Gecko123

People cite this as a definitive source, but it should be noted that: 1. This dictionary was published 26 years ago. 2. The definition research may have been done up to 10 years or longer prior to the publication date. 3. Dictionaries are not infallible, and many Thai-English dictionaries offer only limited nuance and fall back on dated entries with little effort to update contemporary usage. The linguistic resources available to compile fully nuanced Thai bi-lingual dictionaries , even at the highest levels, have sometimes fallen short of what one might expect. 4. Anybody who speaks Thai well will tell you that the term is colloquially and routinely applied to Westerners in general and its usage is not limited exclusively to white people. 5. I am confident that these colloquial and nuanced usages will be incorporated into future Thai dictionaries, hopefully resolving this godforsaken debate once and for all.

No, it's not. It's etymological root may have evolved from the word farang set (French), but in current day colloquial usage it is a term for Westerners and non-Asian people regardless of their race.

You are completely incorrect. I recall explaining this very same thing to you about 6 months ago. Using 'mun' as a transliteration for 'มัน' is completely incorrect, and shows you are using an elementary (and incorrect) transliteration guide for pronunciation. If you still don't believe me, punch มันฝร่ง into google translate and then hit the pronunciation icon. You hear 'man', not 'mun.' As I told you 6 months ago, you need to switch over to the phonetic alphabet used in Mary Haas' Thai Student dictionary and Benjawan P. Becker's Beginning and Intermediate Thai books if you are seriously interested in advancing in the language, otherwise I can almost guarantee your efforts will putter out at best at the advanced beginner level. No advanced dictionaries or grammar guides use the transliteration guide you are currently using. The reason I'm taking this tone with you is because I recall when you announced you were starting to study Thai (less than a year ago if I recall correctly) and I think it's a bit premature for you to be taking the tone you've taken in the above post. Get back to me when you've got 5 - 10 years under your belt, sonny boy.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I did not hear any discussion of whether "farang" is an offensive term in the tik tok video referenced in the OP. I assume this subject was discussed by the Russian guy in another video, just not in the video linked in the OP. I'm of the school of thought, as I think many of you know already, that 'farang' is most often used as harmless colloquial shorthand for "foreigner", and I fail to see how parallels between its use and the Italian guy greeting someone in Thailand with ni hao should be drawn. Regarding the 'ni hao' controversy, I've been wondering what would happen if the Italian guy was running around Japan or South Korea greeting everyone with the Chinese 'ni hao.' Sure, he would get a lot of amused and confused looks, but I'll bet he would also be corrected fairly frequently about how to say hello in the native language. I think a lot of Japanese or South Koreans would at a minimum be mildly put off or offended if this were to happen. The strength of feelings of national pride may vary from person to person and from region to region, but visitors should be cautious about showing respect for the culture and avoid taking liberties. It probably wasn't "racist" per se, but it was presumptuous and did not show respect for the culture or the person involved.

A story about forgiveness on Easter Sunday. Very nice.

I've noticed on a number of other occasions that Thais who have studied or lived abroad and endured overt racial condescension and micro aggressions while there, sometimes - justifiably - harbor resentments towards Westerners here for the racial mistreatment they experienced in the West long after they return to Thailand. While some may label it hyper-sensitivity or having a chip on your shoulder, but it can often be traced back to mistreatment they experienced while abroad. The message they seem to want to convey is: "you may get away with that crap back home, but you in my country now, boy!'

It wouldn't be offensive if a Chinese person had used the Chinese word for 'hello', but when a Western foreigner uses the Chinese word for 'hello' in Thailand as if to say 'that's close enough of a greeting here in Thailand,' that is fairly offensive. If the tourist didn't know how to greet someone in the Thai language, he should have stuck to the universal "hello" in English. An Italian greeting a Thai person in Mandarin Chinese probably would have gone over the head of most Thai people, but the Thai/Scottish guy, having studied abroad, being bilingual, and probably familiar with the Western cliche that 'all Asians look alike' decided to call the guy out on it. Could he have maybe handled the situation a little more diplomatically? Probably, but I'm not going to fault the guy for letting the tourist know his behavior was offensive.

God bless that woman for having tried to give the dog a good home, but don't see how it would not be irresponsible to allow someone else to adopt the dog at this point, and can't imagine who would want to, given its history. Putting the dog down is understandably probably not an option an abbot would want to consider, but the danger this dog presents to the community is real.

I can appreciate and fully accept that people have different political views. But when someone who has repeatedly made clear that they see themselves as above average intellectually and well read, chooses to turn a blind eye to the cruelty, autocratic bent, and wanton racism of Trump's incompetent and chaotic administration, and blithely ignores the dangers to our democracy he presents as if he were Eliza Doolittle blithely picking out a new parasol or lace handkerchief in a sundry shop: (1) it completely undercuts any pretensions they might have about being an intellectual heavy weight, and, (2) tells me they lack the intellectual gravitas and historical perspective to recognize the brainwashing indoctrination of the right-wing media sphere. Well sensitized to the supposed dangers of wokeism, DEI programs run amuck, welfare fraud, and transgenders reading books to impressionable children in public libraries, people like this ignore the true danger of encroaching fascism, and the downside of trying to turn back the clock and denying that America is at its essence is a multi-cultural and multiracial society. It saddens me, but more importantly, it angers me. Look, for example, at his response to my post sharing the Democracy Now piece on Elon Musk's families South African apartheid and neo-Nazi past which raised serious questions about his ideological upbringing. Saying "'thanks for sending that Democracy Now 'thingy'" does not strike me as a serious response from someone who started a thread "why, oh why, has the left turned on Elon?" and seriously wants to explore answers to the question he posed.

Because if you argue that a transexual woman exposing her breasts is an act of public indecency at the same time you classify her by her birth sex as male, then what you're saying is that exposing a male chest which has been surgically modified to resemble female breasts is an act of public indecency. Which raises the question of whether men who suffer from gynecomastia or large breasts are committing an act of public indecency when they take off their shirt. And how about a woman who has her breasts surgically removed as part of her transition to a man. Should that person who the law still classifies by her birth sex as female, be allowed to remove her shirt in public? As these two examples highlight, I don't think trying to pigeon hole everyone into either one or the other sex is going to be as simple as anti-LGBTQ+ legislators imagine it will be.

Interesting legal question. If it is argued that there are only two sexes: male or female, and a male who has transitioned to a female is still considered a male, which public decency standards for baring one's breasts would apply to a man who has transitioned to a woman? The standard for a man or for a woman?

If GG being on team Trump doesn't give the forum's MAGA acolytes pause for reflection and trigger some serious soul-searching, I don't know what will.

Frisco Kid's posts on this thread are well-written and his descriptions have the precision of laser guided munitions. Your lazy attempt to dismiss the truth of what he said only serves to remind readers of your intellectually dishonest and shallow critiques of anything that doesn't fit your narrative.

Could not agree more with your sentiment.