The Following interview was originally posted September 9, 2005 on www.stickmanbangkok.com

Mail Order Brides

There are a heap of marriage agencies, both online, and operating in other areas, which offer Westerners the chance to meet purportedly marriage-minded Thai women.  One of the biggest operators is Thai Professional Introductions which has been introducing Western men to potential Thai brides since 1997.  Thai Professional Introductions is the brainchild of Lawrence Lynch and his Thai wife, Thapanee.  This week I had a chance to meet up with Lawrence and talk about his business and the Mail Order Bride industry as it is sometimes known.

Can you talk me through the history of Thai Professional Introductions?

I came to Thailand in 1996, just for a holiday, that was all, and as ridiculous as it may seem I hadn’t had a holiday for 2 years.  I needed a new wardrobe of clothes as I had just got divorced from my second wife who had run off with the gardener.  The first wife went off with the boss and the second with the gardener.  The third has been ok though!

I came basically for a holiday, I was just chilling out.  I realized it was a piece of cake to meet women out here, but not the type you’d want to bring home to your mother, if you know what I mean.  Anyway, I went back home and decided that I wanted to do a bit of a reccy about how you would meet women outside of the bars.

Now I don’t want to say anything disrespectful about them because I understand the economic situation which puts them there and if I wanted to meet girls like that I could meet them back in the nightclubs in England.  Basically, I did a reccy around a few of the agencies for people doing introductions, sort of scoped out the market.

I came out again and went to a Chinese matchmaker who worked under an assumed name, it turned out.  I won’t mention who it is!  Suffice to say, things were not all as they should have been.  The girls in that particular agency would come in pairs and would not want to be left with the agency boss for reasons you can guess.  The fact of the matter was that when I was at that office I saw a lady and said I’d like to meet her.  He tried to get me to meet someone else!  Not to put too fine a point on it, there seemed to be a system whereby the ladies who were introduced to men had endeared themselves to the proprietor!  It was pretty rough!  I met her and we spent a month together in Thailand and I got somebody to cover for me back in the UK as someone needed to run my music shop while I was away.  Thapanee, was working as a diamond checker, and she is now my wife.  Her story has actually been told in the Daily Mirror.

As you know, education beyond 14 years of age here has to be paid for.  Her three brothers were well educated and all have very good jobs but it was decided Thapanee would stay at home, look after her parents and look after the rice fields but she didn’t want to do that.  So, she got a job as a diamond checker and when I started going out with her she said that she would have to leave her job if she was going to have more time off work so I asked how much she earned a month to which she replied 8,000 baht.  I said that I wanted to spend time with her and that she could give up her job and I would support her until she came to England.

I went back to England and Mr. Chinaman did not support or help us.  I came out on a second trip and we spent more time together and an application for a fiancé visa was submitted.  She got it first time even though she had not been properly prepared.  I had a phone call from the British Embassy asking me a few questions.  Funnily enough I have never had a client get phoned by them.  I was happy with my fiancé but cheesed off with the agency's service.  Thapanee is a very caring person, service-minded, and likes to help people.  Together, we decided that we couldn’t do worse than what we had seen and we felt that there might be a market for sincere men to meet decent marriage-minded Thai women, and so we decided to start an agency.  And that is really how it started.  

You run the business from the UK.  Is that a challenge?

We registered the company and all that sort of thing and I started advertising in the UK.  I have clients from all over the world now.  I’ve got a few customers here at the moment, one from the UK, one from the US and another who is a bit older.  My wife is going to find someone of suitable age for him.  I'm rambling!

Well basically, we just advertised in the press as when we started the internet was not very big.

Do you advertise in conventional press now?

Yes, of course in the UK.  Very extensively.

Where do you get more customers from, the internet or the traditional media?

I have got to say, from the press.  Actually, sometimes I am surprised that even now in 2005 the number of people who have a computer but have a virus or do not know how to use it or are simply not well versed in computers.  We will eventually live out here permanently and I guess then we will get all our customers from the internet.

What is the breakdown of your clients by nationality?

We have people from everywhere.  By the nature of the fact that we are based in the UK, about 70% of guys are from the UK.  20% US and 10% from the rest of Europe. 

What is the cost of the service you offer?

There are two price schedules actually, $US 1800 for American, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand customers.  Or £ 1650 Sterling for all Europeans.

Why the difference?

For the Europeans we do everything.  For US clients, they have to go to an attorney in the US and then they will fly back with all of the documents to do the visa and we will prepare the woman here.

What do guys get for their money?  What exactly does the service you offer entail?  Can you go through all of the steps?  I ask because $1,800 seems awfully steep in a country where most things are cheap, and where one US dollar can get you a plate of chicken fried rice AND a bottle of Coke.

A lot of people think this is a license to print money but it isn’t.  I’ve had 8 previous customers of mine who started a similar business which lasted anywhere between 3 months and 3 years but they were totally misguided.  We do not make a lot of money out of this.  They think we have X amount of customers and we make a lot of money.  We spend mammoth amounts of money on press and website promotion so the bottom line is that we survive.  I run another business so if we have a quiet time the other business keeps things ticking over.  Two recent clients have started operations, one for 8 months and the other for 18 months.  There really isn’t a sufficiently large market for people to think they can make a living out of it, as ridiculous as it may seem.

People use us for one reason.  We do absolutely everything for them.  Think of the logistics of going to Thailand, being able to meet the right type of lady, get the real background with all of the language and cultural differences.  The logistics of all of that and keeping it all together when the guy is not here, getting the girl through the visa and her having support in the UK during her initial period of acclimatization.  The logistics of all of that are quite daunting.  I have had a man who has been to Thailand 22 times and he still came to me to find a Thai wife because he was just going around in circles trying to meet the right woman.

We even do other stuff and help out guys with their mobile phones, hotels if they need it etc.  We really do offer every level of service.

Gentlemen who sign up with us pre-select women from their home country about 3 or 4 weeks before departure from the website, or they can get a brochure if they are not online.  They can select as many as they want, the more the merrier.  Sometimes we have a guy who REALLY wants to meet someone so we can "lock" that woman until the guy has met her.  We will contact the ladies and tell them that there is a guy who wants to meet her and arrange the date and time for her to be at the office.

Clients are met at the airport and brought to their hotel.  Next day they are brought to the office and are introduced to the ladies one at a time.  When I met my wife, Thapanee, I was in a room with 6 girls in a line and I was asked which one I wanted to meet. It was a most embarrassing situation  A bit like choose a lobster from a tank in a restaurant - which one do you want to kill and eat!

The introductions take place at hourly intervals with an interpreter in attendance.  Maybe 20% of the girls speak good English.  Usually the client will have a checklist with questions.  They always start meeting the girls at the office and not outside in a bar or other less suitable environment.

So if he likes the girl, it is a done thing and they go and get married right away?!

No, not at all.  It is a two way thing.  We’ll separate the man and the woman and ask the woman if she likes the guy.  Rejection is pretty low generally.  8 out of 10 of the girls will want to go out with a guy who wants to go out with them.  Interview, meet, date and see how it goes.

If things do get serious we often recommend that they both go up to Bumrungrad to get checked out.  AIDS scares many people.  You can get tested and get the results back in two hours.  Actually most women quite like this as it shows that the guy is responsible.

I tell people you can meet a girl in Thailand within 2 hours and she will be on to you like a leech.  You don’t want her.  We help people meet women who they might not so easily meet.  The ladies that gentleman meet through us are gainfully employed.

What steps do you take to ensure the “history” of the girls you promote?

Let’s put it this way.  First of all, all of our staff are ladies, that is an important point.  If you have seen any programs on agencies where there were any men on the scene there is always the possibility, or maybe even probability, that they are acting improperly.

Basically we check where they are living and where they are working.  We do NOT advertise for girls.  Most of the other websites will advertise for girls.  If we had that we would have everyone clicking on the website and we would not know who they were.  Every lady who comes to us has to come for an interview.  We check their ID, where they are living and or working.  Most ladies come as referrals.  One lady got married and referred 10 ladies from the country.  They all came together to the office in a pickup truck!  All are gainfully employed.

I say the same thing to the men as I say to the ladies.  If a guy asks me if this if this woman has ever done anything negative or untoward in her life then I will point at him and ask him how I can be sure that he has done nothing untoward himself!  That’s it really.

The girls are beyond a reasonable doubt decent gainfully employed ladies.  The men are beyond reasonable doubt sincere marriage-minded men who are not out here to fly their kite.

What do you think when you see an old guy ready for the grave walking around with a young hotty?  Doesn’t it look bad?  I mean, not everyone is as handsome as you.

We won’t arrange people of such mismatched ages to meet.  I have a man of 73 coming in two weeks' time and he is looking for ladies about 50.  I always explain, irrespective of how old or young they may be, that Thai ladies are quite happy to have a man who is a fair bit older because they believe he is going to be more responsible, more mature and not going to look at all and sundry in a skirt and is going to have greater responsibility towards her.  Thai women want to meet someone for life and responsibility is so important.  But the age gap can not be too great.

When a gentleman first contacts me I will find out about his marital status, job and if he has retired, whether he has more than a standard state pension.

If I had a man in his 70s ask to meet a girl aged about 30 then I would suggest that he would be better served to contact another agency.  A man of that age would have to meet a woman right at the top end of our age range.

One guy met a girl on the 6th, today is the 9th, and they were engaged today.  We will take her off the books, move her off the website and now he is going to spend more time with her.  That is perhaps an exception.  What is more typical is that a guy meets a series of girls and meets a certain girl and spends the time with one he finds an attraction with.  The guy then says he does not want her to meet other guys when he goes back and so they get engaged.

The guy goes back to his country and keeps in contact with her.  The guy must then come back.  US customers don't come back out so quickly as they have to do the visa application documents and that can take some time.  I always tell a customer to take at least 3 months before returning.

Why?

It gives both parties a cooling off period!  When the man makes a second trip it demonstrates a more solid sort of relationship.  It looks better at the embassy.  Our service with the contract is for 12 months. 

He has 3 options when he comes out for the second time.

A)  He has fallen out with her or just lost interest.  Extremely rare, this, maybe one in 50.  We've not had one this year.  In this case he would have to start again.  They are back at square one again.

B)  If he is from the States, she will go for the 90 day K1 visa. 

C)  If he is from the UK, then he has to apply for either the 6 month fiancé visa or 24 month wife visa.

At the end of their first trip we ask the clients to come back to the office to tell us what is happening so we can help them with what will happen next.

What do you think are the primary motivations of the women joining your service?

People come to me and say that the women are economic migrants and passport seekers.  This is the general belief as has been re-enforced in the media.  The fact of the matter though is that if you ask most of the girls where they would like to live, they would rather stay in Thailand and have a Western husband here.

The Thai ladies on our books are looking to escape from Thai men but not from Thailand!

I am always up front with the way the Thai system works and that these women are from all over the country but they are living and working in Bangkok.  They might go home and see their relatives 3 or 4 times a year and they are sending some money back to their family.  It might be 40% of their wage.  When the ladies come to England I always tell the men because what is promoted is that if you have a Thai wife you have got the whole family.  I say that when the lady moves, she will want to maintain the same level of support to her family.  If she doesn’t do that she will be considered jai dum.  Thai ladies in a non-Thai country will be living in relative luxury compared to how they were living in Thailand.  I have one girl in my books whose parents owned a profitable and well-known business though this is an exception.  The only problem will be if she stays at home and he wants her to be a housewife then he may have to put his hands in his own pocket to help support her family.  We encourage her to get a job so that she can continue the support to her family.

So what about the dreaded dowry money?

We suggest that when a dowry has to be paid that the amount should be around 70,000 baht.  This is a happy medium, not too much and not too little.  A lot of guys don't pay, perhaps the lady's parents have passed away or it just doesn't come up.

Do you agree with me that farangs who wish to marry a Thai woman are better off finding a woman who doesn’t explicitly want a farang man?

I would say to you that every lady that comes to us comes with the explicit intention of meeting a non-Thai man so that doesn’t really apply here.  Thai ladies want to meet a good man whether he is Chinese, Thai or farang.  The Thai ladies who come to us are empowered Thai ladies.  This is what I say to the feminist ladies who come to us in the UK.  I say that these girls are empowered women who are not going to put up with the errant and promiscuous ways of the average Thai man.  The fact of the matter is that it is inherent in the culture and I do not see it changing quickly.

You often talk of all of the relationships that ended up happily ever after, but what of those that didn’t?  Can you tell me of some of the relationships that went horribly wrong?

We have done 750 marriages, approximately, and to my knowledge; and we are there to give a help and support so if there is a problem we are the first to know about it.  There have been 5 divorces and 2 of these guys have come back to us to find someone new and remarry.  The common denominator of failure is marrying too quickly.  We had a Scottish man who called me from Heathrow and said that he was coming to use the service.  “I am going to be married by the end of the week”, he told me.  He got married within 4 days and we were asking him why he wanted to do this.  He had signed the marriage papers after 4 days!  3 days later he changed is mind!  He then got divorced right away, as you can.  He is now married to the very same lady and they are living together in Scotland!

We never ever have people registering papers on their first trip, nor having a Buddhist ceremony on their first trip, unless it is an extremely long trip.

The other problem is a large age difference.  I always ask how old a client is and how old the woman he wants to meet is.

I have had a guy of 60 use my service twice.  He met and married a woman much younger than him and got divorced.  We cannot stop them but if we have a verbal agreement and then he goes off for a younger woman who wants to meet up with him then we cannot say that he cannot meet her or cannot go out with her.  We end up beating our heads in situations like this.  Some guys have their brains in the wrong place.

Who are your typical clients?  I saw one photo out the front of your shop and I do not wish to sound cruel, of one poor fellow missing an arm.  Some of the others look a little, oh I don't know, but not exactly Brad Pitt look-alikes.

We never discriminate against anyone.  We have had people with arms missing, legs missing, hands missing.  We will do a “straw poll” to ascertain whether we have enough ladies who are willing to meet such a man.  Interestingly, all the guys with missing limbs resulted from motorbike crashes.

Some guys who come along would have no problem finding someone in their own country.  6 foot tall, handsome, good job and everything going for them.  I have had English lords, council workers, millionaires, US judges, blind men, all sorts.  We get people from all walks of life from those who are workaholics to those who find socializing difficult to those who find western women disillusioning.  A lot of guys believe Western women should have the middle name, “what have you done for me lately?”

We will turn down guys if their income is too low.  I will ask them if their income is basically above or below a certain level, although obviously it depends on more than just the income.  A disabled guy on only a disabled income, forget it.  If he has other income, then it is ok.  Guys are always crying that we are going to pass these details on to the lady but we never give this information to them.  We are interested in clients who we can deliver for.  Some agencies will take on any Tom, Dick or Dirty Harry, and we will not do that.

The man with one leg wanted to meet a woman who had been born in the year of the rat, who was a Pisces and who spoke good English!

We have never had anyone under 27.  The oldest was 86.  Things are changing a lot.  The average age used to be 55 but it is probably more like 45 now.

(Just to quash the stereotype, when I was in his office, there were two guys there, one who was probably about 50 odd, and another who was 30, tall, well presented and frankly, the type of guy who would interest a lot of Thai women - Stick)

Guys who meet women through services like yours get a lot of grief in the West and the term “mail order bride” is hardly a compliment.  What advice do you give them to manage their lives in the West?

Clients do get very negative responses from Western women.  My wife is size 8 and if I see a woman while we are out shopping I sometimes wind them up.  I'll say something like "I think that dress is size 10; it's too big for you!"  Western women are jealous and intimidated by Thai women.

Let us not forget that there is a movement of middle-aged women going to Africa to meet tribal chiefs and well endowed young men.  These Thai women are a threat to them all.

I always say to clients that if you do this you need to be your own man.  I do not give a monkey what anyone thinks of my lifestyle! 

This is a dirty business, isn’t it?  There are a lot of unscrupulous operators.  Tell me about them and some of their tricks.

First of all, I do not think it is professional to really comment on other agencies but I will answer your question.

Let's just say I wasn’t surprised by that interview you ran recently, in any way, shape or form.

One bad thing that happens is when the girl has to sign a contract with the agency that she says she will give a percentage of any engagement gifts (this is a MUCH better term than dowry or sin sot “ engagement gifts is what they tend to be “ Stick) given to the lady to the agency.  We know of a girl who was bought an engagement ring and had to sell it and give 50% of the money from the sale to the agency!

Some agencies charge a very modest fee of around $300 and all the guy gets is a list of ladies to meet somewhere like a bar.  There is no service provided at all!  They might get a do it yourself visa guide if they are lucky.  People pay us for a professional service and they get what they pay for.  We do everything for our customers.

I want people to think that this is a genuine way for like-minded people to meet, who for various reasons have not been successful through other means.

90% of people who have met their wife through us say they met elsewhere, but not through us.  What’s the difference?  Some guys are a bit embarrassed about it.  People used to be embarrassed about internet dating but they are no longer as that has become a more common way to meet people.  So why are people so embarrassed about using an introduction agency?  It is like a slap in the face for us.