Both types make good wives. It's the women who only care about money who are trouble, and it's Richard's job to separate the good from the bad.
Richard says he's interviewed 540 Thai women, and 320 have made it to his website. He has another forty candidates who aren't yet posted. "If they go over on their own," he says of American men, "there's two things that are going to happen. They're going to meet the wrong girl, and they're going to pay too much."
We are the world: Seow and Richard Beals talk about
the U.S. with Thai schoolchildren.
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Without Richard, Lee's divorce would have cost more than $200. Scooby might have lost his bride or fallen prey to the cop's scheme. And Greg would still be out $3,800 -- because it's Richard who goes to Khon Kaen to get Greg's ring back for the second time. When Richard asks Greg's second fiancée for the ring, she hands it right over without a story, telling Richard she wants to stay on the tour. He believes she tried to love Greg but couldn't. "He created that monster," Richard says. He's going to warn Greg not to give the ring to Aoy too quickly. If Greg does, Richard won't rescue it again.
Without Richard, Sammy and Yuvaree would not have met. Richard's just gotten the news that Sammy and Yuvaree are engaged. That means five of the six men on this tour have found brides.
In the lobby of the hotel at Khon Kaen, Richard meets with a smooth-talking millionaire from Texas who found his fiancée on one of Richard's earlier tours, paying a $12,500 dowry. He's ordering double Scotch and sodas before boarding a plane back to the U.S. Since he got engaged last May, he's visited his fiancée and her family every few weeks; he hopes the fiancée visa comes through soon.
"It's not for losers," he says of Richard's service. "It's for men who are sick and tired of American women."
In the airport lounge, waiting for the flight back to the U.S., Sammy is still struggling to believe how fast and hard he's fallen in love. "All I really want is love, and somebody to love me in return," he says. "These women here treat you so great -- there's no comparison. I don't know how you could find any better; you certainly couldn't find any more beautiful. Am I going to let her go? No, she's the most wonderful thing in my life to happen, and I'd kick myself in the ass for the rest of my life. She's funny, she's smart, she's wonderful and I love her."
When Sammy asked about a dowry, Yuvaree said that was up to him. He decided he'd assume the $25,000 debt that her ex-husband stuck her with. "It's still worth it to me, every bit of it," he says. "Hell, I lost $190,000 in my divorce."
"Just like everything else in Thailand, cheaper than America," Bobby points out.
Bobby's the only one going home without an official engagement, although he's still considering Aom for a wife.
He arrives back in Colorado in time for a cold, lonely Valentine's Day. "It's so hard for me to settle down on these trips," he says. "It kind of backfires. I don't want to say player..."
Aom called him a butterfly.
