In rural Isaan, work basically comes down to 2 things?
Doing manual labor in the field or selling things.
Selling coffee, drinks, vegetables, fruits, cooked meals, donuts, cooked meats, and clothes.
Many people here in rural Isaan survive on whatever profits they make for the day, which sometimes might be zero.
The reason is the ration of sellers to buyers is skewed with way too many sellers and not enough buyers.
A small rural village cannot support 20+ coffee stands, but that is what you find here.
One person will open a coffee stand, another will see them getting some sales and open their own stand. The profits of the first stand are then cut in half.
This business is then copied by so many others that there ends up being a saturation of coffee stands and not enough people buying coffee.
All through the years, the mentality has never changed.
On the way back from Khon Kaen yesterday, there must have been 15+ food stalls on the side of the road, right next to each other, all selling grilled chicken.
Same concept. One shop opened and made some sales, someone copied the idea and moved next door to shop 1, then 15 others proceeded to do the same thing.
You will find even in a local village market, there are many sellers selling the exact same food and drinks.
The ration of sellers to buyers is so skewed that no one can make any money.
So the people of rural Isaan end up in a poverty circle that continues throughout their lifetime.
I was shocked to learn yesterday that my Aunt and Uncle, who asked me to go to the ATM for them to withdraw some money only had 350 thb and 60 thb in their accounts.
This is the dire straights of poverty here.
When field labor only pays 300 thb per day and it is seasonal, that money has to stretch out and last all year.
Locals get involved with high risk, high interest loans they can never recover from, so a good majority stay poor for a long, long time.
A big part of this is the lack of education and the lack of schools teaching kids about personal finance and what it actually costs to live in 2026 and beyond.
Rural school teachers think that if the kid finishes school being able to read and write Thai, they did their job. But these kids are never taught financially how to survive.
Another niece graduated from high school recently and landed a job in Khon Kaen at Makro making ice cream cones.
The family celebrated as she is the first one to ever have a fulltime paying job. 10,000 thb per month (US $322).
Little did they realize that she had to move over 75km away, rent an apartment, furnish it, pay utility bills, gas for transportation to and from work, mobile phone and pay higher prices for food, that at the end of the month, she has hardly any money left.
The sad news is many in my own family are dirt poor and finding solutions out of poverty here is a huge challenge.