lecture notes from the recent seminar "Farang Grandiosity Syndrome"

[orang37]

Greetings, TV CM Friends,

I was privileged to attend the seminar presented here by the German researcher Dr. David Stromberg as part of the "festschrift" in honor of the late Dr. GlockenSpiel of the Mahabaht Foundation Research Project.

I offer you these notes on the seminar ... which ended a bit strangely ... based on my shorthand transcription at the time augmented to the extent possible by memories recovered during trance states.

Notes:

Farang Grandiosity Syndrome

Honored Chairperson, Khun Doctor Sumluck Wappadee, Kon Thai, Ladies and Gentlemen, Farangs: good evening.

I am very happy to be here today in this beautiful resort in Chiang Mai with you at the Fifth International Congress of Expatriate Sociology Symposium for this seminar on 'Expatriate Identity and Deviance' ... It is a crying shame that the late Dr. Hilda Glockenspiel cannot be with us tonight to present what we might term a "post-feminist" perspective based on her work with women, ladyboys, male cross-dressers who still identify themselves as heterosexual, but we will mention her seminal work, of course.

I will share with you some of my latest research and hypotheses on the Expatriates of Thailand who I shall refer to, as a class, using the popular Thai word "Farang."

Today I will explain my concept of "Farang Grandiosity Syndrome," or "FGS," for short, discuss my research, and present some hypotheses I hope may generate more ideas for research in future.

No simple summation of "FGS" can be given in the short-time offered here, but just let me present one or two major points :

1. While some of those whose behavior and mental states appear to be examples of FGS are, indeed, psychotic, in general most are not. Therefore our research has excluded those who were, obviously, psychotic. Of course, that is not to imply that our research does not include those who, while not psychotic now, are in the process of becoming so and have successfully passed themselves off as sane ... taking advantage of our generously liberal classificatory protocol.

2. The most important issue in our research is to clarify : what does it mean to be a "legend in your own mind," a theme which we encounter so frequently in the patterns of self-talk and social-interaction of farang expatriates we must consider it as much a leit-motif as the sound of hunting horns in Wagnerian opera.

Are the farangs coming here who become "legends in their own mind" already this way before they came ? Is there something about Thailand that encourages this sense of grandiosity that leads otherwise somewhat normal people into inventing a wholly fictional biography ? Or, is this a case where gemeinschaft and geschellschaft are simply turned into a deformed pretzel by the interaction of competing weltanschaung ?

Is it the case that those farang who come here self-select precisely because they sense, or know, they can use the fact they are strangers in an exotically alien culture to allow them to "get away" with constructing a life-story that is completely bogus ?

3. Finally, we must mention, in passing, the profound "elephant burial ground" theory of our late colleague Dr. Harold Glockenspiel (before gender re-assignment ... after that ... Dr. Hilda Glockenspiel) whose magnificent research in Pattaya suggested that many Farangs essentially come to Thailand to die, and that the grandiosity exhibited as they stretch out their final years, in the absence of ability or motivation to actually committ suicide quickly, rather than slowly, via alcoholism, or dangerous behavior, in our humble opinion, remains a relatively unexplored area of scholarship, but one that offers much promise for future scholars.

... Gotterdammerung ! I am already over two points, but let's go ahead with a fourth ...

4. Making our work so much more difficult is the "masking effect" of the high-rate of deaths of "unusual causes" ... and most often unexplained ... of older male farangs here. While motor-vehicle traffic is, without doubt, the number one method of birth control in Thailand, it is impossible to tease-out from the high rate of farangs killed in traffic what extent of those deaths are in fact a result of suicide.

Also confounding systematic analysis are the numerous deaths by falling from buildings: while many Thais and farangs believe in the preposterous superstition that there are malevolent supernatural forces resident in balconies of high-rise condominiums causing them to "buck" and eject farangs over the railing to fall to their deaths:

Other than note this aberrant meme's value as a semiotic marker of what Bakhtin might have called the "Carnivalesque" aspect of farang-Thai "when worlds collide" culutural interaction ... we must exclude such deaths from our study except for the very rare cases that leave some form of note, diary, or even video, behind.

But, do note that in our speculative summary we will return to the possibility that an outcome of FGS is a sense of entitlement hypertrophied to the point of solipsistic megalomania, and the inevitable frequent frustration of reality to conform to this sense of entitlement may, we speculate, generate a psychological substrata fundament pre-dispoing to impulsive suicide.

~

Now: you see the crux of our dilemma in this research. Now we go to details.

First I review some of our demographic and profile statistics to establish the context in which I will, later, present "FGS."

A natural sub-division of this fascinating topic is by gender. So let us first deal with the more numerous males.

Another sub-division is, of course, by age.

And a third natural sub-division is by primary intention : what is the reason this person is in Thailand for so long a time ?

Of course we must distinguish stated intention from other hidden agendas : but how to do this without sensory deprivation or water-boarding ... a serious methodological consideration.

Using these three primary criteria let us now look at intentional groupings according to relative sizes of population ...

I advance to you the hypothesis that the largest group of expats are males older than 40 years old.

My random samples by trained informants in both Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and less well-known, less urban areas ... in terms of population of expats ... like Chantaburi, Udon Thani, Ayuthya, Sukhothai, etc. indicate that "

1. Male Farangs over 40 as a group who are married with Thai wife pre-dominate outside major urban areas.

2. Male Farangs over 40 as a group who are single pre-dominate in major urban areas, and what you might call special zones such as Pattaya.

3. Rates of alcoholism are high in this class.

4. Rates of serial sexual promiscuity are high in this class whether married or not.

... mobile phone rings .... he looks unsettled ... nervous ... takes the mobile phone from his belt holster ...

"Excuse me ... I must take this call ..."

"Sergei ... I'm busy ... what ? ... no, I told you buy January calls on Gold you IDIOT ! ... he turns aside ... mutters into the phone ..."

... turns back to the audience ...

"Excuse me, as I was saying :"

5. Death by Homicide is high in this class, with married members of this class at more risk, murdered mainly by wives, lovers, family of partners, thieves, etc. If successful in business, may be murdered by Thais for business reasons, conflicts, jealousies, refusal of extortion, etc.

6. Death by Suicide is high in this class, with unmarried members of this class at more risk. An interesting cluster of significant mortality is found located around Pattaya : this group of older males shows a very significant tendency to try acrobatics on their balconies which leads to them falling to their deaths. Is this suicide ? Is there something about the balconies in Pattaya that contribute ? Now here is an opportunity for some wonderful research challenged by the fact there are almost no survivors of these prat-falls. Of course, I have already mentioned the "bucking balconies" meme.

7. Evaluation of "adaptation to Thai cultural norms" varies by nationality : British, Japanese, German, are least likely to express interest in Thai culture, most likely to socialize in environments designed to resemble their home social environments, and eat food typical of their native lands, etc. Amazingly 98% of all respondents from those countries indicated they had no personal Thai friends.

8. Among this class those having lived in Thailand five years or more who do not speak Thai beyond the most simple requests, such as "where is the bathroom," ordering food, etc. pre-dominate. Eight out of ten members of this class in our research did not speak more than the most rudimentary Thai. Very few of this class even knew the names of the most famous Thai Kings.

9. This class, more than any other we studied, is more likely to hold persistent negative attitudes towards Thai people, Thai society, and its institutions. They describe Thais as "unreliable," "untrustworthy," "greedy," "corrupt," etc. In fact, to a great extent the typical themes of their conversations in bistros, bars, bagnios, etc., involve sharing stories about how they are abused by Thais, taken advantage of by Thais. It almost seems as if a motif of "involuntary victimization" is a kind of "currency" for social exchange.

10. Given a basic set of questions about Thai history, and current affairs, this class scored among the lowest of any group.

Now, with this framework in place, we can look at the more interesting questions : why do these older Male Farangs stay in the country ?

But first we need to ask what common traits characterize this class.

Here is what we found :

1. A large percentage of this class are from lower classes, working classes, and lower-middle classes in their home countries.

2. A large percentage of this class are what you may call "Alpha Males" : they exhibit, or once exhibited, more dominant, aggressive, personality traits. They are oriented to sexuality as a primary drive, feel a strong need to receive attention from younger females, or younger males if homosexual.

3. As a group they were not highly educated in the intellectual humanities, though perhaps highly educated in terms of a skill, a craft, or a social role like soldier, construction specialist, etc.

So what did we find when we asked this modal sub-class about why they came to Thailand, why they stayed ?

Many answers fell into clusters that were not surprising :

1. A cheap way of life where their savings or pension could buy a relatively better way of life than in their home countries.

2. Availability of cheap sex, and companionship of younger females or males without social stigma or danger.

3. Perceived Thailand as a "zone of freedom" where they could be the person they wanted to be.

4. Felt alienated from their home countries and natal families or families through marriage and childbirth there, wanted a new way of life.

The one most surprising cluster was the extent to which these Farangs felt that Thailand had, in a way, "seduced" them with an initial experience of personal freedom and power that was addictive. This first encounter often involved sexual behavior with prostitutes.

One informant summed this up dramatically : "My first visit to Thailand was, I think, like what I've heard can happen to people taking crack cocaine for the first time : I was let out of my cage after years, I realized, of living with my heart and my senses turned off."

Another informant described Thailand as the place where : "I could have the adolescence I always wanted."

Yet another informant said : "In Thailand I can invent my own reality and get away with it."

A British man, fifty, commented : "Give me my pub, and a pint, soccer on the telly, and cheap whores, I'm just fine, thankee."

An American commented : "Me, my motorcycle, my honey, good burgers, the wind in my hair : what's not to like ?"

Let us take a look at the findings on this sub-group who I have come to call "Farang with Moon ticket" based on the Thai idiom "Tua bai Prachan" (ตั๋วไปยังดวงจันทร์) which figuratively refers to a Farang "living in Thailand as if it were Disneyland," which, possibly, has an interesting origin since there may be a reference to the "pop" American song that contained the line "one way ticket to the moon."

But first, let us mention that there is another important group which, while smaller demographically, poses a very high contrast in every way to the group described above. At this point we would be remiss not to mention a significant sub-class of people who have had significant involvement with Thailand as teachers, Peace Corps volunteers, employees of multi-nationals, or have come here for serious academic or cultural reasons. We do not include people who believe they are on some form of "religious mission" in this cohort since they are so unique as a class in terms of lifestyle and behavior.

This class is relatively literate, intelligent, well-read, active in some cultural activities in Thailand, at least as audiences. They include writers, artists, people who still teach in schools or privately a wide range of subjects. Only in this group do we find Farangs who state they do have regular interaction with Thais, and have "real" Thai friends. Within this group are those rare Farangs who speak Thai fluently, and read and write Thai as well.

... mobile phone rings .... he looks unsettled ... nervous ... takes the mobile phone from his belt holster ...

Excuse me ... I must take this call ...

"Lek ... my little weinerschnitzel : where are you ? Are you all right ?"

"Yah, I am here giving my speech right now ... yah, I make words many people listen ..."

"What you mean you not come back tonight ... why I give you ten thousand baht for mother if you not come back like you say ..."

... pause ...

"No ! I no have more money for you : your mother's a bullshit artist ..."

... pause ...

"No ! No ! No more money. You no come back !"

... hangs up the phone ... tries to recover composure ...

"Friends, sorry for that interruption ... that was a former graduate student of mine, Khun Lek, who has had some difficulty lately ... you know how it is ... sometimes you try to help ... but you get taken ... like the Americans say: "to the cleaners" ...

"As I was saying ..."

... he paused ... looked around at the room seeing nothing but the backs of people walking out ..."

[Costas2008]

Orang37, thank you very much for this brilliant piece of work.

Thoroughly enjoyed it and had the laugh of my life.

Where have you been all this time?

Hope we see more from you in the near future.

[Lobin]

W T F ?!

[Loaded]

You mentioned burgers. Does Dr Stromberg have suggestions as to where the best one can be purchased in Chiang Mai?

[piersbeckett]

It wouldn't be April the first by any chance, would it? - brilliant post!

[uptheos]

Orang37 nice to see you back to your brilliant best.

[NancyL]

Orang37 -- good to see you back and in fine form. Oh, I was hanging onto every word. I was waiting to learn of Dr. Stromberg's assessment of how male farangs over age 40 plan for their future and respond to crises situations. He really hadn't moved beyond describing the various subgroups before he lost his audience, had he? Such a pity.

[seedy]

Two Thumbs Way Up !!!

[Mapguy]

[harrry]

Orang...

good to see you about

did you still need two tickets to attend?

[EnlightenedAtheist]

Bravo! It achieved its intent; it made me laugh all the way through!

How about a final twist at the end: everyone leaves, except one "lovely" (?) Thai lady!

[save the frogs]

if it's meant to be humor, it's not that funny

this is NOT "research"

it's partly stating the obvious

it's partly trying to portray a negative one-sided cartoon picture of reality and ridiculous stereotyping

it's partly ridiculous exaggeration ... is the homicide rate of wives on farang husbands really that high?

[Rimmer]

Seven year old topic

//CLOSED//