I'm Still Just The Falang

[ayayay]

I've lived here for 7 years and people I don't even know in my village call out my name, PETER!

I'm married to a Thai, have two kids and I know about 50 Thai words which is ***k all. That they call you"Farang" is like slapping you in the face.

And when you are not around, and your wife is telling a friend, who you do not know, that you are going out for dinner, the first thing she will point out is that you are "white skin" (farang).

Would you do that if you would tell your friend who had never met your wife - Me and my wife, she is a "brown skin", we are going out to dinner?

Edited April 26, 2013 by ayayay

[SteeleJoe]

And when you are not around, and your wife is telling a friend, who you do not know, that you are going out for dinner, the first thing she will point out is that you are "white skin" (farang).

Would you do that if you would tell your friend who had never met your wife - Me and my wife, she is a "brown skin", we are going out to dinner?

There you go again: acting as if your paranoid fantasies are fact...

Then adding the straw man question.

I'll say this - you are consistent. (Of course, obsessives usually have that going for them.)

Edited April 26, 2013 by SteeleJoe

[aboctok]

correct

farang comes from farangset which means french whom where prominent in south east asia a while ago

all who knows me can call me oli without any problem , only reffered as farang from people i do not know to which i reply , may chai kon farang , phom pen kon boksida ..... ( isan / lao term for farang ) makes everybody laugh ....

farang is mostly used from people whom do not know your name but used as well as a rude word from people whom you get in an argument with and plain racist pricks ....

Why do ignorant people insist on spreading their ignorance?

do a little bit of research before insulting people .

That's right, go and learn some things, then come back and insult us.

[transam]

The odd occasion someone refers to me as farang, I smile and say, ''Bor farang, (Not farang,they understand that bit), I am Trans''. ...................

[Trembly]

The odd occasion someone refers to me as farang, I smile and say, ''Bor farang, (Not farang,they understand that bit), I am Trans''. ...................

Pardon me, but it is "bor maen farang" (not is farang)

[transam]

The odd occasion someone refers to me as farang, I smile and say, ''Bor farang, (Not farang,they understand that bit), I am Trans''. ...................

Pardon me, but it is "bor maen farang" (not is farang)

I'm a cockney.

[Trembly]

The odd occasion someone refers to me as farang, I smile and say, ''Bor farang, (Not farang,they understand that bit), I am Trans''. ...................

Pardon me, but it is "bor maen farang" (not is farang)

I'm a cockney.

I'll let you off then!

[aboctok]

And when you are not around, and your wife is telling a friend, who you do not know, that you are going out for dinner, the first thing she will point out is that you are "white skin" (farang).

Would you do that if you would tell your friend who had never met your wife - Me and my wife, she is a "brown skin", we are going out to dinner?

There you go again: acting as if your paranoid fantasies are fact...

Then adding the straw man question.

I'll say this - you are consistent. (Of course, obsessives usually have that going for them.)

You could try suggesting that he view the following interesting TED talk—Michael Shermer: The pattern behind self-deception. (YouTube: /watch?v=b_6-iVz1R0o)

[ayayay]

And when you are not around, and your wife is telling a friend, who you do not know, that you are going out for dinner, the first thing she will point out is that you are "white skin" (farang).

Would you do that if you would tell your friend who had never met your wife - Me and my wife, she is a "brown skin", we are going out to dinner?

There you go again: acting as if your paranoid fantasies are fact...

Then adding the straw man question.

I'll say this - you are consistent. (Of course, obsessives usually have that going for them.)

And there you go again, clearly not aware of reality.

You are like the nutty patient who blames his doctor for being crazy, cause it does not match his own skewed sense of reality.

[SteeleJoe]

And when you are not around, and your wife is telling a friend, who you do not know, that you are going out for dinner, the first thing she will point out is that you are "white skin" (farang).

Would you do that if you would tell your friend who had never met your wife - Me and my wife, she is a "brown skin", we are going out to dinner?

There you go again: acting as if your paranoid fantasies are fact...

Then adding the straw man question.

I'll say this - you are consistent. (Of course, obsessives usually have that going for them.)

And there you go again, clearly not aware of reality.

You are like the nutty patient who blames his doctor for being crazy, cause it does not match his own skewed sense of reality.

Yeah, OK. See, here's the thing - I'm not the one who repeatedly writes with total certainty about what people say about me WHEN I'M NOT THERE. (In fact, you even go beyond that - you claim you know what all Thais say about all foreigners when the foreigners aren't there.)

And I'm not the one with an uncontrollable fixation on a word to the extent that I post over and over again the same things on every single thread I see that discusses the word or even sometimes just mentions it.

But I'M the crazy one...

Carry on.

"Reality"...that was funny.

Edited April 26, 2013 by SteeleJoe

[khaowong1]

I really don't get upset when Thai's call me farang. I pretty much think they are all ignorant anyway and it's like being around a bunch of people who all have down syndrome. When they have lived in your home country (USA) for 30 years and still call you a farang, that pretty much tells you how ignorant they are. I just kind of smile at them like you would a patient in the mental hospital that just messed their pants.

[BenStarkBJJ]

In 5 years you should at least speak a reasonable amount of thai.

[norrona]

In 5 years you should at least speak a reasonable amount of thai.

whilst I agree with your words there is a certain mind set for many thai ladies and even their family that it probably suits them the husband doesn't speak their language....if the OP is fed up with being called farang and that's the only word he can pick up on then I dread to think of what else they call him or say behind his back!

And where do you go to learn the language if you are living in a village in nakon nowhere?

Edited April 26, 2013 by norrona

[Trembly]

In 5 years you should at least speak a reasonable amount of thai.

whilst I agree with your words there is a certain mind set for many thai ladies and even their family that it probably suits them the husband doesn't speak their language....if the OP is fed up with being called farang and that's the only word he can pick up on then I dread to think of what else they call him or say behind his back!

And where do you go to learn the language if you are living in a village in nakon nowhere?

Many Thai ladies who happen to be on the make, you mean.

How on earth could anyone come across a potential spouse who actively discourages them from learning the language, and not hear alarm bells ringing in their head? It should be patently obvious that you, my son, are facing a whore / gold-digger, if not a whole family of them.

You don't need a classroom to learn a language.

Edited April 26, 2013 by Trembly

[Khun Watchaporn]

I'm Still Just The Falang

And you'll always just be the farang, no matter what you tell them to call you.

[SteeleJoe]

Many Thai ladies who happen to be on the make, you mean.

How on earth could anyone come across a potential spouse who actively discourages them from learning the language, and not hear alarm bells ringing in their head? It should be patently obvious that you, my son, are facing a whore / gold-digger, if not a whole family of them.

You don't need a classroom to learn a language.

And yet another benefit of learning Thai I discovered early on: an occasionally useful filter. It didn't require any conscious decision on my part, mind you, to think "OK, this one didn't pass the test, I better steer clear" - because I was genuinely offended when I would meet someone who didn't want me to learn; it was so instantly and starkly obvious that this person not only didn't have my best interests at heart but rather quite the opposite that I immediately viewed the person differently - much for the worse - no matter how otherwise appealing, and that was it...couldn't get away fast enough.

Oh, and I never had a classroom.

[nottocus]

I really don't get upset when Thai's call me farang. I pretty much think they are all ignorant anyway and it's like being around a bunch of people who all have down syndrome. When they have lived in your home country (USA) for 30 years and still call you a farang, that pretty much tells you how ignorant they are. I just kind of smile at them like you would a patient in the mental hospital that just messed their pants.

I agree with this.

[Khun Watchaporn]

I don't like speaking Thai and generally (actually almost always) say that I can't.

It saves me from having to speak the language and communicate with people I have almost zero interest in.

And most importantly lets me listen to their true feeling about me or whatever.

Win win.

[MaiChai]

It shows total disrespect to you that people close to you refer to you as the farang. I have had a number of Thai girlfriends over the years, and they should refer to you as khun nickname. If your real name is difficult for them to pronounce (eg has slot of syllables), your girlfriend should help you choose a suitable single syllable nickname, and she should then refer to you as khun nickname whenever she talks about you. Her friends and family should then refer to you in this honorific way too.

Edited April 26, 2013 by MaiChai

[thaicbr]

In 5 years you should at least speak a reasonable amount of thai.

Why?

Sent from my i-mobile i-STYLE Q6

[thaicbr]

In 5 years you should at least speak a reasonable amount of thai.

whilst I agree with your words there is a certain mind set for many thai ladies and even their family that it probably suits them the husband doesn't speak their language....if the OP is fed up with being called farang and that's the only word he can pick up on then I dread to think of what else they call him or say behind his back!

And where do you go to learn the language if you are living in a village in nakon nowhere?

Many Thai ladies who happen to be on the make, you mean.

How on earth could anyone come across a potential spouse who actively discourages them from learning the language, and not hear alarm bells ringing in their head? It should be patently obvious that you, my son, are facing a whore / gold-digger, if not a whole family of them.

You don't need a classroom to learn a language.

Sometimes its maybe not actively discouraged but more like no real ideas on how to teach it. For many Thais it just kinda fell into place. Same with many languages I guess.

I was having a chat this evening with a fellow English teacher she's Thai but was international school and US university educated. I was asking if she could teach me Thai but she says her Thai is not good enough!!!

She obviously speaks Thai but most all her friends (and seemingly her family) speak English a lot of the time. So she says she has a Ltd vocabulary.

And she is Thai!!

And she did learn in a classroom

Sent from my i-mobile i-STYLE Q6

Edited April 26, 2013 by thaicbr

[Eesat]

I really don't get upset when Thai's call me farang. I pretty much think they are all ignorant anyway and it's like being around a bunch of people who all have down syndrome. When they have lived in your home country (USA) for 30 years and still call you a farang, that pretty much tells you how ignorant they are. I just kind of smile at them like you would a patient in the mental hospital that just messed their pants.

So you've blended in well and assimilated yourself into your adopted society then?

[Naam]

In 5 years you should at least speak a reasonable amount of thai.

Why?

Sent from my i-mobile i-STYLE Q6

because he said so

[SteeleJoe]

Sometimes its maybe not actively discouraged but more like no real ideas on how to teach it. For many Thais it just kinda fell into place. Same with many languages I guess.

I was having a chat this evening with a fellow English teacher she's Thai but was international school and US university educated. I was asking if she could teach me Thai but she says her Thai is not good enough!!!

She obviously speaks Thai but most all her friends (and seemingly her family) speak English a lot of the time. So she says she has a Ltd vocabulary.

And she is Thai!!

And she did learn in a classroom

Sent from my i-mobile i-STYLE Q6

Not sure what you mean when you say "for many Thais it just kinda fell into place". What does "it" refer to?

In any case, I think it's very safe to say that your friend is a very rare (not unheard of) case: a Thai living in Thailand who has difficulty with Thai? Whose friends and family use English a lot? Limited vocabulary? Highly unusual. Mind you, and I'm not saying this applies to your friend and mean no offense, I have met the occasional Thai who studied abroad and claims that their Thai is not so good - and then heard them speaking Thai as fluently as any other Thai - but that was about sheer pretension and wanting to be seen as superior. In your friend's case, could it be she didn't want to teach you (for perfectly innocent reasons)?

Of course one can learn in a class room. The point made was that one doesn't HAVE TO: if you live in Thailand, you have virtually unlimited opportunities to learn (from an array of sources) and practice. After all, we all learn to speak our native languages before we start school and in bygone eras people with little or no schooling could still speak at least one language and often more (obviously without some real effort and self study one wouldn't learn to speak like a person who has been "properly" educated but it CAN be done and is.)

Anyway, discouraging learning is noticeably different from not knowing how to teach: if you ask questions and try to practice with a Thai, they don't need to know how to teach per se to go along with it and help, and if they actively resist and discourage you...well, that has nothing to do with teaching skills or lack thereof.

[TexasRanger]

In 5 years you should at least speak a reasonable amount of thai.

whilst I agree with your words there is a certain mind set for many thai ladies and even their family that it probably suits them the husband doesn't speak their language....if the OP is fed up with being called farang and that's the only word he can pick up on then I dread to think of what else they call him or say behind his back!

And where do you go to learn the language if you are living in a village in nakon nowhere?

internet, books, CD's, family, friends...

[FritsSikkink]

In 5 years you should at least speak a reasonable amount of thai.

whilst I agree with your words there is a certain mind set for many thai ladies and even their family that it probably suits them the husband doesn't speak their language....if the OP is fed up with being called farang and that's the only word he can pick up on then I dread to think of what else they call him or say behind his back!

And where do you go to learn the language if you are living in a village in nakon nowhere?

http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Thai/maanii/menu/default.htm#

[Tywais]

And where do you go to learn the language if you are living in a village in nakon nowhere?

My first foray into the Thai language was via living in a small village decades ago and total immersion as no one could speak English. 6 months I could communicate quite effectively with the locals through mimicry of words and grammar. My tones where pretty much non existent at the time, but got the message across with little problem.

[Travel2003]

Thanks for all your inputs.

Most non thai I've met who have lived here for many years can not speak Thai, I mean those older than 55.

Maybe the younger people who work here have learned Thai.

I as the most of the others can say some phrases, but it is not enough to converse with.

Maybe I'll take a course some day.

Anyway, thanks again, I'll talk to my girlfriend about this and we'll see what happens.

327 posts later, thought I would just check inn and see how it was going with the OP.

Have you rectified the problem you have?

By the way, what happened to your wife?

Is she the same that you have called girlfriend all the time?

In Topic: Pattaya Party - 10 Years Of Thaivisa

2012-10-20 12:33:46

Me and my wife are happy to participate. Book two tickets for us

[transam]

Last night went out to a bar to meet friends. Walking along the road when on the other side I heard farang in a sentence. It was a Chinese friend with his mates. I scuttled over shook hands etc, smiles all round. The point is, he was pointing out his friend (me) to his Thai/Chinese pals, a farang.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo problem.

[Kilgore Trout]

Last night went out to a bar to meet friends. Walking along the road when on the other side I heard farang in a sentence. It was a Chinese friend with his mates. I scuttled over shook hands etc, smiles all round. The point is, he was pointing out his friend (me) to his Thai/Chinese pals, a farang.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo problem.

Scuttled? I think you mean shuffled there, step n fetch it