Thailand – once called Siam – has become a much-visited tourist country. Today a vacation of several weeks costs hardly more for the European tourist, than a vacation in Spain, despite the long air passage. Easy satisfied travelers can get even along with still smaller budgets. Despite the many tourists visiting their country - above all Europeans, Japanese and Australians - until today the Thais have succeeded to keep their characteristics and habits, especially if one excludes some few tourist centers like Pattaya, Phuket and two or three night-club districts in Bangkok, where people are living  exclusively from tourism. Although annually more than some million western tourist are coming to Thailand, most Thais upcountry, where by far the largest part of the population lives, have for longtime seen these amusing long noses, with strange customs, and with an absolutely incomprehensible language, mostly on television. But in the last years, more and more Farang have followed a girl they have met in Pattaya ore Phuket, to her home village, deciding to build a house, and to live there in a quieter Environment as the tourist centers.

 

It is not at all so easy. but absolute necessary for the interested visitor, to free oneself from the hustle and bustle of the tourist centers, which from the time of the Viet Nam war are still very orientated to American taste, if he wants to discover something from the customs and habits of the genuine Thailand. These customs, which are also sometimes judged by  ignorant visitors as bad habits or even immoral, are what makes -  together with the wonderful nature, the dream beaches, and the tropical climate - the exotic attraction of this country. Who as a stranger - whether as a tourist, or as an expat living over a longer period in Thailand – does not understand or at least tries to understand, which art of survival are hiding behind this to us often incomprehensible actions and behaviors, will miss much from the charm of this beautiful country.

 

The Thais call each western foreigner Farang; it doesn't matter from which country he originates. And also the Thais will often consider the behavior of the Farang without understanding. Since however they are very tolerant people, they will usually take all Farang for "baba bobo", a little bit crazy. To this opinion contributes not at least the crazy behavior of the Farang, to complain of the terrible heat but to be able to be roasted for hours in the sun like lobsters, in the futile attempt to become a healthy complexion. Each Thai, which has his marbles together, will expose himself to the sun only if it can absolutely not be avoided, and will try to stay in the shade, if possible even in a horizontal position. One must thus forgive something to these amusing strange birds. In addition Thais are also considering all Farang as rich, since they can afford it to pay for such an expensive journey, and therefore believe, to be allowed to fleece them at every occasion. That will be done by the taxi driver, who wills double the normal price of transportation for the tourist, up to the official admission fees in temples, museums, and parks, where the tickets for Farang cost usually two to five times as much as for Thais.  Farang are considered generally by the Thais as reliable and honest, but also as loud, inexperienced and ignorant regarding Thai customs, characteristics and life circumstances. In television sketches, the Farang will often be shown as a dopey guy, proudly walking around his newly acquired Thai-Lady, as if she would be Miss World. The fact that the Farang fall again and again in love with these ladies-to- rent, makes them appear to be inexperienced fools in the eyes of the Thais.

 

Beside their money, there are however still some other things, which the Thais like about the Farang.  The girls admire above all the large noses and blond hairs of the Farang women, and would like to exchange their sweet little snub noses and beautiful long black hair if possible with them. Also their white skin is considered as beautiful, and the Thais cannot understand at all, why the Farang want desperately to get brown skin.  If one hears often, that the girls of Chiangmai are particularly beautiful (also in our travel guides this nonsense is written again and again), then because in the north of Thailand, where the sun burns less strongly, people from nature have a brighter skin color; and Thais find that beautiful. When passing near a building site, one has often the impression, to see an anti-terror unit at work.  Most workers, but above all the women, who usually constitute more than half of the site crew, are disguising themselves despite the existing heat in such a way, that only the eyes look out, in order to protect their already brown faces from becoming still more dark by the burning sun. It would be surely no bad business idea, according to the tanning salon rampantly everywhere in western countries to establish similar establishments in Bangkok, where Thais would to be able to get a white skin. There surely would be no lack of customers, if someone found a suitable technical solution for this procedure.

 

In the last year, more than 10 million visitors came to Thailand, driven by different motives and with just as different conceptions of what they want to experience. These visitors can be classified in three, not clearly defined and partially overlapping, but nevertheless in certain sense characteristic groups.  They come in contact with different parts of the population and will for this reason, but also because of their different occurrence and appearance, have different experiences.

 

The „all-in-price“tourists

These are usually people of certain age, very often also married couples, coming frequently for the first time to Thailand.  A part of this group comes also as sextourists, wanting to experience far from their homeland somewhat of the fabulous exotic sex of the Thai women. These tourists are staying usually in better class hotels, and are concentrated in the few typical tourism centers. Perhaps they will also participate in an organized round trip, which leads usually from Bangkok towards the north to Chiangmai and the Golden Triangle or to the south to Phuket or Koh Samui. Because of the language barrier, they will come almost exclusively into contact with Thais, living from the tourists, such as employees in hotels and restaurants, travel guides and taxi drivers. This group also includes the folks in native villages, visited on such round trips, but also the many girls in beer-bars, earning their living and that of their families by entertaining love -hungry Farang.  It is nevertheless amazing, that despite some negative things they have experienced, caused by the contact between so different civilization backgrounds, standards of living, and often doubtful environmental conditions, nearly all tourists are thrilled by Thailand, and at the next opportunity will travel there again

 

The travelers

This group of tourists, known also as “backpackers”, are usually younger people, wanting to become acquainted with far world countries, frequently students and often together on their trip with their girl-friends. Thailand is usually only one station on their route to several Asiatic countries. Travelers are usually on their way for several months, and must - on account of their young age and their income situations – try to get along with a small travel budget.  They are staying in small, inexpensive hotels or guesthouses, eat in the cheap Noodle shops on the streets, travel around the country with the local means of transport, and try to become acquainted with as much as possible with the native population. Becoming acquainted with the people is however made difficult by the language barrier. But the young people usually strive to learn a few nuggets of the national language, and have success, because nothing facilitates the contact with the Thais so much, as if one tries to speak a few words of their language. Negatively for the reputation of this group is however, that it belongs to their understanding of freedom, to run around as ragged as possible. For this appearance Thais have little understanding, because to clothe oneself as tidy as possible belongs here in Asia to what is generally designated with the term "face".  Certainly, also in Thailand many people run around in ragged clothes, particularly in the slums in Bangkok, and in the poorer provinces upcountry  This is however a bitter necessity, because they are too poor to buy decent clothes.  If however “rich” Farang" are running around like hoodlums, then they lose their face, and may not be surprised, if they are treated by the natives according to their self-display.  Also the Thais, living from tourism, do not particularly like the travelers, since they try to get around with as little money as possible, contrary to the „all-in-price“ tourists, who want to indulge themselves in their three weeks vacation with everything this country has to offer, and when spending money are not so tight-fisted

 

The Sextourists

These are people, who in many publications and from groups of women with morally raised index finger, are denounced as fornicators, because for their hardly acquired money they want to grant themselves something, that also belongs to the basic needs of a man. Prostitution is everywhere in the World a thriving industry, and by shortly published statistics, more than 500.000 women and girls are working in Germany in this trade. In principle it may be not more despicable, to spend someone’s money in a country, where it is surely more urgently needed, than in the red-light districts of Frankfurt or Hamburg.  A sign of complete ignorance of the country and its customs however, are the reproaches from self-appointed virtue guardians or protectors of the third world, that the so-called sextourism would demoralize the still natural ways of life in this country. Prostitution was in no way imported to Thailand by the tourists and also not by the American GIs in the Viet Nam war.  The Thai man is - as it is more or less the custom in all Asiatic countries - since all times used to satisfy his sexual needs to a large extent outside of his own house. While by western standard it is morally quite correct to get bodily pleasures by good eating and drinking (also of plenty of alcohol), the Thai moral concept includes also sex-amusement.

 

Even though the promotion of prostitution, e.g. the offering and brokering of sexual services in bars, brothels and massage-parlors is legally forbidden in Thailand, in each small city in the country, never visited by a so-called sextourists, there exist several brothels or massage-parlors. Even in the small villages up-country, one will find brothels, which are eagerly frequented by the local manhood. Since Thailand has never been a western colony, western moral values have never found their entrance into Thai standards. Only in the last decades, western customs - and here above all the negative ones - are transferred by television and tourist to Thailand, and naturally particularly to Bangkok, where they frequently are exaggerated. 

 

If the Thais can complain over something, then certainly not over the fact, that the sextourists are bankrupting the moral of the female population, but only over the fact,  that  they are inflating the prices in this business with their Euro or Dollar. The so-called sextourists comes only in contact with girls and women, earning their lives in the bars of the few tourism centers.  Here they will often meet very pretty young girls, usually coming from the poorhouse of Thailand, the Isaan. However anybody, who does not judge this enterprise with the prejudiced eyes of a moralists or feminists will realize, that if someone is exploited here at all, these are the Farang-men and not the Thai-girls.

 

One must remark in addition, that the government and other authorities are always underlining, that sextourists, coming to Thailand to satisfy only their lowly instincts, and to soil the honor of the Thai women, are unwanted. Actually however, the sextourism is producing a substantial portion of the revenues from the tourist sector. Blithely ignoring the problem, the government is profiting by tax revenues and the local authorities by the bribes which will be paid to them, for tolerating the forbidden sexbusiness

 

It is a fact – even mostly denied by Farang living with a Thai-wife – that there is hardly any other possibility for a Farang to come into closer contact with a Thai-woman, than at a bar. It would be usually impossible for a Farang, to accost a pretty Thai-girl on the road, asking her to come with him. The close, or also intimate contact with a girl working in a bar, can however give more insight into the way of thinking of the Thais, than the contact with the hotel personnel, adjusted to the peculiarities of the tourists. In many cases a lasting love-affair or a marriage will develop from such often deprecatingly judged contacts.