The German Thai at the village wedding really was there.  Which explained a lot about cultural versus racial differences between Thailand and the West

It all started at the wedding where a good friend got married upcountry in a Thai village to an ex Thai go go dancer. Okay….so far no good. A go go dancer with a good friend of mine? Now that cannot possibly work. Even worse, the bride just happened to be among the very first Pattaya girls my friend ever went with.

But there was a wrinkle to the relationship that many would have missed. And that wrinkle was that the bride had spent ten years of her life in Germany before moving to Thailand. I always suspected that the woman had been the daughter of an American Vietnam serviceman.  And  after putting in his time he had returned to the United States completely unaware that he had impregnated a Thai woman.

But I never asked the bride or the groom how my friend’s future wife turned out to be so white skinned.  Or why she had a long straight nose and other Western facial features. She could have been Italian from her looks or a South American woman of Spanish decent. I’m sure that she didn’t consider herself to be really Thai.  Or at least not nearly to the same extent that most other Thai women felt themselves to be. And since she had spent 10 years living in Germany, I felt she had developed a profound respect for German culture.  Not to mention the common sense, straight forward way most Germans conduct themselves.

But when I actually went up there to help my friend get through all the wedding festivities I learned about the ex go go dancer’s story. Over 20 years before meeting my friend, the girl’s mother had fallen in love with a German man.  Who then married her and moved her to his home in Germany. The ex go go dancer spent much of her childhood in Germany.  And so did her older brother who had also been born in Thailand. The difference was that the brother had not only spent his childhood formative years in Germany.  He remained there and still is in Germany so far as I know.  Which makes him a German Thai I suppose.

At the village wedding I met the girl’s mother.  And I met her cousin who was working back then as a disk jockey in a Pattaya night club. I also met the bride’s older brother who spoke excellent German, good Thai and no English whatsoever.  He wasn’t a large man.  Most Thais aren’t, and he certainly looked every inch of being a Thai man. But although I wished I could, I couldn’t really converse with the man.  Because neither my Thai or German is up to the kind of intellectual conversations I would have loved having with him.

We survived the wedding.  Then we went back to Pattaya where we continued to celebrate.  Only this time, we’d do it in a night club. Instead of the farm yard where the chickens and dogs roamed.

My friend chose the Excite disco. The place is no longer there.  But  back then the night club had private karaoke rooms.  And a large main room with lots of tables and chairs in it.  With at least two bars, and a large stage where troupes of musicians and dancers of all three sexes could entertain the crowd.  (I’m including lady boys who are often referred to as Thailand’s third sex). There were around ten of us sitting together at a large table close to this main stage.

At the Excite Disco there was the groom and his bride, my ex girlfriend and I, the bride’s cousin.  And her older brother, the German Thai and several others whose faces and names I can’t remember.

My friend proceeded to buy several rounds of drinks for everyone at the table. And then the older brother bought everyone a round of drinks. And there sitting at the table was the Thai cousin enjoying all that free alcohol.  Just as he had done at the wedding back in the village for the past several days.  The difference was the older brother was German Thai.  While the cousin was 100 percent Thai with Thai values untainted by German culture.

The brother had undoubtedly paid for his own airfare all the way from Germany to Bangkok.  But here he was owning up to being a man who could buy his fair share of the drinks.

The difference between the two Asian men couldn’t have been more obvious. I can say this.

Upcountry I have never ever had a Thai male buy me as much as one beer or drink.  And I’ve been to some village or another five or six times now.

The Thais always expected of me to pay for every drink.  And during my last trip to the village I brought with me 120 bottles of beer.  And even that wasn’t enough. But the Thai who had spent most of his childhood and all his adult life in Germany had become a German. He had ceased being a Thai. He had grown up in a society of Germans who believed that every man must come up to scratch and be a man. In such a culture there’s no room for wimps or for men who spend all their lives leaching off of others.  He had become a German Thai.

Well, the Germans might have once believed themselves to be part of a Master Race, but I’m sure that most Germans don’t believe that today.

Most Germans I’ve met, and I know a lot of them very well, have a huge amount of respect for President Obama.  Who is ethnically 50 percent black and 50 percent white. So this whole master race thing for them has been a thing of the past. As for the ex go go dancer’s older Thai brother, he had become every inch a German in thought.  As well as the way he conducted himself. So although there is absolutely nothing to this racial superiority nonsense one must acknowledge the overall superiority of Western culture.

Germans are overall a very industrious creative people who are very logical.  And who exhibit on the whole a relatively high level of fairness towards their fellow man. I would say that in many ways the Japanese are very similar. But the way I see it too many Asian cultures value money as number one.  And to hell with everything else.

So why am I writing this post? It’s now been  24 hours since an American friend of mine had a motorbike accident on Pattaya 2nd Road . A Russian had assaulted and battered him by throwing a bucket of water into his face at 2 a.m.  Which caused him to lose control over his motorbike at 30 kilometers per hour. The bike had gone down and he had gone down with it. The bike cost my friend 4000 baht in damages.  And he had to go to the hospital for his injuries.

The Songkran water holiday was not even supposed to start until the next day. It is also illegal to throw water on people, cars or motorbikes after 6 p.m.

But it’s okay to cause severe bodily harm on one’s unwilling victims after April 13th. Just as long as you do it before six in the evening. But hold on, even though my friend had his accident a day before the Songkran festivities were to begin.  And even though it happened at 2 a.m. this is okay too. After all it’s Songkran and as long as we are having fun who cares?

No one admitted to seeing the Russian throw water at my friend. And he should not complain and be a bad sport because it’s Songkran and Mai Pen Rai rules.  But the real reason I wrote this post is when I wrote that I can only recommend the book, Thailand Fever, with Fear and Trepidation on my page recommending books by other authors.

Jack Corbett