What to look for in SEA Women

[Wandering_Yeti]

Hello,

Was wondering what Green/Red flags to look out for when looking for a wife from SEA. Since from what Ive researched, Japan is just as bad if not worse than the US.

[Taco]

Hello,

Was wondering what Green/Red flags to look out for when looking for a wife from SEA.

Red Flag: She's really beautiful and always asking for money and always wants to eat out.

Green Flag: The most trustworthy and submissive women will cook for you and will be good at it. A woman can fake her orgasms but she can't fake culinary arts.

Green Flag: Takes your clothes off before sex.

[Wandering_Yeti]

So basically not western women. lol.

had a specific country in mind and wanted to know how someone would integrate and eventually emigrate into the local culture.

[MrMan]

Hello,

Was wondering what Green/Red flags to look out for when looking for a wife from SEA.

Red Flag: She's really beautiful and always asking for money and always wants to eat out.

Green Flag: The most trustworthy and submissive women will cook for you and will be good at it. A woman can fake her orgasms but she can't fake culinary arts.

Green Flag: Takes your clothes off before sex.

If Indonesians were having this conversation, this would be an odd comment. If a girl is willing to have sex with you before she is married, that's a red flag. She probably did it with other men, too.

Like one Indonesian English student of mine said back when I taught English, "I don't want a second hand woman."

[MrMan]

My wife is Indonesian, so I have some thoughts on this.

Sluttiness is a red flag. Countries are different, but in Indonesia, my guess is there are enough virgins around that finding one to marry isn't something impossible or really that difficult. There has been some research in western context indicating women who have had sex with someone besides their husband prior to marriage have a very much higher divorce rate. Sex joins a woman with a man. It's best if she hasn't been joined in that way. If she's a widow, her husband is dead and there is no one left that she can leave you for, and if she stayed with him until death, that's an honorable thing to do.

Another 'green flag' (first time I've used the term, but it works) is honesty. Is she an honest person? If she lies to others, she may lie to you.

Faith is another 'green flag.' I'm a Christian. Marrying a Muslim was not something that I would have seriously considered, even though much of Indonesia is Muslim. In the US, being of different religions corresponds with higher divorce rates. Professing religious beliefs does not correlate with lower divorce rates, but regular church attendance does. If I had married a Muslim or Buddhist or atheist, we would not have had common ground. My wife is a Christian, so we had certain beliefs in common. She had been taught that a wife is supposed to submit to her husband. Not only is adultery vague immoral somehow, but it is a sin against God. A wife is not supposed to divorce her husband either. Her people-group's culture is anti-divorce, too, or at least the Christians among them. They also strongly emphasize honoring father and mother, and part of that is material provision if they need it. Most Indonesians and Filippinas will want to send money home to their parents if they are not rich. Rich parents may give them money.

Asian women are not all automatically totally submissive. Few women are. You get a bit of an advantage if her culture or religion teaches her that she should submit to her husband. Even if they believe they should be, they are still women. As a man, you have to keep them in line. I'm not talking about smacking them around. If she does something you consider disrespectful, you have to call her on it and set boundaries for her when it comes to her respecting you. Look for opportunities to set yourself up as the leader early in the relationship. Have her ask you for permission for stuff, for example purchases over a certain amount. I did not really do this as a formal rule. If I had it to do over, I think I'd set some rules just to get her used to asking my permission in the first year of marriage and then fall into a set of behaviors normal for us. I have had my wife call me on the phone and ask if she could buy sheets and stuff like that. She doesn't call about buying ketchup or chicken at the grocery store.

I think it is probably wiser to marry a girl from a family that is not rich. At least in Indonesia, middle class families usually hire maids from the villages. They are hard to keep, sometimes, but having a maid is still pretty common. So the girl in the well-to-do family grows up with maids doing the housework. If she grows up poor, she may be a bit more thrifty with your money after you marry. My wife is thrifty. She doesn't go out and spend a lot on clothes. When I was in grad school, she'd even get stuff at thrift stores.

My wife grew up watching one of the family kiosks before and after school and washing laundry for family members. She's a hard worker. She likes to garden in the spring and summer, sometimes, if she isn't too busy with other things.

As far as cooking goes, my wife could cook a little when we were married. She worked and was not set up where she was living to do much cooking. She actually ran some food stands, several small businesses she had set up at the front of grocery stores a year before I met her, but I do not think she was the cook. But she had a strong desire to learn to cook. I read somewhere that Indonesian women ranked most traditional as wives, among other countries, scoring highest on a question that said the most important thing a woman can do is be a good wife and mother. Nowadays, some of the young women in the cities are career women, and haven't learned to cook. But the idea that they should be able to is still there in the culture at least to some degree.

There are a number of other character qualities to look for. A woman needs to be kind and loving. compassionate, and humble to be good wife material.

You want someone not materialistic. When we were dating, I could tell my wife wanted to be careful about me spending too much money. Local calls in Indonesia were charged in three minute increments. In the US, local calls are included in the monthly price. Not there. When I was first getting to know her and we would spend extended periods of time on the phone, she expressed concern about how much it cost. I made a lot more than most Indonesians at the time with my little English teacher salary and I did not care. She seemed a little uncomfortable with me taking her out all the time. After the monetary crisis, western buffets and other reasonably decent meals were about $2 at the mall and other food was cheaper, so I was taking her out to eat nearly ever night. At first she expressed a bit of concern over how much money I was spending on her, but I reassured her and she adapted to that. She's made it up to me with the gourmet meals at home.

My wife is a really good cook. She has been a guest chef at a fine dining restaurant. One problem we have had is that she cooks so good if we want to eat out, we say we don't know if we want to eat at such and such a restaurant because she cooks their dishes better than they do. She does not cook much Mexican, so since we have been in the US, we have eaten out at Mexican restaurants. I think she'll learn to cook the shrimp at one Mexican seafood place we like soon.

Character and the fear of the Lord are really important for wives. Looks are less important, but biologically, we men respond to looks. I'm sure you know what you like as far as looks are concerned. A big question is, is there any way to figure out if she is going to still look good when she gets older. My wife is now in her mid 40's. She could pass for being in her 30's. She is still pretty and is thin. She was extremely thin when we first started dating. She has never been the type to eat huge quantities of food-- those large amounts some people eat when they are young that, when they get older, turn into fat. She'll skip meals and think nothing of it. Her mom probably was around her age when I first met her. She wasn't fat and isn't now, but did not look as pretty, or young, as my wife does now. But the advice to look at her mom to see what she might look like in 20 or 30 years is probably pretty good rule-of-thumb advice.

If her mom is shaped like an apple or a pear and you see a picture of her and she looked like your girlfriend does now when she was 23, then your wife just might plump up. Maybe you could look at her father's sisters, too, to get an idea of the genes on that side of the family.