February 27 2005

Welfare to work: Isaan pig farm initiative

Welfare to work: Isaan pig farm initiative

"I'm not one of those stupid farangs who buys her family a bloody house" says a friend of mine. Instead, he's set his girlfriend's mum on the road to financial independence by means of an innovative new welfare to work scheme - a pig farm.

Each week, he puts a thousand baht into his girlfriend's "pig bag" - a small canvas pouch with "MOO" scrawled across it in blue marker pen.

As any small child could tell you, "moo" is synonymous with cows but, displaying remarkable counterintuitive reasoning, the Thais have allocated this name to pigs. Non-Thai speakers who resort to making animal noises to indicate their desire for a steak dinner might end up with a pork sausage instead.

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February 26 2005

Thai law-maker & cleric exposed as illicit shaggers

Thai law-maker & cleric exposed as illicit shaggers

We all enjoy a good sex scandal - particularly when the miscreants make a living by urging other people to behave themselves.

Our Mango Sauce Nightlife Correspondent spotted two such stories in a single day:

Today, as part of Mango Sauce's Amazing Thailand series, we present two stories of illicit sex culled from our morning newspaper. Our first concerns a paternity suit against an 80 year old politician and the second raises the question "how do you defrock an abbot who is already defrocked?"

In our first story, Khun Tavich, a veteran politician seemingly fell head over heels in love when he was 76 years old for the charms of Khun Petchaporn, a 14 year old girl who worked in the Milin tea shop across the road from the Parliament building. After a busy morning passing bills and chairing committees, Khun Tavich would pop over the road and gaze adoringly at her. Such was his love that he eventually asked the girl's mother and auntie if he could take her as his wife (which of course he never did).

Well the inevitable happened, and sometime later our waitress found herself with a child and in need of financial support. In court, our politician now 80 years old and frail claimed from his wheel chair "I'm not the father. It wasn't me - it was my chauffeur". The judge didn't believe him and ordered that he pay 40,000 Baht to the mother every month until the child reached 20 years.

February 23 2005

Thai mail-order bride fuels mid-life crisis #1

Thai mail-order bride fuels mid-life crisis #1

Like the beacons that wreckers once used to lure ships onto the rocks, websites offering Thai mail-order brides continue to claim hapless farang victims. Today's story concerns a recently divorced American in his early forties who's in danger of being holed below the waterline. His concerned farang girlfriend takes up the story.

Dear David

I might be an unusual reader on your site... I am a "Farang" woman, an American. Perhaps I am one of the hated on your site. I do not know since it would seem opinions are split on American women from what I have read.

However, I need some closure on an issue and I do hope you can give it to me.

I live in the western part of America. I am 38, very attractive. It is not uncommon for people to assume I am much, much younger than my age. I have aged very well. I am successful, well educated, polite and respectful. While I am independent, I do believe in a traditional relationship with a man. I will admit I am rare for an American woman.

Anyway, I met a guy, 5 years older than I, last year. He claimed to want a woman who loved family (to help raise his two kids from his recent divorce) who liked to cook, was very sexual, liked music, had a job, was educated and would take care of him. As he dated me, he was in awe. Not only did I completely fit his profile but I had my own house and it is a nice house, money in the bank and no debt. He kept saying he could never do better than me, only worse. We had much in common and enough differences to make it interesting.

However, he had a few faults which kept our relationship from progressing smoothly...

February 20 2005

Coming soon to your inbox: Tsunami fish

An email currently doing the rounds contains photos of strange deep-sea fish that were purportedly washed up in Phuket after the tsunami. An alert reader informs me that it's pure fiction but the pictures are so captivating that they've spawned a new urban myth.

fish

The Discovery Channel might call these creatures "living fossils" or "monsters from the abyss" but, to the rest of us, they're just seriously ugly fish and you wouldn't want to see one staring up from your dinner plate. They probably end up in economy fish fingers.

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