Faroe islands fact of the day
A lot of the women go away to study and don’t come back:
There are already 2,000 more men than women on the Faroes – which has a total population of just under 50,000 – and some of those men have taken matters into their own hands by importing wives and companions from the Philippines and Thailand.
Filipinos and Thais make up two of the largest groups of foreigners on the Faroe Islands . There are now 200 Thais and Filipinos – mostly women – spread out over the islands.
In the tiny hamlet of Klaksvík located in the northern part of the islands, there are already 15 women from Asia.
Bjarni Ziska Dahl, who married his Filipino wife in 2010, said that the foreign women could well be the answer to the issues facing the Faros.
“We must recognise that there is a problem, and welcome these strangers with dignity,” Dahl told DR Nyheder. “We need these people.”
Both Dahl and his wife Che said that they have a lot in common: island life, a dedication to family and a longing for simplicity. Dahl said that Asian woman are often willing to take jobs that Faroese women will not do.
Here is the full report, one Faorese woman does not like having to say hello to everyone she meets in the street there. And this is not just a news story, the married and younger Asian women were one of the first things I noticed getting on the plane to Faroe. (They looked not unhappy by the way. The other thing I noticed right away was how many disparate groups on the flight seemed to know each other. And that you have to be careful not to assume that people who look somewhat alike are brothers, or sisters, or parents and children.)
You might consider this a metaphor for some broader social trends around the world, albeit in this case unusually concentrated along the dimensions of geography and nation/territory. Some women just don’t want to hang out with the guys — even the best guys — who are selling to a market of 50,000 people. Other women are happy to move into that situation. Solve for the equilibrium.