs. They have no bond with the West the way Filipinos do.
In the PH, there is way less stigma, and most guys seem to get GF's and wives from regular ranks of society. The ladies are nurses, sales ladies, college students, office workers and it's way better accepted. There is also no " bride price" unless it's a Muslim lady.
The PH wins hands down.
These things are better in Thailand though:
Land transportation
Food
General infrastructure.

@ladislav

Of all HA members, you are the only one who could talk about the Philippines at any level of conciseness/verbosity. The gift of summary that only someone with several decades of experience has.

Can't object of anything you said, mate.

If I could add something to compound to the pain of marrying into a Thai family, I have recently started a new job for a blockchain company, quite cool and all. One of my colleagues is a relatively young man based in Bangkok. I never met him in person and only managed to chat with him about personal life on a handful of occasions.

As it happens, he married a young Thai woman from a middle-upper class family. He didn't mention "bride price" because I had the grace to never ask. What he did spontaneously mention is that he is being constantly scrutinized by his in-laws. Every time they visit, he needs to bring a large bunch of flowers and some expensive wine or food, which will be promptly enjoyed during the home lunch or dinner. His father in law is fond of cigars, again not the cheapest merchandise to find in Thailand, and he needs to regularly oblige every now and then.

Despite of all of his efforts to please, his in-laws are constantly watching him for every smallest misstep. One glitch in whatever etiquette they have in mind for the perfect son-in-law, and they start pouring criticism on to their daughter. That's the thing he hates the most. Having a wife who is, all in all, genuinely in love with him and yet, has to constantly hear her parents complain that "she should have married Thai" and "husband doesn't really know how to respect his Thai family".

This is someone who has made considerable money with running blockchain projects and doing cryptocurrency trading. By his own admission, his "Thai family" bill is running in the thousands of dollars every month, basically for someone who doesn't even get pleased and keeps bitching anyway.

Again, I know it's a delicate topic for him and I purposely avoid touching the subject. Yet, judging from what he says, he is nearing the end of the rope on this.

Shall we say that, bar the obvious few rotten apples who exist in every culture around the world, Filipinas and their families tend to be a bit more appreciative of what their foreign sons-in-law do for them?

What I consider a bit odious about Thai culture, and this I had confirmed just by interacting with different Thai people in London, even without ever travelling to Thailand, is that Thais consider themselves some sort of royalty of South East Asia and many want to be treated as such, even if they are - by any social standard - right arrogant a**holes

Try tell them that they are the Chinese's poor cousins, and all hell would probably break loose.

[jerryrigged]

The Philippines is way better than Thailand for romance/true love for non Oriental guys. In Thailand, a huge part of white man- Thai woman relationships originate in the entertainment industry. It is not easy for a white man to court a regular Thai woman. The stigma for them to date a "white devil" ( the farang) is still too big. In addition, you have a bigger cultural gap and much lesser English skills. And you are required by the custom to pay a bride price.
Plus, the Thais would rather have fellow E/SE Asians in their country than the farangs. They have no bond with the West the way Filipinos do.
In the PH, there is way less stigma, and most guys seem to get GF's and wives from regular ranks of society. The ladies are nurses, sales ladies, college students, office workers and it's way better accepted. There is also no " bride price" unless it's a Muslim lady.
The PH wins hands down.
These things are better in Thailand though:
Land transportation
Food
General infrastructure.

@ladislav

Of all HA members, you are the only one who could talk about the Philippines at any level of conciseness/verbosity. The gift of summary that only someone with several decades of experience has.

Can't object of anything you said, mate.

If I could add something to compound to the pain of marrying into a Thai family, I have recently started a new job for a blockchain company, quite cool and all. One of my colleagues is a relatively young man based in Bangkok. I never met him in person and only managed to chat with him about personal life on a handful of occasions.

As it happens, he married a young Thai woman from a middle-upper class family. He didn't mention "bride price" because I had the grace to never ask. What he did spontaneously mention is that he is being constantly scrutinized by his in-laws. Every time they visit, he needs to bring a large bunch of flowers and some expensive wine or food, which will be promptly enjoyed during the home lunch or dinner. His father in law is fond of cigars, again not the cheapest merchandise to find in Thailand, and he needs to regularly oblige every now and then.

Despite of all of his efforts to please, his in-laws are constantly watching him for every smallest misstep. One glitch in whatever etiquette they have in mind for the perfect son-in-law, and they start pouring criticism on to their daughter. That's the thing he hates the most. Having a wife who is, all in all, genuinely in love with him and yet, has to constantly hear her parents complain that "she should have married Thai" and "husband doesn't really know how to respect his Thai family".

This is someone who has made considerable money with running blockchain projects and doing cryptocurrency trading. By his own admission, his "Thai family" bill is running in the thousands of dollars every month, basically for someone who doesn't even get pleased and keeps bitching anyway.

Again, I know it's a delicate topic for him and I purposely avoid touching the subject. Yet, judging from what he says, he is nearing the end of the rope on this.

Shall we say that, bar the obvious few rotten apples who exist in every culture around the world, Filipinas and their families tend to be a bit more appreciative of what their foreign sons-in-law do for them?

What I consider a bit odious about Thai culture, and this I had confirmed just by interacting with different Thai people in London, even without ever travelling to Thailand, is that Thais consider themselves some sort of royalty of South East Asia and many want to be treated as such, even if they are - by any social standard - right arrogant a**holes

Try tell them that they are the Chinese's poor cousins, and all hell would probably break loose.

Your head would probably spin if you found out how much this girl and her family take from this man. Forget about the sinsod price. Theyre getting a monthly payout most likely.
You know, Thai men arent expected much to send money home to papa much, unless theyre an only child. Its the women who are expected to this. The women and the men they marry. Even more so if that man is a farang.
The simple fact is marrying a Thai woman isn't cheap. If the greed of Western women is part of what drives any desire in someone to seek romance in Thailand, they're going to be sorely disappointed. And I think most people seeking a meaningful relationship in Thailand leave disappointed anyway. Thais are primarily traditional only in the sense of duty to parents, duty to spouse, duty to children. The ideas of living within your means, western practicalities, or even fidelity in a relationship are, for the most part, complete foreign to most of them.

[Taco]

The Philippines is way better than Thailand for romance/true love for non Oriental guys.

This is true.

You won't find many Thai/Foreigner marriages that have lasted more than 20 years. In the Philippines they are common.

[publicduende]

Your head would probably spin if you found out how much this girl and her family take from this man. Forget about the sinsod price. Theyre getting a monthly payout most likely.
You know, Thai men arent expected much to send money home to papa much, unless theyre an only child. Its the women who are expected to this. The women and the men they marry. Even more so if that man is a farang.
The simple fact is marrying a Thai woman isn't cheap. If the greed of Western women is part of what drives any desire in someone to seek romance in Thailand, they're going to be sorely disappointed. And I think most people seeking a meaningful relationship in Thailand leave disappointed anyway. Thais are primarily traditional only in the sense of duty to parents, duty to spouse, duty to children. The ideas of living within your means, western practicalities, or even fidelity in a relationship are, for the most part, complete foreign to most of them.

It looks like every family is aware of their own place in society, as well as the value of their daughters. It's almost as if it's an immense privilege, for a foreign man - no matter how successful and eligible - to marry a upper/middle class Thai woman instead of the usual uneducated bargirl hailing from the countryside. This privilege has to be paid off regularly, by giving gifts and allowance to the Thai in-laws.

I am by no means in intimate terms with this colleague of mine but, from the little I know, I can already tell he would have been 100x better off marrying in the Philippines. Not living here, at least marrying someone from here. A successful crypto-entrepreneur like him, young, never married before and handsome, would have scored an upper class girl with a proper college degree, a career of her own and who might look like this



(OK OK, the final pic was thrown in as a bit of an eye candy )