One frustrating thing about talking about Thai girls is that it’s so easy to make these huge generalizations due to the fact that us farangs aren’t really very well tuned into how Thai society and culture work. Some people try to delineate at the highest level putting Thai girls into Good and Bad camps. Good girls are the girls who have never worked in a bar and Bad girls are those who have worked in a bar. But the reality is a lot more complex than that.
What I’ve done below it attempt to map out a very high-level breakdown of Thai women that goes a little deeper than Good and Bad to demonstrate the multiple levels of complexity when talking about a Thai girl.
Please note: The sizes don’t necessarily represent their relative size. For instance, I’m not implying that the size of one group is larger than the other based on the size of the circles used to represent each group. The size was somewhat a factor of the amount of information that had to be fit into the area. Nor do the colors mean anything other than to distinguish between circles.
And this a look at someplace like Bangkok. Obviously if you’re out in the jungles in some Isaan backwater village then the definitions might change slightly and some of the dots might move around.
Also, please note: This is not definitive. Perhaps others might have different perspectives which can be expanded on in future posts or in the comments. I’m sure we all know exceptions to this but as previously stated this is simply trying to drill down a little farther than Good and Bad.
First off, let’s take a look at each group.
Traditional Thai Girls: These are the girls that you hear about that wash, cook, clean, and do everything to make sure that their husband or boyfriend is content. They tend to be very loyal, careful with money, and trustworthy. She may or may not be university educated but most will not be.
You might notice that I did have them overlapping with both Modern Girls and Mercenaries. Some Traditional Thai Girls are between being Traditional and Modern. I think these are the most likely to want to date farangs because they feel that farang men are more caring and will treat them better emotionally. Likewise, in the Mercenary overlap these are the girls most likely to want to marry a farang who will take care of them financially.
Modern Thai Girls: Thai society is changing and as the country becomes more urbanized Thai girls are following suit. They expect more out of a relationship than just cooking and cleaning for their husbands. They want a modern lifestyle. Whereas most Traditional Thai Girls are not university educated I would guess half or more Modern Thai Girls are.
Mercenaries: This isn’t really a new group but a way of showing the relationship between Thai girls and whether or not they’re driven primarily out of money. By that I mean greed. Of course nobody wants to marry a deadbeat but the difference between a mercenary and another type of girl is that money is absolutely the first and last thing she’s looking for in a guy.
Please note that Mercenaries should cover the entire area of the Prostitutes circle but I really couldn’t get a good shape that fit well in the diagram.
Prostitutes: Need I say more? Some might argue that your typical bar girl fresh from the village is more like a Traditional Thai Girl than a Modern Thai Girl born and raised in Bangkok but since the time from village girl to beyond repair is usually under six months it just seemed to make sense to put them squarely in the Modern Thai Girl circle.
Hi-So: I’ve chosen to use a more liberal definition here and include the hi-so wannabes. To me hi-so isn’t a definition of wealth so much as it’s a lifestyle one leads or tries to lead. You’ll notice that I’ve created an overlap with Party Girls since many Hi-So girls and almost all wannabes tend to be Party Girls. I’ve also overlapped them with Prostitutes because many will hop in bed with a guy if the right amount of cash is being thrown around. They might also be mia-nois for a wealthy Thai guy, which in my book makes them prostitutes.
Party Girls: There’s a wide range here but it could be your girls who you will find out at RCA or Ekkamai every weekend and know every hot DJ playing in Bangkok to a girl who just likes to go out and get hammered with her friends every weekend wherever they have the cheapest drinks. Again, they overlap with Prostitutes because many will be living beyond their paycheck and often need to sleep around to raise a little cash to keep up the lifestyle.
Tweeners: I honestly can’t remember who coined this phrase but the first time I heard it it instantly became a favorite because it so perfectly describes the girls who are constantly on the lookout to trade up in life. This is the type of girl who wants nothing to do with Thai guys and is looking to score the Big Kahunna Whitey. But as soon as she’s landed herself one she’s on the lookout for one a little richer, more handsome, or nicer. She never is and probably will never be satisfied with her lot in life and she’s always looking for the next rung on the ladder. I overlapped the Tweener with the Prostitute because while most are constantly in a relationship with a current boyfriend (until the next one comes along) they’re opportunistic enough to bang for cash if the right offer were made.
Freelancers: Some might be surprised that I only did a partial overlap with Prostitutes. The reason for this is because many are only part-timers. Some have full-time jobs and sleep with customers for money to make ends meet or if they have some other immediate need for quick cash. In fact, that’s the case for a surprising number of girls you meet in the afterhours clubs like Spice, Boss, etc.
Bar Girls and Massage Girls: Technically you could further slice and dice both groups into things like go-go vs. beer bar girls or 2000 a throw massage girls vs. the Penthouse models who will give you a soapy for 7,000. However, I think that level of detail is beyond the scope of this particular look at Thai girls. Both groups are squarely in the Prostitute circle as most make all or a good portion of their income off of the sex trade.
So now perhaps we can get away from these broad terms like Good and Bad since it’s obvious that just because your gf has never worked in a bar doesn’t mean she isn’t a Mercenary nor does it even mean that she’s truly a Traditional Thai Girl. She might be a Tweener or even a secret Freelancer. She could be a Party Girl who’s been around the block more than a few times.
Both the terms Good and Bad are too easy to mistake for being measures of their character when in reality the people underneath those labels are anything but good or bad. They are simply people with the same virtues and faults you can find in any other group of people.
I welcome comments, disagreements, pontifications, and insults. This is just a first draft at an attempt to elevate the conversation about Thai girls from being a binary choice between good and bad.
To the above poster who calls himself ‘Guest Reader’
There’s a spot for you down at Soi 4 outside the Nana Entertainment Plaza with the other raving christian loonies that try telling us that sex is bad for us and we should repent for our sins. I’ve tried telling a few of those idiots that they would be better off taking their message of salvation to the factory, on the outskirts of Bangkok, that produces land mines but they’re just not interested. Far easier to attack a soft target like sex tourists, that are really doing nobody any harm, than front up to an armaments factory that are probably responsible for thousands of deaths worldwide. Other things for you to consider:
George Bush was a good old christian boy was he not?
Try reading the God Delusion, it might expand your narrow minded view of the world.
Most christian values are based on older folk religions that were once called paganism and also originating from Egypt. Are you aware that the word that all christians say at the end of one their prayers is actually egyptian in origin? That’s right. Amen is a derivative of Amen Ra and is really a closing statement loosely translated as ‘and so it shall be’
As I’ve said to many christians before, the idea that a man was born of a virgin, walked on water and rose from the dead is a complete insult to my intelligence in this modern age. Sorry old sport but you really need to get a grip on reality.
“All tourist that go to Thailand to buy sex should be shot dead before departure home. ”
Wacko?
This article is amusing. I am a Western female currently living in Thailand. I have only one very good Thai female friend, and she floats between a Modern Girl and a Party Girl…but then again, so do I. We speak a lot about relationships and compare marriage to Thai men with marriage to Western men. She’s told me some pretty crazy stories about women she knows that have taken advantage of their expat husbands. I’ve also met my share of down and out men and women who were taken for everything they had by their Thai spouses. It is important that foreigners are familiar with marriage law in Thailand before they marry. While I know many expats happily married in Thailand, all foreigners should take precautions when considering this option. They should know what to expect as far as marriage laws concerning divorce procedures, property rights, and prenuptial agreements. Foreign spouses should also take time to get to know their Thai wives or husbands and try to determine if they will be expected to assume financial responsibility for their partners’ entire families once married. While some marriages can be blissful, others might be financially overwhelming, stressful, or even tragic. It is up to both partners to do their homework before getting married.
pretty much assume that they are bad news and doing horrible things .
just dont get to attached . you can assume they ar e going to lie and such . like if they say that they were never a hooker they probably were .
if they say they are it has only been for a month . but really a year .
if they dont lie about that it will be that the kid at her home is her sisters kid, but not true .
i mean its just one thing or another it seems.
but when you are dealing with someone that desperate you have to look at them differently .
you have to keep your guard up. you have to wear a condom even if you married forever .
i would not risk it . i dont even get in a body of water with one .
who knows the kinds gonnorhea fluids being secreted in the water .
i mean common sense .
like dont feel bad if you happen to be bad one night and give a lovely lady a good old fashioned team ramrod.
because you can be sure when you leave she is up to no good.
they have a minor wife thingy over there too so just be like yea thats my other one and its cool
if they give you a hard time just be like whatever .
if they are over here what are they going to do ???
pick up . bust out the plane ticket that cost 2 k .
then tell there family that she is not going to get more money and her mom will dope the shit out of her . she would do anything to get out of there.
and if she is bad enough you just use it as leverage once in a while .
like just be like well if you dont want to stay here just go and do whatever
like they would go .
but it goes both ways
so pretty much if its done right its a fancy mutual understanding that you guys can bone other people as long as you sleep in your wifes bed at night .
accept the fact that you will never get a true anwser or the real reason for anything but
as long as you have cooperation and something lovely to look at then i guess everyones happy. with variety being the spicy of life its not bad when you can slide it in some beautiful women then cruise home and not really worry to much about it .
word
But, in the end, it becomes a head f_ck doesn’t it. Lies, deception and mind games. Some guys can live with it but I couldn’t. I was in a Pua Noi situation and sometimes I’d be lying in bed with her while she was telling the sugar daddy, over the phone, that she loved him. The thing is that, in that situation, one becomes a tacit accomplice to deceit. And, no doubt, the karma of that is the head f_ck that comes from all the mind games. One day I just said I’d had enough and left. Incorrect (negative) actions always lead to incorrect (negative) consequences. Some guys just can’t get beyond that thing that hangs between their legs and they’ll go along with any shitty situation to satisfy that. At the end of the day though, as Knitpa said so astutely, we’ve got no one to blame except ourselves for choosing to be a victim. They (the girls) are just taking advantage of the situation that’s put in front of them, you can’t blame them. The reason why so many farang opt for bad girls is that they’re scared of the type of commitment that would come from hooking up with a good girl. Bad girls aren’t really bad, they’re just ruthless mercenaries and, if you’re going to play the game with them, then you’ve got to be their mirror image. See it for what it’s about; money. Use and lose.
I am a Christian, and to the above commentator I can only say, hate is NOT a Christian value. You sound more like Al-Qaeda than Christian.
My above comment was addressed to “Guest Reader”‘s comments, not to the comment of “Megalithic”.
One more thing…I have found that anywhere in the world you go, including Thailand, if you give the woman respect and affection, and try to make her happy in bed too, you don’t have to pay for it, with money or with commitment. Hardened prostitutes may not respond to that approach, but lots of other girls will. I’m middle-aged and poor, not all that handsome, and I never have any problem. But if we treat them like walking poon-tang, we can’t exactly complain if they respond by treating us like walking ATMs.
Sometimes it is very hard to distinguish between the love and the money. From the beginning all may seems like fire works and honey moon, they will stay with you despite you are not beside them as you may need to travel in and out of the country, as long as you send them pocket money, bought a house and a nice car for them to drive and eventually “show off”. When the day came when it’s time to move on separately, the true colours come out, they will ask for compensation or otherwise “break up money” for the time lost and love given and others what so ever they have contributed in the relationship!
This really makes one wonder, is this a business deal? Real love huh?!
This not only happens to farang men but their own local unfortunate soft ears men which seems so easily to be manipulate sometime …
I’m Thai girl
I want have marry too. with a good man. haha.
But now, I don’t see that man.
Well’ I hope someone for have family and childen in the future.
And I want have boyfriend for have family.
I’m single and never marry.
My e-mail is [email protected]
I’m do work in bangkok thailand.
Hope everyone happy everyday.
PATTY>(O_o”)
dear patty, you look for man to marry?
did you ever look at Madame tissaud?
May be not need, go to bars where farangs are and you find for sure somebody who look like dracula and very naive (almost all farangs in Thailand) have some drinks, open legs
take your lagguage to him and then you have husband…try,,,,is very easy, make sure that he will transfer all his money to your bank account, just wait when he has drunk some more, tell him that you love him only and foreve (dont tell him about your 100 lover you had before!!!) then that is it…you have husband
dont need have childreen with farang husband, take you childreen or of your sisters brothers and you also have automatically a big thai family with imported husband who has nothing to do with all those childreen, but for your love, he will take care of all of them and may be he forgot to pay aliments to childreen he really has in his country….
The article is pretty good!
I meet my gf in Ao Nang in a massage shop on the beach, she comes from Nakhon Sawan, and studied 5 years in Bangkok, she was a party girl and comes to Krabi running away from the stress of the big city, like everyone here maybe.
I know that usually the massage girl in ao nang are “butterfly” that’s mean go from one flower to another, so they do the possible to make you happy so you come back for more, every day, week or year. And maybe are more mercenaries and few prostitutes, still all the thai people know who is who (ao nang is a touristic beach and a little town)
I don’t like the girls that come for me, or that you can fuck in the first night, I am from Chile and the habit is go for the girl that you like and make the impossible for she loves you, sex or wherever, so I like to seduce and for me wherever girl easy is only a funny short moment, I never think that a “easy girl” can be my gf, she was the unique girl that no speak nothing with me so I can relax/sleep in the massage, when the owner of the massage shop comes to boring me with a bad english ask me if I want more we start to speak the three, the owner (girl around 30 nice body) ask me the typical, where i come from, how long in thailand, in what thing I work, she instantly look me as a probably bf and she ask me if I can teach english to she, I was a bit evasive and I started to make a lot of questions to both of them playing only… maybe I need to add that I finished a relation with a thai girl that drink and smoke a lot, traditional girl with a lot of shity stuff in the head about what the people think about she, so really I was looking for fun only, but I was thinking in this time that the perfect girl for me should be a girl that have a similar work/free (I am software engineer) that like to travel and smart and beautiful enough… difficult. but she told me that she works in the same in Bangkok but hate that work, we start to speak a lot and she was very geek, the owner feels pretty bad since I was more interested in the massage girl than she so she told my gf that is ok (like go away) and she try to keep a english conversation with me making the last part of the massage, but really I wanted to know more about my future gf 😛 she was a bit difficult, many dinners, speaking about projects, travels and was a bit hard to get some smiles from she at teh begining, she is very serious/professional I started to falling in love very fast, she is pretty perfect, with the time she told me that she knows that falangs come to fuck with the girls take care of they in the distance while they have falang families and young men only want to fuck and she all the time get annoying customers that thinks that she is a prostitute so that was the reason that she want to know what I want from she. Still she was looking for falang, since the thai boyfriends that she had lied a lot and have more “special friends”
I know that is a long history but at the end I am very happy with she, we have some problems, but when she moves to my home we never stay away for more that 1 year, we travel together, work together do all the things together.
sometimes we get some problems and I look in internet for some similar situations, today I discover that she lied me so I feel a bit bad, was a stupid thing about how old is she, since Chinese zodiac and day luck for the date that she told me was incorrect I get some bad feelings.
are thai girls really so important to write so much?
@ant45: ABSOLUTELY!
absoulutely nonsense
I visited Thailand many times,since 1999.what i observed that the Thai girls are take only interest, in the money of a farang not in the man in real.I was interested to marry a Thai lady to have family and children,but remain unsuccessful all the time,as i could not get a trustworthy girl,they are clever and want to cheat the visitors.so my plan of marriage is still pending.