The Good Daughters of Isaan. Part 1 (Part 2 linked)

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The Good Daughters of Isaan. Part 1 (Part 2 linked)

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The Isaan Record
24/08/2020


Marriage to Westerners was restricted largely to the upper class prior 1950. It became stigmatized when some, mostly rural Isaan women were branded as mia chao (rented wives) to American GIs.

Our series examines the lives of Isaan women who have married a Westerner man. How has what academics call the “mia farang phenomenon” affected the life trajectory of these women, women who often had few life choices? How have these “good daughters of Isaan” fulfilled their filial duty and changed the lives of their families? How has it challenged traditional gender roles in Isaan society and altered the economy and culture?

The only role model these women embrace is that of seeing other Isaan women seeking Western husbands. “Isaan girls are happy to live a simple life,” Phensri wrote, where they “don’t have to think much.” They don’t apply themselves to their studies and instead get low-paying jobs and eventually end up on government welfare, the author claimed.

The Western men, even from a lower middle class background, were economically dominant and often quite older. In the period, large, western-style homes, funded by this international migration, became more common in even the most remote Isaan villages. But the Isaan wife in the West was often at a severe disadvantage: unable to communicate, sometimes restricted to home, and disconnected from any larger community of women in similar situations.

The ratio between male and female shifted dramatically. In 1970, 55 percent of Westerners residing in Thailand were male. By 2010, census data shows that males made up 74 percent. Showing perhaps a greater likelihood of married couples coming to Thailand, the ratio between male and female residents among foreign Asians was roughly equal in Bangkok and the North.

The following profiles are drawn from a 2018 study and the most recent and substantial work on the phenomena of mia farang, Love, Money and Obligation: Transnational Marriage in a Northeastern Thai Village by Patcharin Lapanun, a lecturer at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of Khon Kaen University. The research for these two studies was done more than a decade ago.

full https://isaanrecord.com/2020/08/23/the- ... aan-1-eng/
Part 2. .https://isaanrecord.com/2020/08/24/the- ... f-isaan-2/
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