You would be shocked at what some farangs try to find on the internet and many of the farangs who end up here only do so after they have been unable to find the sick and twisted perversion they were searching for and instead just end up finding a page about themselves. For example, some people are searching for

“do fat farangs pay more”

Which I can only assume is a reference to the dirty areas in Pattaya and the farangs that frequent the bars there. I guess in this case this particular farang is a little tubby and was concerned that he might have to pay over the expected rate for half an hour (ok.. probably just 5 minutes) with a poor farm girl. I feel for him, really I do. I wonder if he found his answer? Will he be packing extra dollar bills into his suitcase than he expected?

Or how about this delightful phrase:

“two farangs one thai girl”

Well I bet they had a shock when they actually found this website which is more like “25 farangs and one Thai girl”. Very little obscenity though, many apologies to whichever one of you that was. I’m afraid I have no advice on where to find whatever you were actually looking for.

Now whenever I walk past an internet cafe and see a farang inside, I have a slightly different idea as to what he is up to.

When I go to work in the morning I have to frequently wait for the bus for anything between 20 to 40 minutes and I wait on a street which is a very different street at night times than it is at day times. Every morning I meet the same faces in my fellow Thais. There’s a lovely lady who sells flowers to the taxi drivers and old people, the security guys who try to help with the flow of traffic and the same people who take the same bus route as me to work every day.

Then there’s some less enjoyable faces, not always the same, but always farang. These are the types who are instead of just getting up to get on with their work, haven’t yet slept and are on the way home. They try to hide this fact from the throng of people waiting for the morning bus, but it’s obvious to all of us that they are drunk, haven’t washed and probably just paid some girl for her “company”.

This morning there was one fat, balding, ugly farang staggering along the road talking to himself. This wasn’t some travelling hippie type of farang, this was a smartly dressed (but his clothes were crumpled presumably from a night of constant groping of underage girls) but drunk farang. Despite the morning brightness and sun he seemed to not understand he was no longer in a night club or strip bar and was ogling many of the office women waiting for their bus. I could see it made many people uncomfortable. He was talking to himself in English but even though I speak English I did not understand what he was trying to talk about.

The thing which really struck me was how relatively unsurprised most of the people standing around witnessing this farang baffoon were. Yes I’m sure everyone was embarassed, but nobody standing there was seeing this kind of farang behaviour for the first time. If I went to America or Europe I would be ashamed to stagger around past working people early in the morning drunk out of my mind talking to myself. I took a picture on my phone and I’m so tempted to put it on my web site so his family might one day see what he is really up to on his “business meeting in Thailand”.

Then not ten minutes later another farang with a moustache got out of a taxi along the same stretch of street and you could smell the whiskey on his clothes from half a mile away I am sure. And from the other side of the taxi a girl, also drunk, got out and tried to help him stagger onto the pavement and down to the nearby shop. I couldn’t help wondering how much she was hoping to be paid, I bet it’s more than I will earn today.

One of the concepts that we Thai people value is called “greng jai” or “kreng jai”. This concept can be easily explained by an example in my office.

My boss (who is a farang and makes me work overtime for no extra salary and now makes me work on Saturdays) tries very hard to make our office more like a western office in terms of how the staff and their superiors interact with each other. He really wants us to talk to him or our superior if we have a problem or have an idea/suggestion about how to improve the way we work. He has been getting quite annoyed because of what he sees as a lack of interest from the Thai staff in making these kinds of comments and suggestions. But the truth is we are interested but it’s really against out nature to speak up and make these kind of comments. This is not because we feel like our ideas are not good or anything silly like that. This is because we feel grateful to our superiors and our boss for (a) giving us the job and (b) the help and teaching and guidance etc that they give to us as our superiors. In turn, with the staff who work below me, I also teach and guide and help. This is how everyone can improve. If I start to criticise, even in a nice way, the system or process that my superior put in place, how can this possibly not be impolite? Criticism is never nice.

But my boss gets frustrated about this and sometimes rants about how farang workers are better than Thai workers. Actually this is not true, because if farang workers always criticise, even in a nice way, then how can they be concentrating on doing their best job? Their superiors are there usually because of a system of meritocracy (although I sometimes wonder with my Boss) and only when I know everything my boss knows can I legitimately make a suggestion for improvement on his way of working. Thai workers get blamed of playing a political game by not contructively criticising things (“She just wants to protect her job and be everyone’s friend) but actually a Farang worker who makes all sorts of suggestions is doing the political game herself! She is hoping to be noticed or have a great idea which unfairly promotes her before her skills actually match the position she is interested in.

I’m just fed up of hearing that farang work ethics are better, more developed, more advanced, more modern etc than Thai work ethics. Yes they’re different but clearly the Thai harmony in an all Thai office is more condusive to work and therefore, much better. Why do farang countries make more money? That’s a historical question and nothing to do with work ethic!

This way of thinking goes right through everything beyond the workplace. Farangs think they are better and don’t hesitate to tell a Thai person how a particular thing in our country is better someplace else. But did the farangs ever consider that they might not be helping, trying to force their farang ways onto Thai people? Farangs think they are so good at everything, but compared to what? Maybe if Thai people could work in a Thai way then you could actually create some synergy rather than the constant conflict (at least there’s constant conflict in my office) and everyone could make more money. My boss seems to think he can personally alter centuries of national character traits. The arrogance is amazing. My boss doesnt even make much money, I’ve seen his car and house.