The Farang
Thailand, the white man's wonderland
Everywhere I go in Thailand, I see farang. It's not like I'm not sured to seeing white guys with asian girls - Aside from all the cross-racial dating I see in LA and Vancouver, I saw rich ex-Pats courting young asian mistresses in Shanghai, I met Frenchmen in Vietnam who had married their Vietnamese girlfriends years ago and were now investing in businesses. But in Thailand, its different.
I see the farang in droves with their tasteless Hawaiian shirts, overweight, prematurely balding, football hooligans, college fratboys hi-fiving eaching other and even the odd lonely senior citizen. I see them with Thai girls sitting on their laps or on the back of their motorcycles. I see them hand-in-hand walking back to the hotel with teenage Thai boys. I saw a 6'5" farang traveling on a plane with his 3'8" Thai girlfriend, the whole time I sat behind them on the plane not a word of English passed between them. I see it all and its all so wrongly mismatched. Looks, age and arguably class.
I try and avoid them like the plague but I see them everywhere in droves at the gogo bars in Patpong, sitting at McDonalds in Chiang Mai, holding hands at the beach in Phuket. Rentings girls here is like renting videos, you just return them when you're done with them.
But as much as it disgusts me, I realize that it is part of the culture here. The Thai's don't mind. Tourism feeds the economy and mixed kids are considered beautiful (unlike in Vietnam where they are austrasized). An average bar girl makes 100 baht ($2.50 USD) while one session with a farang can fetch her 15,000 baht.
One local I quizzed on the subject told me that she once had a boyfriend, a farang. She laughed when I asked where he was. "He had to go home" she shrugged. I think it is this part that troubles me the most. Beyond the transaction itself, I wonder what lies behind their renowned Thai smile. I wonder if deep inside they hold any hope that these farang may come back as promised or whether they have defaulted their feelings to disappointment and hopelessness.
A tourist should give as much to a country as they take away. Something isn't right here.
Everywhere I go in Thailand, I see farang. It's not like I'm not sured to seeing white guys with asian girls - Aside from all the cross-racial dating I see in LA and Vancouver, I saw rich ex-Pats courting young asian mistresses in Shanghai, I met Frenchmen in Vietnam who had married their Vietnamese girlfriends years ago and were now investing in businesses. But in Thailand, its different.
I see the farang in droves with their tasteless Hawaiian shirts, overweight, prematurely balding, football hooligans, college fratboys hi-fiving eaching other and even the odd lonely senior citizen. I see them with Thai girls sitting on their laps or on the back of their motorcycles. I see them hand-in-hand walking back to the hotel with teenage Thai boys. I saw a 6'5" farang traveling on a plane with his 3'8" Thai girlfriend, the whole time I sat behind them on the plane not a word of English passed between them. I see it all and its all so wrongly mismatched. Looks, age and arguably class.
I try and avoid them like the plague but I see them everywhere in droves at the gogo bars in Patpong, sitting at McDonalds in Chiang Mai, holding hands at the beach in Phuket. Rentings girls here is like renting videos, you just return them when you're done with them.
But as much as it disgusts me, I realize that it is part of the culture here. The Thai's don't mind. Tourism feeds the economy and mixed kids are considered beautiful (unlike in Vietnam where they are austrasized). An average bar girl makes 100 baht ($2.50 USD) while one session with a farang can fetch her 15,000 baht.
One local I quizzed on the subject told me that she once had a boyfriend, a farang. She laughed when I asked where he was. "He had to go home" she shrugged. I think it is this part that troubles me the most. Beyond the transaction itself, I wonder what lies behind their renowned Thai smile. I wonder if deep inside they hold any hope that these farang may come back as promised or whether they have defaulted their feelings to disappointment and hopelessness.
A tourist should give as much to a country as they take away. Something isn't right here.