Domestic / cross cultural issues - Thai / Foreigner concerns

Farang and their seemingly paradoxical ways

By Mr. Surin Province, Created on: 17/10/2008, Last updated on: 17/04/2010

» As a long-historied Farang resident myself, comfortable and understanding, I have to ask the age old question regarding Westerners that find it necessary to stay/live here while finding life so objectionable in many ways. Why is this so? I've experienced this throughout Asia {in particular the LOS}...

• ricepaddy commented : Our farang ways are paradoxical, not just seemingly, compared to the Thai ways. My father was KIA in WWII and mom went to work, so I was raised mostly by my grandparents, who were village farmers in Slovakia until WWI, when the Kaiser’s army conscripted grandpa, who was captured and sent to Siberia by the Russians. He survived until the war ended. Then grandpa and grandma immigrated as farangs to America. 17 years ago I was assigned to a five year farang work assignment in Thailand and after a few months was sure that Thailand was just a dirty, undeveloped, Third World country trying to put on a façade of modernizing with big buildings and a few road signs in English. Then I met an old long-stay farang, who patiently listened to my story and all my negative gripes about Thailand. He asked me to try and make a mental list of some good things about Thailand and we’d talk again. I took his advice and in the course of making my list, flashed back to some of my grandpa’s stories about the great things about America and how hard it was to assimilate into a culture so different from the one where he was raised. His vocabulary to a child obviously didn’t include “assimilate” and “culture” even though we were speaking in Slovak, but that was the gist. Learning the American language (my British friends insist I do not speak English) was high on grandpa’s list of difficulties, just as learning Thai was on mine. Fast forward to now and I am retired living on a village farm in Changwat, Surin and still adding to the old long-stay farang’s mental list of good things about Thailand. The list is quite long, and keeps growing because despite the negative things I see and sometimes comment about, the good and positive things I see and experience daily are what keep me here as a healthy, happily married farang whose ways are much less paradoxical than 17 years ago. My comment could probably have left out many details and just said that most people are different and some can assimilate well, some not so well, and others not at all, but I just finished a cup of coffee, booted the computer, checked email and Bangkok Post, looked out the window at the green rice paddies and got carried away. Thai coffee is on the good list (for talking and writing).

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