Hold the phone, ladies and gentlemen. Cancel your travel plans and tell your boss you no longer need those three months off work, because Chumphon province’s durian king has canceled his “tournament.”
That’s right — 58-year-old Anon Rodthong announced he was pulling the plug on his high-profile scheme to find a son-in-law yesterday afternoon at his warehouse in the province’s Langsuan district.
“I’m really sorry about canceling the April 1 tryout. I think it’ll be chaos for sure, because it is a busy market. And my warehouse can only hold 200-300 people,” Anon told Thairath in a broadcast interview.
Only a couple of days ago, Anon had just promised potential suitors a 3-month tryout to determine who was most worth of his daughter’s hand. The plan was for interested men to gather at the Noen Sung Market in Chanthaburi’s Tha Mai district on April 1 to enter a mandatory tournament that sounded suspiciously like a whole lot of free labor.
“Bring lots of clothes, you will be working for three months. If more than two suitors remain after that, you’ll work for three more months until only one man is left. That’s the partner I want for my daughter,” Anon wrote on his Facebook page.
However, after claiming to have drawn interest from 10,000 suitors around the world — including a Chinese man who was trying to book a private jet to see his daughter — he’s had a change of heart.
“I’m so tired. I had no idea it was going to get this far. I was originally just joking with my 5,000 [Facebook] friends. But I really am looking for a son-in-law,” he said when his 26-year-daughter Kanjasita “Pui” Rodthong suddenly cut in.
“But there have been way, way too many applicants, [so] it has become a bother in our lives,” she firmly told the gathered reporters.
Ah, there’s the frustration we’ve been wondering about since this whole thing started with Anon’s Facebook post on Saturday.
“Our business has been greatly impacted because our customers have not been able to call in because our line is always busy… we only have one number,” Anon told M Thai News.
“Also my wife, Pui’s mother, is really mad at me. She hasn’t talked to me since this whole thing blew up. She didn’t agree with me publicizing our daughter like that,” he added.
Kanjasita also offered her apologies to potential suitors but indicated that she’s still interested in meeting people — if it’s on her own terms.
“I’m sorry to everyone who contacted me and asked me out… The more I think about it and discuss with my parents, I think cancelling the tryout would be the best. And now that we have, I’m relieved,” she said
“Love takes time… People have to get to know each other by hanging out and going out not in a competition.”
We can almost hear the sobs of a Bachelorette producer crying over what could have been a great Thai version of the reality show.
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