Window Washing Falang Kid, Sukumvit Road

[tourleadersi]

I am not sue if this has been posted up already, sorry if it has mods.

Over the last week, as I drive on Sukumvit Road I have been caught at the lights at the Asok junction underneath Asok BTS. There is a falang kid there of about 10 years old walking through the traffic washing car windows. He is dressed pretty scruffily and looks bored out of his mind. Does anyone know anything more about this? Has he been sold into Mafia servitude like the thai kids there have alledgedly been? Is he part of some kind of sick social experiment to see how people would react to this? If so, it is reckless endagerment for the sake of research.

Before I get lambasted about a Farang kid being more important than a Thai kid, well he is not. What I find really disconcerting is that the Thai kids are in their home country. Perhaps this lad was born and bred here, who knows? If not, then there are parents or guardians who brought him here, he is far too young to have thought 'I'm gonna run away to Thailand and wash windows!' If they are so hard up that they need to work thier kid to get the airfare home then the world really has gone pair shaped.

He has never got close enough to my car so that I can try and speak to him, but here is a question. If he turned out to be a UK citizen, do the social services have a long enough reach? I find the fact that children in Thailand are endagered in this way on a daily basis completely abhorrent. This just seems to be a new twist on what is already a shocking state of affairs. Yes kids sometimes have to work after school to help their parents, but they should not be put in harms way in situations like these.

[burman]

Is he 100% farang or half Thai?

I remember hearing of a farang motorbike taxi driver once, I assumed he was half Thai too.

[Heng]

More than likely a luk krung. Plenty fall through the cracks (just like a lot of locals), just take a look at some of the local massage parlours. No different than the kids that end up as street urchins in the west.

[geriatrickid]

Perhaps he just has the pheonotypic appearance of a farang but is in fact the offspring of a farang and a thai? It is not unusual for the children of an unfortunate fornication event to suffer the consequences of the event.

If the child is connected to one of the Scandanavian countries, you can bet someone would move fast, if one of those countries was aware of the situation. As for the UK, USA, & Canada don't hold your breath. The press has to be advised first to create some incentive for action.

A word of caution though, if you are a male, do not approach the child. Best to allow a woman to deal with the matter. In today's PC climate, a solitary male talking to a kid can unleash some horrific unintended consequences.

[sweetchariot]

Wax on, wax off Mr Miagi

[clausewitz]

He is not a farang he is a thai who had a farang father.

It happens occasionally that a Thai women gets impregnated by a farang.

Edited May 2, 2008 by clausewitz

[taxexile]

living in the soi where my parents in law live in bkk there are a number of down and out thai alcohol/drug users who inhabit slumlike wooden shacks. their incomes are mainly from yaa ba and prostitution.

often the police will come and drag one or more of the adults off to prison for a while , only for them to return a few weeks or months later.

whilst in prison , their kids are looked after , if that is the word , by the other inhabitants of this dickensian community , and at night when the adults are nowhere to be seen , the motorcycle taxi drivers look out for them and give them little errands to do for small change.

the children run around in the soi barefoot and bedraggled , they seem happy enough , but exist on pepsi and crisps , amongst the kids is a blond haired falang lookalike , who is in fact a look kreung , about 8 years old , speaks only thai , and very rough street thai at that.

i doubt if there are social workers who will act on the childrens behalf.

at first it was strange to see a western faced child existing in such a disadvantaged state , in the west , they would have been placed in care long ago , but this is thailand , and the child is thai , and in all probability the child will remain firmly stuck on the bottom rung of the ladder until adulthood and beyond.

[sweetchariot]

Sounds like we need to have a fundraiser to get Taxexile out of the slums.

[taxexile]

No different than the kids that end up as street urchins in the west.

its actually very different .

for the most part , street urchins in the western inner cities are swept up by social service networks , some fall through the net for various reasons ,(e.g. the ongoing austrian tragedy) but mostly the system works in so far as you wont see girls or boys under 10s selling cigarettes and flowers on the streets in red light areas , or cleaning car windows. parents of at risk kids are also held to account too. the system is cumbersome , understaffed and underfunded etc.etc. like all social service systems in the west , but at least they do exist. where they fail , media concern and public outrage sometimes brings the disadvantaged to the attention of the authorities.

street urchins here in thailand seem more or less to be left to their own fate , with no action by the police to remove them from the streets , and , as far as i know , remove them from abusive families or prosecute those abusive guardians....... and when was the last time thailand witnessed public outrage at a social injustice ??? ..... or concerted media concern ???

[taxexile]

Sounds like we need to have a fundraiser to get Taxexile out of the slums.

all contributions gratefully received , please give generously to "taxexillian sisters of mercy" , taxexile towers , coconut beach , the bahamas.

[bendix]

I know the kid.

He is not a farang. He is a luk krung. He's also a nice lad - I always buy a garland from him, or let him wash my windscreens. Good looking kid too - he's gonna break some hearts later in life.

Contrary to popular belief, not all luk krung become singers, actors, models or MTV hosts.

His mother also works that area, but usually on the Asoke side of the junction. Again, a very nice lady. I've spoken to her several times and she has told her story to Mrs Bendix. Far from being street urchins, they are together as a family doing whatever it takes to survive. There is also a younger sister, but I think she is 100% Thai. Far fr

And please . . it's farang, not falang.

Edited May 2, 2008 by bendix

[tourleadersi]

the children run around in the soi barefoot and bedraggled , they seem happy enough , but exist on pepsi and crisps , amongst the kids is a blond haired falang lookalike , who is in fact a look kreung , about 8 years old , speaks only thai , and very rough street thai at that.

i doubt if there are social workers who will act on the childrens behalf.

at first it was strange to see a western faced child existing in such a disadvantaged state , in the west , they would have been placed in care long ago , but this is thailand , and the child is thai , and in all probability the child will remain firmly stuck on the bottom rung of the ladder until adulthood and beyond.

Thanks taxexile, this definately sounds like the lad. Blondish hair, about 8 years old and looking pretty dishevelled. He looks very falang, as you said. Puts a strong nail into the idea that many hold that being born with falang appearance is the ticket to an easy life.

[clausewitz]

I find that family less wholesome than you. Sometimes the kids just stand outside my car or give the windscreen a cursory wipe with a cloth and then want some money. They have the aura of the panhandlers you get in the west rather than the usual polite beggars in Bangkok.

I don't mind at all when they sell the garlands though.

[dantilley]

And please . . it's farang, not falang.

Well, technically speaking it's neither, it's faรang, and the ร is pronounced as a "rolling" r sound, so kind of between r and l, but depending on accent can be more like the l sound, or more like r. So, up to the individual how he wants to spell it using all English letters.

Anyway, think I may have seen this same kid, and have always assumed he's a luuk krung also. There are a few half Thai / half black kids, complete with large afros, window washing also; they were near Rama IV / Surawong Road when I saw them.

[Heng]

No different than the kids that end up as street urchins in the west.

its actually very different .

for the most part , street urchins in the western inner cities are swept up by social service networks , some fall through the net for various reasons ,(e.g. the ongoing austrian tragedy) but mostly the system works in so far as you wont see girls or boys under 10s selling cigarettes and flowers on the streets in red light areas , or cleaning car windows. parents of at risk kids are also held to account too. the system is cumbersome , understaffed and underfunded etc.etc. like all social service systems in the west , but at least they do exist. where they fail , media concern and public outrage sometimes brings the disadvantaged to the attention of the authorities.

street urchins here in thailand seem more or less to be left to their own fate , with no action by the police to remove them from the streets , and , as far as i know , remove them from abusive families or prosecute those abusive guardians....... and when was the last time thailand witnessed public outrage at a social injustice ??? ..... or concerted media concern ???

I put all street urchins who are minors into the same group. True, if you single out the under 10 demographic, there do appear to be fewer in "the west"... at least in Austin anyway. However if we're talking about people literally living on the streets, I actually find more in the west than I do here (mostly because there aren't as many slums for them to hole up in). I wouldn't necessarily 'credit' the system of either place as being better. I think too many crutches available to folks probably makes them weaker for life's long haul and places an unfair burden on others to provide those crutches.

[Heng]

I find that family less wholesome than you. Sometimes the kids just stand outside my car or give the windscreen a cursory wipe with a cloth and then want some money. They have the aura of the panhandlers you get in the west rather than the usual polite beggars in Bangkok.

I don't mind at all when they sell the garlands though.

I just wave them away. Every day that they continue in this line of "work" they are being programmed to beg rather than actually work. True, the underaged kids can't legally work, but there are plenty of intersections where over the past decade, I've seen these kids grow into adults and they are STILL trying to wipe windshields for a living. There are thousands of factories that are always hiring... there simply aren't enough Thais left who are willing to work low and semi-skilled labor jobs @ market wages, and these jobs now typically go to foreigners.

While I can't really offer them (the over 18 ones of course) a job in Bangkok, if this were in Pattaya (where you don't see many intersection beggars yet), I'd tell them to stop by one of our construction sites. If you can sell garlands or wipe windows, you can most certainly cart off rubble and learn carpentry, how to render cement, paint, etc.

Edited May 2, 2008 by Heng

[jonniebkk]

It is not unusual for the children of an unfortunate fornication event to suffer the consequences of the event.

I too always do a double take when I see an obviously luk-krung kid doing some sort or menial type job...like here in Pattaya there is one working as one of those server boys at Fuji (lower than the waitresses as they do actually serve the food but bring it from the kitchen counter and hand it off to the girls to serve). I mean, if I see a 100% Thai kid I don't even notice them but as soon as it's obviously a mixed kid I wonder about their history and how they ended-up at their station in life. I am so used to my mixed-marriage friend's kids going to fancy international schools and having bright prospects in Thailand and abroad.

Funny thing is the wife of one of my friends had the same reaction in reverse the first time she went to America. She was amazed to see working class Americans (farangs/white people [even if most of them are actually Mexican nationals]) doing manual labour, e.g., gardening, construction, road-works

[OxfordWill]

From an evolutionary perspective it would be natural for us to want to help the farang looking kid more than the Thai looking kids. I for one would want to. If his life is truly awful (a big unknown at this point) and he is potentially heading for or experiencing abuse then one angle might be that he has the right to a passport somewhere else. Despite saying this I wont be doing anything about it. I wonder what country his western blood is.

[taxexile]

I think too many crutches available to folks probably makes them weaker for life's long haul and places an unfair burden on others to provide those crutches.

i agree with you that too many crutches , i.e. a too generous benefit system can make adults who should be able to help themselves weaker in the long run , but for children , and it is children that we are talking about here , who are unable to help themselves and have only irresponsible and neglectful parents as teachers , they need all the help they can get to escape the position they find themselves in through no fault of their own.

any society that does not reach out and help those children , and in many cases just turns a blind eye to them can only be considered as heartless and uncivilised.

[cmsally]

I think too many crutches available to folks probably makes them weaker for life's long haul and places an unfair burden on others to provide those crutches.

i agree with you that too many crutches , i.e. a too generous benefit system can make adults who should be able to help themselves weaker in the long run , but for children , and it is children that we are talking about here , who are unable to help themselves and have only irresponsible and neglectful parents as teachers , they need all the help they can get to escape the position they find themselves in through no fault of their own.

any society that does not reach out and help those children , and in many cases just turns a blind eye to them can only be considered as heartless and uncivilised.

Hear hear, well put. (If there is a "post of the day" award it should be given to this one).

Children should be given every opportunity to create a better situation for themselves.

[burman]

any society that does not reach out and help those children , and in many cases just turns a blind eye to them can only be considered as heartless and uncivilised.

Quite right Taxexile. As a member of Thailand's society myself I also will take a little blame for that.

As I hope you do to.