Product Description

You've met the perfect Thai woman. You're dizzy with joy as her exotic world swirls around you. You've heard so many horror stories, but your heart tells you that she's for real. You want to understand her mysterious ways, and you wish she could understand yours. Now, there's help. Thailand Fever is an astonishing, one-of-a-kind, bilingual expose of the cultural secrets that are the key to a smooth Thai-Western relationship.

Whether you met in a bar, in a university, or at work, and whether you met last night or decades ago, Thailand Fever covers your issues:

* Trusting Each Other * Sex * It's My Money! * The Parents * The Dowry * Privacy * Independence * Saving Face * Living in "Paradise"

Thailand Fever is the must-have relationship guidebook which lets each of you finally express complex issues by just pointing across the page! Everything in the book is in both Thai and English on facing pages. Thailand Fever teaches each of you about your loved one's values and culture.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61349 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 258 pages

Stickman's Guide to Bangkok, January 1st, 2005
"Very thoughtfully designed...light and frankly, fun...very highly recommended...even for people who have lived in Thailand."

Stickman's Guide to Bangkok Book Review Page
"For anyone who has not lived in Thailand but is considering a long term relationship...this is a MUST READ."

About the Author
Vitida Vasant received a BA from Chulalongkorn University and an MSc in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania. She moved to California in 1981 and frequently returns to her homeland. She married and divorced a Westerner, she raised her beautiful daughter as a single mom, and she is currently engaged to an American. Besides running a recruiting business, she also teaches Thai, freelances as a Thai translator and interpreter, and offers relationship consulting to Thai-Western couples. More information on her services is available at thailandfever.com.

Chris Pirazzi has been traveling in Thailand and Southeast Asia since 1999. He currently lives in Mae Hong Son province. He has chronicled Thai culture extensively and he co-developed the Thai-English software dictionary from Paiboon Publishing. His personal experiences, and his contact with other Westerners in Thailand and students of the Thai language in the United States, have provided a broad view of the cross-cultural problems faced by Thai-Western romantic couples. He received a BSE from Princeton University.

Customer Reviews

Totally worth the money!!!
This book is absoletly the best book if your seriously looking to have a relationship with a Thai. I sent one to my girlfriend in Thailand so that she will be able to understand the differences in our cultures. The authors Chris Pirazzi and Vitida Vasant really put this in perspective with really covering all the pros and cons with each side of the relationship( male and female). This is the Thai/Weatern relationship bible. A must have.

Excellent guide and communication aide for Thai romance.
There are three books of which I always keep two copies: One copy for me, and one copy for giving to people. This book, "The Cure for Thailand Fever", is one of'em.

If I have three criticisms, they are
1) The book takes the right stance (that Thai/Westerner romances are almost certainly doomed to failure because of attitudes toward lying, sex, family, and money+romance), but should say it more loudly than it already does. It should also perhaps go into more warnings that Thailand's population is often grindingly poor with no social security, so fleecing a foreigner (by pretending to love him or inventing other stories to part the man from his money) is a commonly accepted, if torturous, way to pay the Thai family's bills.

2) The book presents matching English and Thai text, on facing pages. They're clearly line-by-line translations, and therefore make a darned good learning tool for people learning English or Thai. I'd say that the publishers missed a second chance/reason to sell the book, by not including English and Thai language advice in the margins: definitions of tough words, explanations of idioms, and so on.

3) An audio CD version should be included. A startlingly high number of Thais cannot read. Of the Thais involved in the bargirl and tourist industries, this percentage is undoubtedly greater than 50%. Also, an audio CD would be a great aid for people using the book to learn Thai or English.

Beyond that, this book is pure diamonds and gold. It should be mandatory reading for anyone considering living in Thailand, doing business in Thailand, conducting a mailorder marriage/penpal relationship, or coming to Thailand expecting romance and happy marriage or a fun, guilt-free roll in the hay.

Thailand's prozac-popping tour agents and real estate agents would have you believe that Thailand is "the land of smiles", where a Westerner can find easy friendships, hot romance, and great bargains in a stable, safe economy. Nothing could be further from the truth, and this book goes a long way toward educating the Westerner about the real Thailand, explaining the cultural gap.

If it has a shortcoming, it's perhaps that the book doesn't describe in journalistic detail the large number of suicides, bankruptcies, and heartbreaks endured by Westerners who've come to Thailand and invested in a romance, a business, a home, or all three.

It also isn't quite balanced, though it tries quite hard to be, and mostly succeeds. Where it fails to strike a proper balance is in how it describes to Westerners that the Thai sex industry attracts desperate, derided women from poor families... but fails to balance that negative image with an accurate description of the Western tourists and immigrants as frequently substance-abusing, shallow, sex-buying, culturally insensitive louts. With Thailand increasingly using Thai kickboxing camps, cheap beer, and its sex industry as primary tourist attractions, Thai women should be cautioned that Prince Charming will be a rarity amongst the tourists.

It's also a book written for the Thai person working with-- or hoping to woo or fleece-- a Westerner.

The book is NOT preachy. It doesn't recommend behaviour beyond communicating openly and being prepared to abandon many of your deeply held cultural foundations if you want the relationship to survive. The book doesn't criticise or pontificate, even on the pages describing professional hookers and their customers.

I've lived in Thailand for a year, and showed this book to many of my Thai and Western friends. We all agree that the book accurately touches on most of the top problems in Thai+Western relationships:
1) Is lying acceptable? When is it OK?
2) Dowry, and other money=romance expectations
3) "It's MY money, I earned it" versus "The biggest pole holds up the whole extended family's tent"
4) Marital fidelity
5) sex industry versus Thailand's truly puritanical culture

This book will probably scare you away from attempting a romance with Thai women. That's A GOOD THING. If you come here to buy cheap beer and sex, this is the right place. If you want real romance and don't want to drain your savings to pay for it, stay away.

Good for learning Thai language, bad for understanding Thai people.
I was hoping that this book would provide insights into the Thai culture itself, but it was more like a guide to women in general, which I personally think is too broad of a subject to have a guide too!

There are some bits of information that could prove helpful to a Western man trying to understand his Thai girlfriend, I'll admit, but in my opinion this book won't save a relationship with one foot in the grave... maybe just smooth over an already good one.

One positive thing about this book though is it's a great language learning tool as the whole thing is written in English and Thai. So you can go through and try to translate the Thai with the answer key right there!