A Farang Living In Thailand

[Berkshire]

I'm going to get some flak for this...but the farangs I know who are always bitching about how they are treated by the Thais would be treated exactly the same way if they were suddenly transported into a Thai body.

It's like this: Thais are not going to treat you with respect if you lack hygiene, manners, polite dress habits, and basically walk around with a sense of owning the damned place.

How Thais treat people has far less to do with that person's nationality and/or race than it does with how that person presents himself, behaves, and relates to others around them.

A Thai guy walking around in a singlet with his gut hanging out and a liter of Singh in his hand, acting the total slob and being a pest would be treated no better than his farang counterpart.

This is an extreme stereotype, of course, but Thais (just like anyone else) are sensitive to manners, upbringing, appearance, cleanliness, dress, sobriety, "dating habits", etc.

If you are lacking, it isn't going to matter if you're a farang, black, Arab, or another Thai.

You have to earn the way you are treated here -- you can't just expect it because you show up.

Well said, Richard. Agree 100%. It seems many farangs don't want equal treatment--rather, they expect to have their asses kissed solely because of their skin color. Fortunately, Thais do recognize the dregs just as we do and treat them accordingly. I've noticed with profound regularity that the biggest farang complainers almost always tend to be those with personal issues of their own. Wonder why that is? Need to get Sigmund on the case pronto!

[Berkshire]

The longer you live here the more you realize that we will never be accepted as anything more than alien visitors completely different in every respect than a "Thai," from their perspective anyway.

Its frustrating because the more you live here and make an attempt to learn the language, culture etc., you eventually start asking yourself; "why hava I put so much effort into it?"

For me, I love my wife and she will always accept me, so its worth it; at least thats the best I can come up with

But when you see things like the music thing, and hear Thais say things like "I don't care if a 'falang' has lived here 10,000 years, they will never be part of our culture" it is very disheartening and dissapointing.

The OP is speaking words of truth and so are you, Kurt Vonnegut, I mean, Kilgore Trout Many of us who have been here more than a decade sreally miss the past when xenophobia was not felt and it seemed like we were welcomed in Thailand. The welcome mat started going away when a certain nameless person (who has a square head) took control and brought out the worst traits Thais possess. That was a sad turning point in Thai history. After that the immigration rules were radically changed (why those rules were not changed under the new administration is a mystery) and "sanook" started being harder and harder to find. I know I will never fit in. Now I have desire to fit it This is the most xenophobic country I have ever lived in, and I have lived in many countries because of my job. But many farangs do not see the xenophobia, especially those who have no long-term perspective and have only been here a few years. All they see is what is on the surface. Unfortunately, the more the economy goes downhill, the more farangs will be used as scapegoats for everything that has gone wrong in Thailand. Thais really do not accept blame for anything, as far as I can tell. They rationalize the most abhorrent behavior, including stealing from farangs. Arresting foreign musicians for playing on the street borders on insanity--especially if they are not asking for money.

Dude, you're still here? You've been complaining about Thailand like forever and I seem to recall you were making plans to leave at the earliest opportunity. What's the hold-up?

[JPPR2]

I'm going to get some flak for this...but the farangs I know who are always bitching about how they are treated by the Thais would be treated exactly the same way if they were suddenly transported into a Thai body.

It's like this: Thais are not going to treat you with respect if you lack hygiene, manners, polite dress habits, and basically walk around with a sense of owning the damned place.

How Thais treat people has far less to do with that person's nationality and/or race than it does with how that person presents himself, behaves, and relates to others around them.

A Thai guy walking around in a singlet with his gut hanging out and a liter of Singh in his hand, acting the total slob and being a pest would be treated no better than his farang counterpart.

This is an extreme stereotype, of course, but Thais (just like anyone else) are sensitive to manners, upbringing, appearance, cleanliness, dress, sobriety, "dating habits", etc.

If you are lacking, it isn't going to matter if you're a farang, black, Arab, or another Thai.

You have to earn the way you are treated here -- you can't just expect it because you show up.

^ No Flak from me on your post, you are spot on. I am like this anywhere I go in any country I visit. Respect and acceptance is earned, not just given.

[BigJohnnyBKK]

I feel most of the time as an outsider but tolerate that for all the good things that brought me here.Just this week I had an eye opener of what people here really think of me. I take thai language lessons every night and feel my thai is improving. But every time I speak thai to my friends who are thai they look at me like what did you say and act confused. I feel I cannot communicate. Then last week I was in Bangkok and tried my thai on everyone I met and it worked perfectly I had decent conversations. I mentioned this to my Thai teacher.He said they probably look at me as their stupid farang friend and when I talk thai to them they just refuse to talk thai because they feel I am to stupid to carry on a conversation so why try. Nice friends huh. Gives me the feeling they patronise me rather than befriend me.

I have found that the only Thais that genuinely appreciate my learning Thai are those that don't communicate effectively in English.

Certainly in settings where Thais are expected to be able to speak English, most of the time my attempts to converse in Thai result in a negative reaction.

My interpretation is that I am insulting them by implying they are among the "lower caste" Thais that don't speak English well.

Therefore when I am in doubt when meeting people, I start out with English and then move to Thai when necessary.

Among my Thai friends and acquaintances, I constantly ask them to help me, make corrections etc, but only a very few have the patience and generosity (courage?) to help me in my efforts.

And coming from the other side, I am also aware of sensitivities regarding my helping their English - only a select few are willing to be corrected in public, and others have acted insulted when I do so in private, even in emails.

I doubt if I will ever be knowledgeable or sensitive enough to actually pick up all the unspoken social cues, but if you're obviously making an effort, most Thais will cut you a fair bit of slack. But it is important to let them have their wildly inflated opinion of their culture's superiority to the rest of the world, and of course to suppress your own.

[user82374298374]

It's like herding cats.

Really.

Welcome to Asia, OP.

;>

[trisailer]

I'm going to get some flak for this...but the farangs I know who are always bitching about how they are treated by the Thais would be treated exactly the same way if they were suddenly transported into a Thai body.

It's like this: Thais are not going to treat you with respect if you lack hygiene, manners, polite dress habits, and basically walk around with a sense of owning the damned place.

How Thais treat people has far less to do with that person's nationality and/or race than it does with how that person presents himself, behaves, and relates to others around them.

A Thai guy walking around in a singlet with his gut hanging out and a liter of Singh in his hand, acting the total slob and being a pest would be treated no better than his farang counterpart.

This is an extreme stereotype, of course, but Thais (just like anyone else) are sensitive to manners, upbringing, appearance, cleanliness, dress, sobriety, "dating habits", etc.

If you are lacking, it isn't going to matter if you're a farang, black, Arab, or another Thai.

You have to earn the way you are treated here -- you can't just expect it because you show up.

I agree that if you ACT like a respectable person you will be respected. The law says that you can not "work" here and there is a good reason for it. That includes playing music in public. Many people ignore that law and most get away with it, but the Thai's see it and resent farang displacing a Thai.

The biggest fools of all are the ones who try to BE Thai. I see some wearing Buddhist amulets around their necks and pretending to be Thai and they look pretty foolish to me. Thai's resent the negative publicity that is generated about Thailand because of farang who come here and enjoy the freedoms and spread it to the world. The pedophiles and sexpats and criminals give us who are just living a normal middle class life all a bad name. Then there are the angry, impatient farangs who are disrespectful to service people. I wish I had a nickle for every obnoxious farang I've seen being disrespectful of Thai's and the culture.

I know that Thai behavior is not always attractive either but IT IS THEIR COUNTRY. I get respected because I respect myself. I don't care if the Thai's respect me. I don't do it for that reason. I am American and I'm proud of that, but that fact does not preclude me from being respectful to the country that I am a guest in.

[ccarbaugh]

Wow! - A VERY broad topic - with as many corresponding opinions as there are a**holes.

My experience is that the majority of Thais are taught at avery early age that everything that is wrong, unsightly, distasteful, rude,.... with Thailand is because of the "farangs" that they have graciously and generouosly allowed to be "guests" in their (agreeably) beautiful country. Since they are native and I am just a foreigner, I allow them the "superiority-complex" that they insist on- (until given some indication otherwise.) I operate under the premise that it is their country and I am their guest. I interact with the knowledge that they don't particularly like us - but they sure do like our money!

Just my thoughts - you are now free to carry on with your arguments, criticisms, personal attacks, etc, etc.

[trisailer]

We are all taught by our respective countries that "we are the best in the world" and Thai's are no different.

The west has just as much controversy (actually much more) over immigrants who are unwilling to adapt to the local culture. On the whole of it I think that Thailand is much more tolerant of us than we are of them when they are in our countries. My wife was a server in a popular Thai restaurant in Florida and some people were complete <deleted> when ordering special items not on the menu. American's are constantly bitching about immigrants who can't learn English.

The bottom line is we are all human and members of the larger human family.

[Thaddeus]

We are all taught by our respective countries that "we are the best in the world" and Thai's are no different.

But we are taught to question everything, that is why most westerners don't turn out as mindless automaton.

We do not believe that the country we were raised in is the best in the world for our entire lives, especially when we leave it for any length of time.

[StreetCowboy]

We are all taught by our respective countries that "we are the best in the world" and Thai's are no different.

But we are taught to question everything, that is why most westerners don't turn out as mindless automaton.

We do not believe that the country we were raised in is the best in the world for our entire lives, especially when we leave it for any length of time.

The only reason I left Scotland was so that I could maintain the belief that it was the best country in the world. Sometimes, we have to distance ourselves from the facts.

95% of Scots think that their country is the best in the world

and 15% would live there, if they had to.

SC

EDIT: and 91% of statistics are spurious, and I do my best to raise the average.

[Richb2004v2]

Just how Thai do people want to be, and why? It's like wanting to belong to the society of a white trash trailer park, and makes no sense at all.

[Ulysses G.]

[i have found that the only Thais that genuinely appreciate my learning Thai are those that don't communicate effectively in English.

Certainly in settings where Thais are expected to be able to speak English, most of the time my attempts to converse in Thai result in a negative reaction.

My interpretation is that I am insulting them by implying they are among the "lower caste" Thais that don't speak English well.

I agree that some English speaking Thais are insulted by a foreigner speaking broken Thai to them, but I am quite happy to switch to English in that case. Sometimes we end up having to go back to Thai however.

[jdinasia]

Just how Thai do people want to be, and why? It's like wanting to belong to the society of a white trash trailer park, and makes no sense at all.

hmmmm talk about an extremely negative view of Thais .......

I am aware that even should I attain Thai citizenship, I will never really be considered Thai (I'll still be a farang) but then again I am fascinated by the people and culture here and after over 8 years still love living here.

It does beg the question again, over a year after announcing you were moving away from Thailand .. why are you still here?

[jdinasia]

We are all taught by our respective countries that "we are the best in the world" and Thai's are no different.

But we are taught to question everything, that is why most westerners don't turn out as mindless automaton.

We do not believe that the country we were raised in is the best in the world for our entire lives, especially when we leave it for any length of time.

I would suggest that you are applying your personal experience and telegraphing it out to the population of nations as a whole ....

I think most people ARE mindless automaton and do hold on to the image of their birth country throughout their lives.

[nocturn]

Of course I was fully aware that if I came to live in Thailand I would always be considered as a foreigner.

I have never felt any differently than this and never expect to. I am a foreigner living in a foreign land. It is our own unrealistic expectations that cause all the problems "fitting in".

It depends on what you mean by 'fitting in'. I perceive that I have a certain place in society in Thailand, and I am reasonably happy with that place. Similarly in every other country I have lived. If I'd wanted to fit into society like a native I would have stayed at home... I suppose it is somewhat strange that people who have no desire to put down roots or settle down might feel more 'at home' than those who wish to do so...

SC

quite agree, i might not of put it like that but seeing it on the page makes sense.

Edited June 5, 2011 by nocturn

[tonytidbury]

OP "I have ...a admiral respect for the country"

Salute a lot, do you?

[trisailer]

We are all taught by our respective countries that "we are the best in the world" and Thai's are no different.

But we are taught to question everything, that is why most westerners don't turn out as mindless automaton.

We do not believe that the country we were raised in is the best in the world for our entire lives, especially when we leave it for any length of time.

I don't know what country you come from but in my country they make comedy shows that show the stupidity of the average American. My Thai wife knows more about American history than the average American. You apparently don't question much if you believe what you have written. Perhaps you need to get out more if you think that Thailand produces "mindless automaton's" How could you possibly know anything about Thailand given all the time you spend posting your mindless dribble.

Edited June 5, 2011 by trisailer

[trisailer]

Just how Thai do people want to be, and why? It's like wanting to belong to the society of a white trash trailer park, and makes no sense at all.

What makes "no sense" is why would a person who feels this way want to live here? Perhaps you need to get out and meet a better class of people. You attempt to insult the Thai people says a heck of a lot more about you than it does about them.

My suggestion to you is don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

Edited June 5, 2011 by trisailer

[puipuitom]

When you farangs finally are going to understand the situation? You are tolerated, never accepted for only and only one reason: you spend a lot of money in Thailand.

I do business with Thailand since 1976, lived in Thailand from 93-95, but NEVER it will be my home land. Police will try to rob you, taxi drivers swindle you, never you will be allowed to have your own house on a piece of land, and any voting right.. IMPOSSIBLE.

In my home country, Netherlands, we had in last government two deputy ministers of Turkish and Maroccan birth, now 8 members in parlement out of the 150 with a double nationality, the mayor of Rotterdam is Maroccan born. Can you imagine, the deputy-assistent-reserve mayor of any Thai village being NOT Thai ? Even a clerk ?

To get a non-immigrant visa to be Thai among the Thais: earlier Thailand will be covered by snow and ice. Go out, for dinner or whatsoever, and the Thais will chat all evening in Thai, leaving you to keep your chair warm. Only at the end of the evening, they will remember you, when the bill has to be taken up.

My 35 years experience: a farang is seen by the very strong narcistic Thai only as money spitting trash.

[F1fanatic]

Just how Thai do people want to be, and why? It's like wanting to belong to the society of a white trash trailer park, and makes no sense at all.

What makes "no sense" is why would a person who feels this way want to live here? Perhaps you need to get out and meet a better class of people.

My suggestion to you is don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

Yes, its the retort of so many who have no option other than to desperately believe that anyone who dares criticise needs to go back home.

Try to understand, some of us are honest enough to criticise whilst still appreciating the advantages of living here

Trisailor - we all know your wife is 'different' - you don't need to try to prove it....

Edited June 5, 2011 by F1fanatic

[alantheembalmer]

Essentially, I would guess that most westerners on this forum, and in Thailand generally, are comparable to first generation immigrants.

With this in mind, it is unlikely that we will ever "integrate" into Thai society, and I believe that if that is your aspiration, then you will always feel disappointed.

Personally, I feel very comfortable living in Thailand, because I live here on my own terms.

Alan

[Richard4849]

This is not meant as a put-down, but I really wonder where Rich has been hanging out, and with what kind of people, to come away with the pretty extreme impression he seems to have developed.

[trisailer]

Just how Thai do people want to be, and why? It's like wanting to belong to the society of a white trash trailer park, and makes no sense at all.

What makes "no sense" is why would a person who feels this way want to live here? Perhaps you need to get out and meet a better class of people.

My suggestion to you is don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

Yes, its the retort of so many who have no option other than to desperately believe that anyone who dares criticise needs to go back home.

Try to understand, some of us are honest enough to criticise whilst still appreciating the advantages of living here

Trisailor - we all know your wife is 'different' - you don't need to try to prove it....

If you agree that The Thai people are trailor trash than you also need to get out more and meet a better class of people. No intelligent, objective person is going to judge a whole society on the basis of the bar girls that you apparently only associate with. The Thai's that I know are no different than people in the west.

[DP25]

This is not meant as a put-down, but I really wonder where Rich has been hanging out, and with what kind of people, to come away with the pretty extreme impression he seems to have developed.

It's pretty obvious where and with who people with those sorts of opinions have developed them.

[trisailer]

I don't have anything to prove to anyone. I don't want to integrate into Thai society. I think the Thai's are doing fine without me. I get to live in a country that has benefits that appeal to me and all of my dealings with Thai's are just fine. What I see is people who come here thinking that they are going to win, but they lose and their angry so they constantly moan about their pathetic life here. It's just common sense for them to decide to go home.

Why would anyone live in a place that makes them so unhappy? That's what doesn't make sense. I can afford to live anywhere I want. I'm here because I like it here and I appreciate the hospitality that the Thai's, all up and down the line, show me.

Edited June 5, 2011 by trisailer

[F1fanatic]

Yes, the vast majority of Westerners here mix with the 'top class' of Thai society

Or then again perhaps its quite difficult for the average Westerner to find themselves in that fortunate situation...

[Richard4849]

Sadly, lots of those people have little to go back to...they aren't usually the cream of society.

[F1fanatic]

I don't have anything to prove to anyone. I don't want to integrate into Thai society. I think the Thai's are doing fine without me. I get to live in a country that has benefits that appeal to me and all of my dealings with Thai's are just fine. What I see is people who come here thinking that they are going to win, but they lose and their angry so they constantly moan about their pathetic life here. It's just common sense for them to decide to go home.

Actually I agree to a large extent. The young Westerners that arrive here hoping to find not only a better life, but a fortune - are in for a nasty suprise.

Fortunately, its generally old Westerners that arrive here who are amazed to find that they are incredibly attractive . Obviously the plane journey changed them into incredibly attractive men....

Once it all goes 'pear shaped', they get bad-tempered about it.... never understanding that it was their capacity for self-delusion that caused the problem.

[jdinasia]

I don't have anything to prove to anyone. I don't want to integrate into Thai society. I think the Thai's are doing fine without me. I get to live in a country that has benefits that appeal to me and all of my dealings with Thai's are just fine. What I see is people who come here thinking that they are going to win, but they lose and their angry so they constantly moan about their pathetic life here. It's just common sense for them to decide to go home.

Actually I agree to a large extent. The young Westerners that arrive here hoping to find not only a better life, but a fortune - are in for a nasty suprise.

Fortunately, its generally old Westerners that arrive here who are amazed to find that they are incredibly attractive . Obviously the plane journey changed them into incredibly attractive men....

Once it all goes 'pear shaped', they get bad-tempered about it.... never understanding that it was their capacity for self-delusion that caused the problem.

Few people immigrate to some new place and make it big .. but it happens. Most younger people seem to come here for a "change" and they find it. Some stay and some go.

I would agree that many old westerners get on a plane and when they get here they find life wonderful, new and exciting .. and when the bill comes they balk.

I would also assume that there are people that get on that same plane thinking they are secure and "all that and a bag of chips" and when they get off the plane they find the local competition too much for them in the looks and attitude department, things go pear-shaped, and they get bad-tempered about it.

In fact I am sure there are millions of similar stories with minor variations ... all over the globe. Thailand isn't unique in this at all.

[DP25]

Actually I agree to a large extent. The young Westerners that arrive here hoping to find not only a better life, but a fortune - are in for a nasty suprise.

I've met lots of Westerners in their 20s and early 30s here and most of them love it, most aren't expecting a fortune at whatever job they have but just an enjoyable life for a couple years. Not many go home bitter and hateful. I guess if you're a 22 year old expecting to get rich teaching English you're in for a nasty surprise, but if you're that clueless everything will be a nasty surprise.