I have been travelling around Southeast Asia for the past few months and recently, I ended up in Thailand. I decided to spend some time in a small village there and that’s when I met a Thai girl named Nong.
Nong was a beautiful, young girl who lived in a small kampong in the countryside. She is from a minority group in northern Chiang Mai and can speak both Thai and Mandarin.
We quickly became friends and I soon found out that she was desperately looking for a husband.
She told me that her family was pushing her to get married and she wanted to find someone who would take her away from the village and give her a better life.
I was taken aback by her request. I had no intention of getting married, let alone to a Thai girl (communication issues). Although she can speak Mandarin, she only speaks very basic and I can’t speak Thai at all.
I tried to explain to her that my life was in Singapore and I had no plans to move anywhere else. Nong was persistent though and she begged me to stay in the village and marry her.
She told me to give up everything in Singapore and move to the kampong with me. She promised to help me raise pigs and look after the farm.
However, I knew deep down that it wasn’t the life I wanted. I wanted to stay in Singapore and build a career there. I wanted to make something of myself and I knew that staying in a rural village was not the way to do it.