Rock and Falcon in Bangkok

[Rock]

I’ve been in Thailand for last 3 weeks and met-up with Falcon 3 times.

First time, I had a Chinese Indonesian girl (L) with me and 3 of her close friends (also Chinese Indonesian). I met L in Manila a few weeks ago (she’s a working university student) and we quickly started dating.

We all went to dinner together and it seemed to go well. Falcon and I were immersed in our own conversation for much of the time but eventually, he started talking to the girls while I talked mainly to L. Afterwards, we snapped a bunch of photos together.

On the walk back, Falcon expressed surprise to me that these Chinese girls seemed so down-to-earth, friendly, and easy to talk to. It then hit me that he probably didn’t have much experience interacting with Asian or Chinese girls outside of California. From my Taiwan perspective, they just seemed (on the surface) like regular girls, nothing special. But both Falcon and I missed some things during this meeting.

Fortunately, L is an exceptional Chinese Indonesian in that she’s traveled a fair bit overseas, is open minded, and can put herself in the shoes of people from other backgrounds. So she acted as my cultural translator and basically told me everything that was going on behind the scenes with her friends. Here’s a bit of what I learned about them and more generally about Indonesia.

1. Falcon and I did not make a good impression with her friends the first night. They felt we largely ignored them and also figured out that I was mainly interested in interacting with L which made them jealous. Apparently Chinese Indo guys are very group oriented and take good care of girls in early stages of knowing them. And they had expected us to be very gentlemanly types as per they way westerners are often portrayed in movies lol.

2. L and I had a few displays of affection outside and they caught us once or twice. Later they gave her hell for that. They were genuinely pissed-off!

3. First impressions seem to be very important and durable with Indo Chinese as L explained to me. And this seemed to jibe with another experience I had. Before Monkro moved in, I had a young female Chinese Indonesian tenant. My ex and I made a very good impression on her, her mother, and her grandmother. So when the latter 2 would come to visit their daughter/granddaughter in Taipei, they would take us out multiple times and treat us to nice meals. We all became good friends. In case of L's friends, they kept a distance from me for rest of trip and did not wanna meet Falcon again as they couldn't entirely forget the bad impression from first night.

4. These particular girls were very fair minded with money. Everyone paid their own way for everything. For example, if I paid for a taxi or something else, they would later have L give me their respective shares including hers. But I think they were disappointed the first night when Falcon and I invited them out but let everyone count their shares at the table instead of one of us paying first and then letting them pay-back later. In old-school Taiwan, one person usually pays the bill but these days when u have a group of younger people in a restaurant, I sometimes see people doing the Dutch Treat thing in plain view.

5. The general impression I got from talking to L is that many young people from her culture begin courting in a group context. Private dates might not happen till much later. One of her 3 friends had a serious bf back home. But usually, she would only meet with him in a group of her close friends.

6. Chinese Indos are largely separated socially from Muslim Indos. It’s like 2 different cultures and countries. They may go to school together. But they voluntarily segregate themselves and discriminate in business. And from what L told me, Jakarta is quite dangerous in many parts, definitely worse than Manila. There’s a lot of issues and history between Chinese and local Muslims. Even open minded L seemed to have a lot prejudice against the majority population of her country, probably for good reason.

7. Shopping and cheap bargain hunting may be the biggest pastime in Indonesia. I go this impression by what I’ve read, observing these girls during their visit to Thailand, and seeing all the stuff my former tenant’s mom and grandma would bring back every night during their Taiwan visits.

OK enough about Indonesia. I met Falcon 2 more times but we mainly just talked and walked around lower Sukhumvit area a bit. After listening to what he said about his experiences in Mexico, his preference for direct style flirting from women, and his attraction to more mature, chubbier, and perhaps darker skinned girls, I actually think he might like Phils a lot in spite of him being a young guy of Chinese ancestry. NE Asian girls and perhaps middle class central Thais are generally much more subtle and ambiguous in the ways they show interest in a guy or at least consider him as a possible dating prospect. So if Falcon dates a Thai girl, I think it might end up being one who is much more forward and direct than average. I could also see him dating certain types of Issan girls. But I would say Phils is most Latinized when it comes to flirting. Certain girls there will make their interest very clear and easy to read, a style which he seems to prefer.

In spite of all my visits and stays in Thailand, I’ve only dated a handful of Thai girls. Falcon told me about one friend of his in Thailand who preferred to date recent Chinese immigrants and another who is a similar case. Regular Thai girls seem to be a special case of Asian girl if Repatriate’s analysis is accurate. I remember when ManInSiam, a tall and decent looking Korean American, was here last year for a couple months last year, he didn’t seem to get very far in his quest to date regular girls. Sure there are some posters here who seem to get a lot of free casual sex from certain types of girls here. But if someone wants to get serious for the longer term, I think you just have to be naturally made for Thai mentality or at least localize to a great extent ala anamericaninbankgok. Personally, I’ve had much better luck connecting with Taiwanese/Chinese and Filipinas than Thais. Falcon, as a quiet and intellectual type who seems to appreciate more extroverted, lose, and easygoing cultures, may have more natural affinity with Pinoys/ays and people from certain areas or backgrounds in China than with middle class Bangkok Thais.

[jboy]

Don't mess up this one and do not cock block anyone if u can help it bro lol.

[zboy1]

Great post Rock! I hope to see more sights around Asia when I get to China sometime in the fall. Much better than staying in crappy America with no life or ambition.

[xiongmao]

OK I have now joined the Bangkok brotherhood.

I just jetted in from China. It's a long story but:

Mainland Chinese ladies are the HOTTEST I have ever seen.
BUT.... I have MAJOR problems with China and ultimately it has caused me to bail from the country. Guys with no backbones can live there, but my ancestors fought in two world wars to defend freedom of speech and democracy, and I honour their memory by refusing to bow to spineless cowards.

More on that in the next week or months I guess, but now I am in Thailand. And here's my first impressions of Thailand...

From the air, wow Thailand looks very much like England! Lots of green, lots of little fields. And no gross environmental damage that scars Southern China!
Bangkok airport - wow, so multi-cultural. OK, so the Western guys you see are beta rather than the alphas of China. Maybe I have the most head-hair of the lot, and that's not saying much!
Bangkok taxi to hotel from airport - a local taxi driver who speaks English? WTF? Sadly his accent is so thick I can barely make things out, but it's an improvement on Wuhan. He spends half the journey on his iPad, I spend it on trying not to vomit after some suspect airline food .
Bangkok taxi journey - a total nightmare due to the traffic! The journey takes 2 hours? 20 hours? Who knows! And at the end he drops me at the wrong frigging hotel!!!! Fear not because my real hotel sends a tuk-tuk to pick me up!!!!
Hotel - wow, absolutely fantastic. I've never visited Thailand before but I looked on a blog for girl friendly hotels and found this place, which was also on Expedia (for easy booking). £28 a night gets you an amazing room and it is actually the best room I have ever stayed in. Ever! Also did I mention that there were sexy massage girls in the lobby and two restaurants and room service of pizza and other food?
As to Bangkok itself, well it feels so small and unpopulated compared to Guangzhou. On the other hand it is the low-season here as it's hot and rainy. But I'm battle hardened from 4 months in China so 21°C feels cold to me.
There are some people here though. I'm amazed at how multi-cultural it is. I've seen a lot of Indians, some Cantonese, Canadians and of course Brits.

As to Thai ladies, I'm not really into the monging thing, but I'll hit up ThaiLoveLinks and see who I can find to date. A Brit who speaks Mandarin Chinese? That's bloody rare here!!!!

I don't rate Thais as highly as the Chinese. But on the other hand I've seen some incredibly exotic girls here already. Wow, wow, wow. But are they girls or guys? I'd hate to take a ladyboy back to my room and then find out she was a women!!!!!!

P.S. PM me if you're actually here - I know some guys are here. I'm here for 2 weeks, maybe more.

[Falcon]

On the walk back, Falcon expressed surprise to me that these Chinese girls seemed so down-to-earth, friendly, and easy to talk to. It then hit me that he probably didn’t have much experience interacting with Asian or Chinese girls outside of California. From my Taiwan perspective, they just seemed (on the surface) like regular girls, nothing special.

Well yes, to me, they were some of the most easily approachable and down-to-earth NE Asian-descent girls who could speak good English. It was such a big relief to not hear the overly done American twang and have to deal with sassy attitudes.

As I later found out, the reason they got put off by me later on wasn't because I got their contact info too fast, or because they thought of me as getting too close to them or coming on too fast. Far from it! It was because I (and Rock) didn't give them enough attention or take care of them enough.

It was also clear to us that PUA will NOT work with these women at all, and would actually offend them very much. Things like being a "bad boy" or not giving them much attention are exactly the opposite of how to date these conservative Chinese-Indonesian women.

L was quite surprised when Rock and I told her about women in the US, such as their easily getting repulsed or angry when approached innocently. She was incredulous, saying "All girls are the same, they all want to be complimented and loved by a good man." We didn't bother explain further and moved on. Some of what she said about dating in the Chinese-Indonesian community mildly surprised even Rock, since they appeared to be far more like old-school Taiwan than modern NE Asia.

After listening to what he said about his experiences in Mexico, his preference for direct style flirting from women, and his attraction to more mature, chubbier, and perhaps darker skinned girls, I actually think he might like Phils a lot in spite of him being a young guy of Chinese ancestry. NE Asian girls and perhaps middle class central Thais are generally much more subtle and ambiguous in the ways they show interest in a guy or at least consider him as a possible dating prospect. So if Falcon dates a Thai girl, I think it might end up being one who is much more forward and direct than average. I could also see him dating certain types of Issan girls. But I would say Phils is most Latinized when it comes to flirting. Certain girls there will make their interest very clear and easy to read, a style which he seems to prefer.

Very well put, thanks. On the other hand, Rock prefers more subtle flirting and gradual seduction, which he compares to as a developing romance story with a certain kind of excitement. As a result, more introverted, softer Western men have often found that they vibe with Taiwan very well. But the more direct Latino and African men that I've met in Guangzhou were genuinely confused by the urban middle-class Chinese women; so was I. This takes what Rock calls a "steep learning curve" that I'd be able to master if I'd stay in Taiwan for a couple of months and honed my Taiwanese street smarts. These smarts would include picking up on subtle cues that girls would give me.

Recently, I told a Thai woman that it's difficult for me to get girlfriends back home. She then told me, "A lot of girls here are eyeing you [interested in you], you just don't know it." That was really an interesting comment to hear from her.

[Falcon]

Interestingly enough, Rock sometimes asks the same questions that my parents do. It probably has to do with the fact that his thinking and perspective have become more in tune with the Taiwanese over the years.

For instance, Rock asked me why I still found urban coastal California difficult to date in. He said that there are plenty of ethnic groups (especially Asians), personality types, and social clubs in California universities. Large Asian communities, lots of liberals, and so on. My parents have said the same things to me before.

It is indeed easy to make friends and connections over there, and the diversity is fun and fascinating. I've certainly enjoyed that aspect of life a lot. But dating/romance is a completely different story. It's difficult, nerve-racking, and frustrating for many, especially those who don't fit into mainstream cliques. I rarely get ignored as a friend, but nearly always get ignored as a potential partner. The fact that we have such a large proportion of men from California on the forum speaks volumes.

Everywhere else I've been outside the United States, I've never been ignored as a potential partner. Opportunities come within a few weeks at most, which does not happen in the US.

Rock also said that it's important to not compare all your experiences abroad to what you've experienced back home. Indeed, a lot of what you experience abroad will feel like absolutely miraculous, stunning, and mindblowing -- something impossible that has somehow finally happened. I'd say this feeling would be almost comparable to a blind man seeing light for the first time! That is certainly Monkro's case. It's only natural to look back at your USA experiences and feel angry about why you've been deprived of such experiences (holding hands, women being friendly to you, etc.) for so many years. I've felt like I've gotten over this fairly well by now though.

[anamericaninbangkok]

The PUA stuff here is unnecessary, especially if you speak Thai. It's very easy to initiate conversations and get numbers if you're clean, dressed halfway decent (no SAME-SAME or Me So Horny shirts) and a little polite.

Most young Thai women will give out their phone number but if they're not interested they'll either give you a number for a second phone or just not answer. Getting phone numbers in Thailand is easy, it's closing that takes a bit more work.

[xiongmao]

I need to work on my closing, and I think Thailand is a better place to do it than China.

I don't know if it's possible to learn Thai. Well Chinese was possible so I guess it is.

[Winston]

You guys should PM Repatriate and see if he will meet up with you. lol

Have you met the forum poster AnAmericaninBangkok yet? Is he there too? PM him and see.

[Repatriate]

I've been in the U.S. for the last 6 months.

It does sound like you guys had a good time. It's kind of amusing that you're hanging out with non-Thai girls in Thailand but I can understand why. It takes some time to get acclimated to Thai culture and trying to date regular Thai women is like jumping into the deep end of the pool without learning how to swim first. I have met quite a few thai-american and various foreign men who do spend a lot of time dating foreign women in Thailand too. It's more prevalent in places like Koh Tao or other beach holiday places though.

[anamericaninbangkok]

You guys should PM Repatriate and see if he will meet up with you. lol

Have you met the forum poster AnAmericaninBangkok yet? Is he there too? PM him and see.

I met up with Rock a few weeks ago. I'm here in Bangkok now but I may be going on a road trip shortly.

[xiongmao]

I met up with Rock a few weeks ago. I'm here in Bangkok now but I may be going on a road trip shortly.

I'm here for the next week or so, it would be nice to meet another board member!

I met Rock a couple of times here, he showed me a really nice Middle Eastern restaurant. I just went there tonight to have my first hummous for 4 months.

I'm not sure how long I'll stay here - I might go back to the UK then come back again. Four months in China have worn me down and Bangkok is an ideal place for some R&R. It's kind of different here to what I expected, but I like a lot of what I see.

I'll see if I can get the ball rolling on a 6 or 12 month visa so I can stick around here. Apartments seem cheap and it's a great place to meet women. While there aren't quite so hot many here as I used to see in Guangzhou, when Thai ladies are hot they're absolutely stunning. Plus they seem a lot more fun than Chinese women, who are just on this planet to work, work, work .

[Falcon]

6. Chinese Indos are largely separated socially from Muslim Indos. It’s like 2 different cultures and countries. They may go to school together. But they voluntarily segregate themselves and discriminate in business. And from what L told me, Jakarta is quite dangerous in many parts, definitely worse than Manila. There’s a lot of issues and history between Chinese and local Muslims. Even open minded L seemed to have a lot prejudice against the majority population of her country, probably for good reason.

So I guess L would be absolutely mortified if we told her about how I'm into the Indonesian maid, who's Muslim and non-ethnic Chinese. See Rock's other thread about me in Taiwan: viewtopic.php?t=20058

I seem to go against standard and acceptable partner preferences that ethnic Chinese usually have.
- Ethnic Chinese in Thailand almost never date, let alone marry, very dark ethnic minority Isaan women.
- Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia almost never date, let alone marry, Muslim pribumi Javanese women.

Historically, ethnic Chinese in Indonesia have also employed non-Chinese Indonesian women as maids and nannies. From Wiki:

Chinese women with their luggage at the quay. A native Indonesian nanny, carrying a baby, is trying to make a young girl drink. Almost all household maids and drivers employed by Chinese Indonesians are "pribumi" (non-ethnic Chinese "natives").

[falcon garson]

It's really good that both of you meet with one another. Here I am going to tell you these days I am on my tour by bus los angeles to san francisco. Is there any member who experience this tour or wants to go there in future? What about you Falcon?