Roi Et residents are celebrating a story of Cinderella-like proportions: a wealthy Canadian man has married a Roi Et woman who was born to a farmer family, and provided her with a handsome dowry to boot.
Glen Redekop, a 54-year-old executive at Chevron Thailand and the owner of a petroleum company in Ireland, was in a relationship with Sunantha Singhathawat, 37, for nine years before making his marriage proposal. Redekop and Sunantha met in a Bangkok restaurant where Sunantha was working as a waitress. After agreeing to see each other, Redekop asked Sunantha to stop her waiting job and focus her attention on her education. With Redekop’s funding, Sunantha has spent the past nine years pursuing bachelor and master degrees. She is now at work on a PhD.
On their wedding day, Redekop handed over a dowry worth over THB100 million to 71-year-old Somboon Singhathawat, Sunantha’s mother. The wealth came in the form of gold bars, gold ornaments, a nine-karat diamond ring, THB1.7 million in cash, a 30-rai piece of land and six townhouses. Offering a dowry to a bride’s parents is a commonly accepted part of Thai culture, Sanook reported.
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