Is farang an insulting word?

[Flashermac]

Gotta go with you on that, especially when Farang is usually paired with "man". Ever walked through a village where mothers point at you and teach their children to say Farang as you walk past? Used to be a lot more common in the past, when there weren't so many of us around.

 

p.s. One of the Brits at work got so p*ssed off at being referred to as an Archan Farang that he actually got the dept head to start refering to us as "non-Thai lecturers". Not really sure if that is much of an improvement.

[FAT_AUSSIE]

One day I was sitting on my front porchway upcountry and some kids rode up to my house on a BMX saying fuck you, free kick, my god. They could'nt say it properly although my wife clarified. They learnt from TV/VCD and that was pretty much all of the english they spoke so I told them God is my name, consequently many folk in our local area, young and old now refer to me as God.

 

I don't think they really know what the word god means but its nice to be known as god.

[cavanami]

When you arrive in the USA, there are two sections for immigration; USA citizens and Aliens.

 

Aren't we all humans?

 

Did a UFO arrive and this is the section where they process the UFO people (aliens)?

 

Some of the taxis have those signs, something about "farang friendly" or something.

Maybe "farang" is now being diluted and the negative meanings are going away?

 

I remember in the USA, if you called a black person (Afro-American) a "nigger" guns would be aimed at you. Now the Afro-Americans call each other nigger. Go figure!

 

I think the word is not so important as the context that it is used in and the respect (or lack of) that is displayed by the person using the word.

 

For me, jai yen yen and mai pen lai, are necessary in order to live in LOS.

 

IMO

[Guest lazyphil]

is mai pen lai same as mai pen rai ::

[Old Hippie]

Yes

[Guest lazyphil]

aha, like yeah is yes also.....

[limbo]

Yep Einstein

[Guest lazyphil]

.....and I still cannot find the meaning of ''LOS, on the 4171''..... ::

[limbo]

LOS, Land of Smiles and a road code, Sherlock.

[rickfarang]

Living in a small upcountry village about four or five years ago, before the place started filling up with farangs - and driving land prices up, by the way, I was often pointed out as the farang. When I'd take my afternoon walks, children would yell "Farang! Farang!" to their friends, who would run out to the side of the road and call "Hello! How are you?". Though I got tired of this "Hello! How are you?" every night, they were apparently encouraged by their parents to use this opportunity to cultivate their tiny English vocabularies. This use of the "F-word" is fine with me.

 

Once at a nearby town, in the open air market, a couple of women called "Farang! Farang!" and pointed to a large pudgy man wearing a T-shirt and shorts, with a 35 mm camera hanging around his neck (yes, the memory is that vivid). Here, as in many cases, they were using a appropriate term to call others' attention to a novel sight. They just didn't get many farangs in that market.

 

One night at one of those all-night Issan music and comedy shows, under the stars in front of a local elementary school, I was situated on a mat on the grass with my wife had her sisters, when a family of Thais came up behind us as if to unroll their mats. Then one of them said in a disgusted tone "Farang." and lead the family off to another area to sit down. That ruined the night for me, and made me grumpy the next day.

 

I have only noticed a small handful of times "Farang" was in front of me as an intended insult. Generally, its not meant to be any more insulting than saying something like "That guy with the red beard over there."

 

At the same time, when I see other people who look more like me than your average Issan person acting poorly, I know that his actions may some day come down on me as if I were the uncouth or unkind person from the past. Similarly, I realize that whenever I make an @ss of myself, it is likely to be reflected on some poor farang sometime in the future. Like it or not, people tend to stereotype.

 

Back to the original question - "Farang" only a word, and it can take on many shades of meaning, all depending upon the context and tone in which it is used. To paraphrase a line from the National Rifle Association, "Words don't hurt people. Only people hurt people."