I have lived in Thailand for three years recently have noticed a curious point associated with the use of the word Farang. I know the origin and history of how the Thai’s came to start using it to describe a white skinned foreigner. I know the word is generally believed not to confer any disrespect or negative connotation, but I think there’s more to it than what most people consider. In my home country of America we have words to describe and classify groups of people with certain skins colors as well. Most of these words carry strong negative connotations and are only used by the most racist of groups. However, a use of any word that singles out a group based on skin color is generally considered to be, at the very least, impolite. This article will mean nothing to anyone who can’t think of the some reasons for why these words are impolite. In America these types of classifiers are commonly used by segments of the population who suffer from varying degrees of ignorance. I asked one of the Thai teachers at my school about why I never hear Farang used by my Thai students, the Thai teachers in a certain department or in other settings like, say a Thai investment forum advisor probably wouldn’t be constantly referring to the white foreigners in attendance as the Farangs. One would most always expect to hear whitey being referred to as a foreigner or a foreign teacher and not Ajarn Faran . She explained in the polite Thai way in what amounted to is “that it wasn’t appropriate in certain settings”. This sounded to me like she was talking about it being impolite and so I’m making a leap that the word carries a certain level of crudeness, like say “camel jockey”, or “spook”
. Not necessarily nazi rhetoric, but crude nonetheless. I didn’t follow up too far with her on this, as I only wanted her answer to my question on the “why not”, and not kick up any more dust than necessary. I’m a white male
from The States who isn’t in the least offended when I hear the word Farang, or similar words. I didn’t use such language in The States not because I’m some politically correct and super sensitive kind of guy, but because it was impolite and I knew that I would be perceived by most as an ignorant person Do the users (Thai and otherwise) of the word Farang know how they are perceived by some? Or is it similar to The States where they are too steeped in ignorance to know the difference?
To make a generalization of my own; I most often hear Farang in places like Pattaya, this includes foreigners who, have somehow no matter what length of time they have been in Thailand, have only managed to meet and interact with Thai’s who commonly use it with the same frequency as words like “tilac”, and can tell you spot rate for gold on any given day.