The touchy Thai's comments

How to tell if you're still a farang
Author : Songkran Grachangnetara

• Published: 28/11/2012 at 12:00 AM
• Newspaper section: News

As a Thai who has spent some time abroad I consider myself able to evaluate whether a farang, (I use this term endearingly) has been properly assimilated into Thai society.

So I thought it might be useful to my many farang friends and readers to devise a simple test to help guide farang who may be wondering whether they have indeed successfully made the seamless transition into becoming a Thai.

Here is my simple test.

- You're a farang if you still comprehend satire and sarcasm and find it amusing. I have written about this in my previous articles, but for the benefit of touchy Thai readers who might find my sweeping generalisations offensive it is certainly not intended as such. Satire and sarcasm can land you in deep water so please exercise it with extreme caution.

- You're a farang if you still can't understand why Thai women marry Thai men. Most farang think Thai men are women-suppressing, self-aggrandising, backward-thinking, chain-smoking, whiskey-guzzling, time-wasting delinquents. Farang simply don't understand why a nice Thai girl would marry someone that is devoid of any endearing or redeeming qualities commonly found in many farang men.

Well, this might be news to you, but getting married in this country is often not about what the woman wants in a partner, but rather what her Thai parents deem acceptable as someone that's going to become their daughter's husband. Many Thai marriages are family affairs.

- You're a farang if you still think it is important to be punctual and get extremely irritated with Thais' nonchalant attitude towards tardiness.

Here is some sound advice when making an appointment. If you've got an appointment with a Thai at 5pm, add another 15 minutes.

If the meeting is on Friday, you'd better add 30 minutes.

If the person you're meeting is a Thai woman, you'd better add an hour. Now you've got the idea.

- You're a farang if you love Max, your golden retriever, more than you love your wife. The English are especially guilty of this.

The love that the English have for their dogs is world-famous. Only a fatal accident or an earthquake above seven on the Richter scale would prevent an Englishman from walking his dog once a day after supper.

Of course, Thais are also extremely fond of their canine friends. That is, until man's best friend _ in a few certain provinces _ provides their master with a cheap alternative to your Christmas turkey.

- You're a farang if you still can't appreciate gossiping, or have yet to master the technique.

Gossiping for Thais is more than pastime. Rumours and innuendos have become one of the foundations of our entire culture. The way that Thais behave socially has simply not kept up with the great strides we have made technologically or economically.

Essentially, we behave as though we are Hobbits of the Shire where everyone else's business is our own. Unfortunately our village mentality leads us to cherry-picking facts to accommodate prejudices. The truth in many cases is buried under a huge pile of putrid lies and comtemptible deceit.

- You're a farang if you still walk a Bangkok zebra crossing with total confidence passing vehicles will screech to a halt and allow you safe passage. Many farang have tried this but unfortunately not many have lived to tell their tale.

- You're a farang if you still think Red Bull has farang origins.

- You're a farang if after a few years of living in Thailand you still prefer using a fork rather than a spoon to eat rice.

- You're a farang if you still expect Thai politicians to resign over offences like committing adultery while in office. The resignation of someone like General Patraeus, a decorated war hero and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency over an admitted affair with his married biographer would be unheard of here.

Recently in the United Kingdom, government Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell had to hand in his resignation to the prime minister because he swore at a Downing Street police officer and called him a "pleb".

A few years before the Mitchell affair, the then-prime minister Gordon Brown of the previous Labour Government resigned as party leader after that little hiccup known as "losing a general election".

In Thailand we prefer our political and military leaders to be unshackled by high ethical and moral standards, unhindered by the demands of personal accountability and unburdened by the sense of shame that would make lesser men breakdown under the glare of public scrutiny.

- And lastly, you're a farang, if after living here for a decade your Thai is still only good enough to order chicken rice and iced tea.

However, for you uninspired farang who find it hard to learn Thai, look no further than His Excellency Mark Kent, the British Ambassador who gave a whole welcome speech in Thai at a lovely gathering held in the Ambassador's Residence which I attended recently.

For you Brits out there, now you know who to call for free Thai lessons!

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Songkran Grachangnetara is an entrepreneur. He graduated from The London School of Economics and Columbia University. He can be reached at Twitter: @SongkranTalk

Remarks

This is in response to Mr. Songkran’s article, the author of “How to tell if you are a Farang” on 28^th November 2012, I would like to express my thoughts at some points that I am not quite pleased with his weak assumptions and vague analyses about Thais. I can call myself as a touchy but rational one.

Sure enough, to determine the extent to which the degree of foreignerness account is hard to measure. However, we have compromisingly assumed that lots of Thais are in favour of or ‘pro’ the Anglo or American people, in particular. Therefore, most Farang’s characteristics can be regarded as well as valued as a good thing, superficially.  Also, author is so-called a partial-foreigner who have studied abroad for a long time. Thus, the author may have authority to set the criteria of whether Farang will be like or not.

At first, the article looked good and pretty hilarious. Its title is also eye-catching, in particular. However, once I kept reading, many issues were dubiously provocative rather than thoughtful. The provisions of skeptical issues concern with sexism, racism and directly insult Thai people. Even though, the author had proclaimed the disclaimer in advanced, as the proper and educated writer in the most prestigious English newspaper in Siam, this is absolutely intolerable.

The author ‘simple tests’ were saliently too shallow and implicated in most of  the grey area. Even foreigners, like the Anglos, to some extent, they are also behaving and exercising their powers as what the author remarked, particularly in the wicked facets, as that Thais. Furthermore, nowadays, the new generation of Thais no longer did or behave such old-fashioned or lame practices like the writer mentioned anymore. 

First, the issue concerns with the how women make their choices of get the best husbands, at first, on one hand, it seemed the author launched an attack against Thai men that they were bad and unworthy to be their spouse in Farang’s view which is not true. This wrong mindset seemed to insult can be implied that all Thai men are ill-manner and stupid. On the other hand, this proposition will be implied that Thai women are quite not smart, either. Because, if they are shrewd, they will never accept that dictatorial Thai male’s proposals after all.  Thus, it showed that the author did not understand what Farang conceptualized about Thais well enough.

Also, in the issue of smoking, I have seen a lot of Farangs are chain smokers even in the cinema or driving. On top of that, since we have known very well that the individuality and identity of particular person are different, even the author himself. To make an attempt to stereotype and overgeneralise both Farang and Thai’s practices vaguely are unconvincing.

In addition, Thai adults getting marriage under their parental approval are untrue. If the author has observed closer, adults have already actively got an idea of carnal knowledge prior to get married, even youngsters master that. This is very common for them to get married by their own choices.

In addition, it is not very new for Farang to learn about this marriage practices, regardless of they are so naïve, to know that in the past, Indo-China, accompanied by China mainland people, have held this practice for a long time. However, this post-modern era, it is not true enough. I think educated Farangs have already acknowledged as well as knew this well.

Unfortunately, the author has blamed Thai women concerning the ill-punctuality. I strongly disagree with this argument. In my view, in general females are much better than males to some extent in this point. In addition, we can see that a number of elites such as professors and senior managerial females from various prestigious institutions in Siam, they do not withstand lateness. If the author thought about those cute slackers such as “SA-KOI” girls, that’s probably true.

One more thing regarding love and affection of dogs in Farang, I think so are Thais. The author’s comment can be interpreted that Thais do not love their pets as much as Farang do. For instance, certain males might love his singing birds, like the northern Thais, or love their native fighting roosters, like the northern Thais. Thus, this is still very true and vice versa. Both of ethics did something harsh and cruel to that poor creature, either.

If you have claimed that Farang loves their so called “Golden Retriever” more than their infatuated wives, you are about to guide those Farang to get married with their dogs, isn’t it? Thus, these two weak arguments induce a negative message to both foreigners and Thais. I think both of ethnicities are fond of animals. Even though, management and administration scheme of Farang’s animal’s right and protection are much clearer than that Thai.

I think that the author have articulated pleb himself already. In fact, at a faintest idea, Red Bull is authentically Thai products and lots of Farang hardly know about this fact.

Koineize