Who Am I To Judge Others?

[LarryBird]

Newsflash: People suck. You're a little late to the party, puukao.

[CobraSnakeNecktie]

Yup we have all had some converted Falang look down at us inferior Falang... I guess we are spoiling their view or something.

Back in Falang land someone would have already told them to <deleted> but no such feedback in Thailand.

Drivers can nearly run you down, neighbors can keep you up all night and polluters can smoke you out but nobody gives feedback.

A lot of westerners get in Thailand and no pushback for anything. Like children or animals with no boundaries they get bolder over time.. Maybe some Thai gives them stink eye but that is about it.

If someone has that rap about everything from obesity to prostitution are caused by foreigners etc then I just avoid them or if forced to be around them I am fine giving them some reality exposure of their flaws or ideas. Usually they have ample flaws to expose.

Oh the humanity

[orang37]

Everybody who posted on this thread, or read it, is a loser.

~o:37;

[shaggy1969]

Welcome to the losers club orang37

Everybody who posted on this thread, or read it, is a loser.

~o:37;

[Thakkar]

Everybody who posted on this thread, or read it, is a loser.

~o:37;

Dammit, Orang, couldn't you have made this the second post after the OP so that I could've immediately stopped reading and thus only been somewhat of a loser?

Doh! Now I'm a poster AND a reader! That makes me a complete tosser!

T

[OldChinaHam]

TYWAIS::

"//edit - I always return a smile to anyone who smiles at me. There may be a rare occasion where things don't feel quite right though and my smile may be a bit more feeble. What I've seen is in the vast majority of instances if I smile at a Thai they will return one. Probably much less than 50% of foreigners will return one. My guess is they think you want something from them."

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This is definitely very true, no matter whether the farang is in Thailand, in Taiwan, or in China. I also have witnessed this dynamic so many times. There is a simple and true explanation for this. And I believe that I do know what it is after many years of cogitation.

To acknowledge another farang on the street is considered by many to be the height of uncool. The reasoning goes like this: If I smile at another "foreigner" on the street or in passing on the sidewalk, it is as if I am smiling BECAUSE I and he are foreigners, or a certain color, and not something that we would normally do in any big city in our home countries. Therefore, if we consider ourselves, each of us, to be world travelers and men of the world, then we should not act like we are fresh off the boat by smiling at another foreigner just because he is the only white man (or whatever color man) in this sea of Asian people around us.

Perhaps I have not put this very well. But I am fairly sure that this is the dynamic you have noticed. I have seen the same thing for decades, and I now just accept it.

In other words it is thought by these farang: I should be smiling at you NOT BECAUSE your are a foreigner and I am a foreigner, BUT BECAUSE I just feel like smiling.

This, I am fairly sure, is the REAL reason that farang sometimes avert their eyes and do not smile and won't permit eye contact when they see another of their own kind.

It has nothing to do with unfriendliness or with misanthropy. It is just because they don't want to appear uncool, and as if they just arrived in a new land like any old tourist.

As for me though, I am way past caring that I was never cool or uncool. I used to smoke Kools though.

I've already pretty much gone native and I don't care about these saving face behaviors.

[Rajab Al Zarahni]

TYWAIS::

"//edit - I always return a smile to anyone who smiles at me. There may be a rare occasion where things don't feel quite right though and my smile may be a bit more feeble. What I've seen is in the vast majority of instances if I smile at a Thai they will return one. Probably much less than 50% of foreigners will return one. My guess is they think you want something from them."

------------------------------------

-----------------------------------

This is definitely very true, no matter whether the farang is in Thailand, in Taiwan, or in China. I also have witnessed this dynamic so many times. There is a simple and true explanation for this. And I believe that I do know what it is after many years of cogitation.

To acknowledge another farang on the street is considered by many to be the height of uncool. The reasoning goes like this: If I smile at another "foreigner" on the street or in passing on the sidewalk, it is as if I am smiling BECAUSE I and he are foreigners, or a certain color, and not something that we would normally do in any big city in our home countries. Therefore, if we consider ourselves, each of us, to be world travelers and men of the world, then we should not act like we are fresh off the boat by smiling at another foreigner just because he is the only white man (or whatever color man) in this sea of Asian people around us.

Perhaps I have not put this very well. But I am fairly sure that this is the dynamic you have noticed. I have seen the same thing for decades, and I now just accept it.

In other words it is thought by these farang: I should be smiling at you NOT BECAUSE your are a foreigner and I am a foreigner, BUT BECAUSE I just feel like smiling.

This, I am fairly sure, is the REAL reason that farang sometimes avert their eyes and do not smile and won't permit eye contact when they see another of their own kind.

It has nothing to do with unfriendliness or with misanthropy. It is just because they don't want to appear uncool, and as if they just arrived in a new land like any old tourist.

As for me though, I am way past caring that I was never cool or uncool. I used to smoke Kools though.

I've already pretty much gone native and I don't care about these saving face behaviors.

To compromise you could smile at everyone with the wry smile of someone like James Bond, designed to convey the message that " I'm cool and you are just a peasant that I chosen to acknowledge".

[Thakkar]

Mrs. T and I were walking in a shopping mall. An Indian couple were walking the other way, towards us. We didn't know them, and they didn't know us, but we all smiled and wai'ed. I said "namasté" and he said "sabaidi krap"

What does that say about our various preconceptions, I wonder?

T