Thai Style Profile: Farangs

Thais refer to non-Asian foreigners as "farangs." Originally, this was a mispronunciation of "foreigner" but now it's a legitimate word.

Bangkok is stuffed full of farangs. They're everywhere - riding the skytrain in rubber flip flops and khaki, drinking beer on the sidewalk with digital cameras looped around their necks, and, in general, looking kinda weird in sea of Asian faces. The majority of the Bangkok farangs fall into two categories: young neohippies or middle aged men.

The young neohippies carry LONELY PLANET beneath their arms and wear dingy earth tones and backpacker pijamas. Backpacker pijamas are an interesting phenomenon in and of themselves: baggy linen shants with a drawstring waste. These silly things are sold by the bucket on Khao San Road and other tourist meccas and are worn by all the twenty-something beer swillers in BKK. In all honesty, my sole gripe with the BPPJs is the simple fact that no Thai would be caught dead in these things and, therefore, they serve only to further alienate farangs from Thai society.

The middle aged male farang, however, rarely rocks the PJ style. Instead, his dominant fashion accessories are a fistfull of shopping bags and a young Thai woman hooked around his arm. Normally, the Thai woman doesn't seem to speak the farang's native language nor he hers. Additionally, she looks to be about half his age and twice as attractive. I'd like to give the farang the benefit of the doubt but, considering Thailand's reputation among international sex tourists, I fear the worst.