Pattaya Newbie

Cultural background of Pattaya Ladies

Any single guy who travels to Pattaya is going for one reason and one reason only; the ladies. Pattaya is reputed to have 30,000 working girls in about 3000 bars. This number varies during the year but rest assured there are always far more ladies than guys looking for one.

First of all we’ll have a look at where most of them girls come from and what their goals are and frame them in their culture. Where the ladies come from and 'face' is discussed on this page. The following page discusses the goals and views of the Thai ladies. After reading the two sections you will have a better understanding of Pattaya ladies.

Background of Pattaya Ladies

Most of the ladies that you will find in Pattaya come from a region in Thailand called Issan. This is the area in the north east of the country. It is culturally influenced by Laos in the north and Cambodia in the south. It is a poor rural area where the main source of income is growing rice.

The ladies who travel to Pattaya tend to be from poor families and have little education. Many have had a child with a previous partner (usually Thai) which places further financial pressure on them.

Unlike in our countries there is no social security safety net. In Thailand if you don’t work you don’t have an income. To replace the systems that we take for granted Thai children are conditioned to feel an obligation to support their parents when the need arrives. A large part of the burden is placed on the eldest daughter. High unemployment in Issan means that the need is nearly always present.

Many of the girls are driven to Pattaya under, either actual or perceived, pressure to provide financial support to their families. The pressure is even more so for those ladies with children. Also, they often come with the plan to find a foreigner to marry them and look after both them and their families.

Unfortunately, many of the ladies find that the actuality of Pattaya is much different than the stories that they hear and that it is not so easy to find a ‘good man.’ It is not long before their hopes disappear and they become disillusioned. This is further discussed on the next page.

Pattaya Ladies and the Family

To Thais the family is the most important thing. From birth they are conditioned to be dependent on their family. This is very different from the west where independance is more important. For instance young children often sleep with their parents well beyound what would be tolerated in the west.

This conditioning is important due to the lack of a welfare system. It is up to the offspring to provide for the elder members of the family after they can no longer work. For whatever the reason, more of the responsiblity to provide for the family fall on the females of the family.

Another important factor is that female children are not regarded as highly as the male children.

'Face' in Thailand

‘Face’ is an Asian human trait rather than just a Thai one. Basically it is their pride and how they are looked upon by others.  It is normal in our countries for people to be told that they do or have done something wrong. In Thailand it is considered very rude to do this. It is something that the Thais will avoid as much as possible. Thais would much prefer to lie than to make someone feel uncomfortable.

Something that the bar girls don’t like is for a guy to take them and for the guy to return to the bar to take another lady. This tells everyone in the bar that she is no good, in their eyes. You will not be liked in a bar if you go about taking more than one lady from there if you go about it wrong.

Some people will tell you that the whole face thing is just to keep a guy on the hook. The girls really don’t want to lose a customer to another lady as she loses money. While this is no doubt a factor genuine feelings of being discarded are also at work.

How to go about taking more than one lady from the same bar so that everyone is happy will be discussed in a later section.