"Finnish men fall in love all too easily"
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By Pyry Lapintie in Lieto, Western Finland
Sirilaksana Taivula, 25, works for a company in the Finnish electronics cluster. She met her husband, 26-year-old forklift truck driver Juha Taivula, seven years ago at a party of mutual friends in Turku. Sirilaksana, Siri to her Finnish friends, moved from Thailand to Finland with her mother when she was 12.
The Taivulas have been married for two years. All their free-time these days goes to building a detached home of their own in Lieto.
"We get on fine in the language department. The Turku dialect sometimes causes me problems. Occasionally Juha has had to sit me down and explain at length the finer points of things like the Turku word "pruukata" [pruukata, ruukata, from the Swedish bruka, "to be in the habit of doing something"].
"The thing that annoys me most in Juha is that when he gets mad he raises his voice and his tone turns ugly. Thai men are quiet sorts, and they never raise their voice like that. Thais don't show their feelings that way", Siri Taivula says.
In Thailand, the man is always the head of the family and the only one making the decisions.
"Here in Finland I've learnt what equality means. Here things always get planned and decided together. That's one reason why I could never imagine getting married to a Thai man."
"The big advantage with Finnish men over Thai men is that they are more faithful in relationships. In Thailand there is a tacit acceptance of men's infidelities and affairs. If my husband tried that on, I'd leave him like a shot", Siri Taivula says with a broad smile, but looking like she means it.
Her greatest general dislike in Finnish men is their use of alcohol.
"They become aggressive. In Thailand when people celebrate, they tend to eat, but here it's all about booze. On the other hand, if things aren't going well for me, I'm not one that wants to show it to others or go running immediately to my mother to pour it all out, like the women here do."
Juha Taivula also acknowledges differences in female behaviour.
"You have to be on your toes all the time with Finnish women. They are completely unpredictable. If Siri gets angry, she simply goes all quiet and gives me the silent treatment. That's quite enough. Thais don't go in for lengthy explanations or go on and on about things. I'm the one who has to be flexible and make peace after we have a row", Juha explains.
In Sirilaksana Taivula's view, Finnish men fall for the charms of Thai women far too easily and marry them.
She also issues a kind of warning:
"They've saved up a year's cash for their holiday in the Far East and when they are in Thailand they come across as big spenders and wealthy, and they go round buying anything and everything for their woman. The woman ends up imagining that the man is made of money. When she gets to Finland and sees how things really are and how life really is, it comes as an awful shock."
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 18.6.2005
More on this subject:
 Vacation amazement led to doctoral thesis on Thai wives
PYRY LAPINTIE / Helsingin Sanomat
pyry.lapintie@hs.fi
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