[UnduttRit]

Can it be said therefore that the Thai presumption that Farang only like dark-skinned girls is wrong??
And in fact only lies with one's own personal taste?
As paul_au, i too am more attracted to fair-skinned girls but unlike paul_au, caucasian girls dont attact me. I find fair-skinned Asians the most attractive ie Thai-Chinese, Northern Thais, Japanese or a Vietnamese etc... in fact it an innate attraction, as i remember even when i was very young i would look at the girls on the Singapore Airlines commercials and think to myself 'i will marry a girl from Singapore one day!'.

Not only girls attracted me to Asia, of course. I remember when i was 10 or 11 years age i would read 'Tin Tin in Tibet' etc... and think to myself 'One day i will live in Asia' and especially everything about South-east, i loved the place even before i cam here. Then in my last year of High School i had a Malay girlfriend, i loved her kindness etc... Thus at only 19 i travelled around Asia for one year.
Could this innateness come from a previous life? im not sure. Even though im of caucasian race my friends at Primary School often called me 'Chinky' as i had quite squinted eyes and even today some Thais sometimes ask 'Are u half Thai"? Then, ever since i was very young i have also eaten with the fork in my right hand, i was often told off by my teachers for holding my cutlery wrong but it was natural for me. Then when i came to Asia i realised that here they only use their right hand to put something in their mouth. Weird co-incidence.

Getting back to the topic of personal taste i would like to go further and remark the 'Beauty is only skin deep' in Thai = 'Suay tae roop joop mai horm'. Therefore a 'soul-mate' = 'Neau khoo' doesnt have to be of any particular colour as love is love. One day that special girl will be loved by me because of her heart and not her skin colour.

My theory is that the reason that most Farang have dark-skinned girlfriends is that it is in fact the dark-skinned girls that like the Farang. They are also usually 'easier to get' as they usually have less eduaction and come from a less well off family than the fair-skinned Thai. The Thai-Chinese or Northern Thais are harder to get and patience is needed before a relationship is formed. Most farang dont have the patience and prefer a girl that will be happy to pop into to bed with him after just a few dates.

The dark-skinned girls from the rural north-east area in particular have always liked Farang for their kindness since the days of the Vietnam war, when flocks of them came to work in the bars of Udon Thani, Khorat, Phetburi Road, Patpong and Pattaya. Many of them finally married a farang and the neighbours of the wife's family were full of envy when they saw the farang building a big house for her parents. Til this day farang are held in high respect in the north-east and even if your daughter has worked in a bar it doesnt matter if her husband 'flashes the cash'.
Farangs are not so popular with the girls from the Central /Bkk/Northern or Southern regions. it is easy to know why a farang is not so liked in the South and that is because of religious differences. Then, in the Bkk/Northern and Central areas i theorise that farang are not so popular because having a farang boyfriend is synonymous to northern-eastern girls and since Thais look down on people from the north-east then dont want to feel like an 'Isarn girl'. One more theory I have is that in north-eastern culture the people are very rowdy, like to party, smoke and drink etc... and this is very typical of a farang tourist in Thailand too! So the rowdy wayward farang can dissolve into the Isarn way very easily. While that kind of farang behaviour is often unnaceptable to the other regions of Thailand and especially Thai-Chinese society, where diligence and the family responsibility are the are held with the upmost importance.

It can be said that certainly not all the girls from the north-east rural areas married to farang used to work the bar. Many of them worked in a hotel, restaurant etc... where they met their Farang boyfriend. Two friends of mine who have girlfriends from the north-east one met his darling in a Chicken on Rice shop near his school where she worked and the other in Emporium, Sukhumvit where she worked as a Sales Girl.

Most Thais presume farang only like dark-skinned girls as that is what they mostly see. The cruel fact that most Thai girls who have a Farang boyfriend worked the bar before. I also believe that the reason that most Farang dont have a fair-skinned girl is not that they find them unatractive but that they dont have the patience time or understanding to 'jeep' or chat up up such a girl as they say in Thai.

My girlfriend is from Nakhorn Sawan (Gateway to the north)and she is very fair-skinned for a Thai but she is only of a little Chinese descent. When traveling together she gets stared at more than me almost in disbelief by some Thais! "Look at that farang's girlfriend, she's not black, she's so fair-skinned!" Especially at Morchid (Northern/North-east) Bus Terminal where most of the people there are from the rural areas, you should see the look on their faces when they spot me and my girlfriend!

One more sad fact is that a Thai on seeing a farang with a dark-skinned northern-eastern girl (the Thais can spot a north-easten person just because of their distinct noses, or lack of one) will presume straight off that she is a 'Bar Girl'. So, when living in Thailand i have preferred a girlfriend to have fair-skin as a Thai on spotting me and my girlfriend will presume straight off that she is a 'proper' Thai girl. However if my soulmate were to be dark-skinned then i would just have to put with the fact! and i just dont care what people think!

Finally, most farang guys who marry Bar Girls are making a mistake and eventually the marriage will collapse. Me and my girlfreind are both educated, ive been here for 11 years, speak and read Thai fluently but we still have our mis-understandings. Our differences are still there because of the enormous cultural conditioning we were brought up with. Therefore most Bar Girls marriages will fail as the differences are just too great. He will get bored of her cause he wants a partner to chat with, perhaps about politics, feelings, world affairs etc... yet she does not even know where on a world map Thailand is and hasnt got the foggiest about the Second World War for example. Then, she will get bored of him as she wants a partner to chat about the TV soap operas, the neighbours, the price of durian etc...

I would be very interested to read any comments on what i have written.