You literally wrote most south east Asian cultures are deeply pretentious. Having a Thai partner doesn’t somehow magically make you an authority on a region with close to 700 million people. You’re grouping together countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Burma and Singapore and calling them deeply pretentious. Bringing up a Thai partner to demonstrate some kind of authority in the matter fits perfectly in with the rest of it. I don’t have any issues believing you have a Thai partner and have spoken to many Thais. My issue again is with you thinking that fact gives you the authority to casually judge a region of 700 million people as deeply pretentious. And then doubling down.