The problems involved in being "mixed race" in Thailand

[JAG]

So many Thai systems, web based and bureaucratic, are simply unable to cope with "Lok khreung".  My daughter is trying to get a motorcycle license - she is 19, a Thai national and has an English name and looks Caucasian. The system initially refused her because her Thai ID card photo "didn't look like her".

 

Off we went to the Amphur office for a new one, because she is under 20 I had to accompany her, much group examination of my passport, sucking of teeth, phone calls to higher ups and photocopying of many pages of the passport and her birth certificate. Eventually, armed with a new ID card she went back to the driving license office. Refused - the system (computer and human) wouldn't accept she was Thai!

 

Probably going to have to hire one of those agent chappies to get her one!

 

Just about all Thai systems and their operators are unable to cope with the combination of an English name, western features and Thai nationality. There was the occasion some years ago when her school ordered her to get her hair dyed black! Some may remember the mushroom cloud over Chiang Rai! She wasn't allowed to join the army cadets at school ( didn't mind that one). She was initially refused by the COVID vaccination programme, then when she had COVID the health system tried to charge her as a foreigner. 

 

She works part time as a waitress in a restaurant. She has already been interrogated by the Labour Department for working without a work permit!

 

About the only organisation which seems to have no problems is her University - but then they have plenty of International Students, and probably regard her as one!

 

It is petty, venal, ignorant, annoys me and upsets her, although she is quite stoic about that. Xenophobia, petty nationalism, racism (certainly had that at school) or just ignorance, perhaps even stupidity?

[ikke1959]

In Thailand everything that is not according to their mind is wrong, no matter who or what.. And easy things are always made difficult. They can't think, find solutions or help...only answer most time is mai dai kha... while solutions are easy... This is a problem indeed, and the same problems have foreigners at immigration.. Come with 3 different things and they can't do it, it must be done separately...90 days, address notification and extension visa... I will get 3 numbers and 3 queues....This is the same.. No matter how much proof you show in their mind she look to much foreign so she is foreign.

[save the frogs]

sorry, maybe a bit off-topic but i met a thai girl with a non thai name on her passport.

when i asked her about this, she insisted it's common that thai people use english names on their passport.

i found this hard to believe and concluded that her father must have been non-thai, maybe the last name sounded like it might have been from africa. 

but why doesn't she come out and say it? people are ashamed of this or what? 

 

[hotsun]

Its alot better than japan ive heard, where the mixed kids there are considered by the japanese as some form of cancer.

[BritManToo]

My 13yo son doesn't have any problems and he doesn't look like a Thai either.

Not sure why the amphur office would want to see your passport, after registering his birth I've not been there when he got his ID card.