Falang network

[AF16]

I have seen some posts where someone wonders why Thais abroad do not speak to each other when meeting out.

 

Yesterday I was in Surin and were eating outside of an 7 11. A man came along on a bike with his wife and we kind of look at each other, and there is perhaps a hint of a now before gazes turn away. When he comes out again he gets on his bike, takes on his gold helmet (anyone recognize them self ? ) and sit's with his back to me.

 

Would you say that farangs meeting out in the back of nowhere should talk just becaus we happen to come from another country hand have some comon history?

 

Up in Korat I was to talk to an American living there, but before he made it to our house we had driven to Si Sa Ket, so the last I heard was that his wife were picked up by the police for playing game. (anyone recognize them self ? )

[khunsanuk]

Hi,

 

"Would you say that farangs meeting out in the back of nowhere should talk just becaus we happen to come from another country hand have some comon history?"

 

Uh... no.

 

Sanuk!

 

[Bkkbound04]

I would'nt engage in inconversation with strangers in BKK or out in the provinces just in passing any more than I would do in the UK, but in the right social context, a bar,social event, even standing in a the queue at the bank/post office,its often a natural spontaneous interaction.

I'm very suspicious of people, especially farangs(and thai males) who strike up conversations with me in unusual circumstances and especially when they offer to help me out in some way.

I often eat alone in foodland at IT Square Laksi and on a number of occaisons been approached by farangs, usually young, hard up types needing either their meal paid for or trying to interest me in parting with money for some dubious investment or other.

 

JP

[Faustian]

Aren't we a friendly unsuspicious lot eh? Jeez...

[carew66]

I know exactly what you mean!

 

In Tesco Lotus here (the only one for miles around) I see strange falangs all the time. Then we play the game of pretending we haven't seen each other. Odd.

[Flashermac]

When I lived upcountry, there was one modern hotel in town. I liked to go to the coffee shop because it was about the only place in town with a/c. One evening a tour group of Italians (from their language) arrived. One of the waiters said to me, "Aren't you going to talk to your friends?" Apparently, all Farangs are expected to know each other -- since we must come from a small country known as Faranglandia or something.

 

 

[Orangutan]

AF16,

 

I agree with Sanuk, actually a quite common occurrence by my observations, and actions. I may give a nod, or say hello. Maybe you don't want to have a conversation...nothing personal just minding your own business.

 

-O

 

[Bangkoktraveler]

In the States, my wife doesn't talk to Thais any more. Too many times she tried talking to Thais only to find out they are Mexican.

[carew66]

Too many times she tried talking to Thais only to find out they are Mexican.

 

LOL! Nice one.

 

[Fiery Jack]

Ha! This is a hot topic in Japan â?? whether or not to offer salutation to a complete stranger by mere virtue of the fact that you are both visibly non-Japanese. Two directly opposed schools of thought:

 

1. I wouldn't greet complete strangers at home, so why the f*ck should I do it here? Get out of MY Japan! Get out of my face, asshole.

 

2. As "foreigners", we share a bond of "otherness" here and (tend to) live socially isolated existences, so why not mutually acknowledge that unifying tie of shared experience? Hey, wassup, bro'? How you doing there, partner?

 

Here's a story.

 

SANDALS MAN

 

I lived in a rural Japanese town for a while. There were about two dozen non-Japs there, and I knew them all, knew their names. Only one of them would I not have called a "mate": white sickly-looking American bloke, used to ride a rusty old pushbike about wearing Japanese peasant threads and straw sandals whatever the season, John Lennon specs, and a bandana thing round his shaved baldy head. Hugely tall beanpole of a geezer. He was a clay potter, apparently, making traditionally inspired Jap yakimono earthenware. Me and my gaijin workpals called him "Kwai Chang Cain" after the stalwart drifter and righter-of-wrongs cat that Dave Carradine played to great effect in Kung Fu. Word on the streets and in the town's one gaijin bar (which he never frequented himself) was that a) Kwai Chang was a c*nt and the rude stuck-up bastard thought that he was Japanese. His outward appearance and demeanor did little to contradict these growing rumours.

 

I passed him most mornings as I was walking to work. I always threw him a cheery smile â?? at first, because that's what I usually do when I encounter another "gaijin" in Japan and when not to offer salutation would be churlish or rude, then latterly because my friendliness clearly pissed the jackass off â?? which he would pointedly ignore or more usually steadfastly encounter with a stern grimace should his gaze be forced to meet mine (it was a narrow thoroughfare upon which our paths would, almost daily, cross).

 

One time, at a weekend, I was at a bus stop, around which another two or three Jap thrillseekers were milling, in a part of the city with which I was unfamiliar, anxiously studying the gobbledygook timetable posted there in an attempt to deduce which bus would be best to ride to my intended destination. My body language was, I am sure, openly rendering me as clearly "gaijin who doesn't know what the f*ck he's doing" and "open to offers of assistance". I looked up and â?? lo and behold â?? unfriendly Kwai Chang Sandals man was standing in his rice-paddy planting duds a metre away. Our round eyes met. I shook my head at the timetable and raised my eyebrows in a gesture of ex-pat helplessness. Just as I opened my Englishman's mouth to inquire of this fellow caucasian, "I say, old scout, do you happen to know which omnibus travels to...", he very pointedly turned his back on me and paced slowly right to the other end of the queue, where he stood studiously ignoring me and gazing into the middle distance as if something new and of note was happening there.

 

A bus finally puttered along and, after confirming its route with the goodly driver in Japanese, I rode it. Sandals man got on the same bus and sat in the farthest vacant seat away from me that he could find. I took great satisfaction in the fact that, when he rose before me to alight at his favoured stop, his money got stuck in the slot somehow at the pay point and all hell broke loose. The driver was trying to inform him in politest Nihongo that the change machine didn't accept new 500 yen coins because crafty Korean criminals had taken to nefariously inserting ten wong bits in the mechanical device of late in an attempt to defraud the bus company. Sandals man replied in very poor, broken, all-over-the-shop baby Japanese, made quite a tit of himself for 2 or 3 buttock-clenching minutes in fact, while the goodly natives trying to get off the bus grumbled and fussed loudly behind him, and I fared to my destination gaily and somewhat lighter of heart.

 

Such people as Kwai Chang Sandals are twats. Best leave them and their more-japanese-than-the-japs attitude be. The only good thing is that the Japs think such clowns are "hen na gaijin" (weird freaky foreigner) assholes too so, in their arrogant posturing and ungracious insociability, they knowingly consign themselves to loneliness as well as ridicule in a country already lavish in the loneliness and ridicule it bestows on those from "outside".

 

In short, I'm in the second school of thought. How you doing, partner? Because we're f*cking lonely here in Japan. I don't know what it's like in non-main cities in Thaialand, but, here, we have a lot of stress. A friendly nod from someone who is clearly also an "outsider" in this plight is something to treasure and brighten the day. It's as simple as that. It's a human and humane thing. Just something to lighten the load.

 

Yes, I always smile and nod, even say "Hi!" (especially if it's a tasty bird :hubba: ). Why not? The only valid argument I can see against doing so is that, if one has offered such an unsolicited friendly token of valediction to a stranger of similar non-Asian hue but a similar response is unforthcoming, then one might conceivably feel like a prat.

 

But I don't feel like a prat at all if the other person stonewall blanks me. I just think, "F*ck you, you stupid arrogant anti-social c*nt." In fact, if pointedly ignored by the gaijin individual I have just generously saluted )a la Kwai Chang Sandals), I often say, "F*ck you, you stupid arrogant anti-social c*nt!" out aloud while he or she remains in earshot. It's quite hilarious the extent to which stuck-up twats will go to pretend they haven't seen you. White females in Japan â?? notoriously those lardy-arsed heffers suffering from the I-look-like-Nicole-Kidman-because Japs-say-so syndrome â?? are particularly prone to the I-don't-say-hello-to-strangers-because-I'm-very-special-and-famous bug. F*ck them.

 

I've been in Japan a long time: too long perhaps. I went through a period of thinking I was Charlie Potatoes, the only white man in Japan, too good to acknowledge other fellow non-Jap questers on the street. But I've grown up a bit, grown gentler. There are some nice people about. I've met some ace punters just by saying a casual hello in a bookstore or HMV records or on the street. I ended up banging a bird from New Zealand for about 6 months after I responded in kind to an imromptu "Hi!" from her on a street in Osaka one afternoon. We're still in contact, and she's one of the nicest people I've ever met. If I'd been a smartypants c*nt and walked past her in silence I'd have missed out on a lot of good stuff.

 

Of course, in areas such as Roppongi, Tokyo, one doesn't bother acknowledging every single "western" face that passes by. It would be a full time task. But in rural areas, why the f*ck not? When you're sailing down the high street and another foreign c*nt is coming towards you, surely a wee nod and a momentarily flashed smile don't go amiss.

 

Yeah, we all run a country mile from jackasses who approach us when we're cornered and want a f*cking "chat". There's plenty of Jehovahs Rovers or f*cking Morons clogging up the shopping arcades and street corners if you're into that shit. But mutual acknowledgement of presence as you cross routes on the footpath is neither painful nor compromising, and takes no time as you're on the move anyway. I recommend it. You can end up in bed with a Kiwi bird who looks like a young Babs Streisland, could suck a sausage through a keyhole, and jumps about like a kangaroo with its arse on fire when she's having an orgasm. I had trouble staying on.

 

Just my 2 yens worth. Sorry for clogging the airwaves. I'm genuinely very interested to know how it is in Thailand, outside the bigger cities.

 

jack