Thailand: Farang Pricing

In Thai, the word farang is something equivalent to the word gaijin in Japanese. Gaijin literally means "person from outside" while farang I believe originally was meant to refer to the French. In any case, both words, despite their literal meaning, are generally used to refer to Westerners...more specifically, caucasian Westerners, preferably with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Here in Krabi, I am finding that if I don't walk around carrying my camera or backpack and keep my mouth shut, I can 'pass' to some degree (people are darker here, there is a lot of mixing with ethnic Malays here and I guess folks in general are used to mixed folks comprising part of their population). People will speak to me in Thai and be puzzled for a few moments when they don't get a response from me...until of course, I open my mouth and say, "Beg pardon?"

Why try to pass? Well, here in tourist-flooded Krabi, the dual pricing system Ed and I ran into back at Lumpinee seems to be in full effect pretty much everywhere one goes...from internet cafes to restaurants to you name it. The assumption here is that if you are farang, you are loaded, and most people seem to see it as only natural that they charge us Westerners more.

Running into this initially caused me a great deal of irritation. This was before traveling to Ko Phi Phi. It seemed like everyone was out to gouge us for as much as they could...and indeed, many were. But on Ko Phi Phi, things were different.

In most of Thailand, I am of the understanding that good-natured bargaining is the norm, but Phi Phi was no place for bargaining. The prices were obviously inflated, but there was a reason for it that was understood by all - no guile was at work: People were struggling with what little they had to pick-up the pieces and get back on their feet. What kind of a person tries to haggle for a discount with someone who is operating a makeshift stall out of a gutted building? I noticed the locals charging lower prices to other locals and in restaurants providing larger portions to their fellow citizens, but realized that was just people looking out for their own. I also noticed that when people recognized me as a volunteer there to help out with the clean-up, they did what they could to extend that generosity to me as well, even though most probably had very little to share. This generosity, even in the wake of such tremendous loss, humbled me and helped to give me a much needed reality check.

Well, now that I'm back on the mainland here in the town of Krabi, dual pricing doesn't seem so nearly as benign...Yet, what helped to give me an additional reality check the other day was when I read the newspaper and saw that recently, there has been a movement to have the minimum wage raised to 255 baht a day from the current 175 baht a day. I had thought that I had been "roughing it" by trying to keep my daily budget somewhere between 300 and 500 baht a day (one US Dollar is worth approximately 40 baht).

So I get charged double...or triple...or sometimes quadruple what Thai are getting charged. But in most cases, that doesn't even amount to more than a few US cents, money that will be fairly insignificant to me once I return stateside. Small-scale and informal wealth redistribution at work, ladies and gentleman.

Still, it can be a bit grating to have someone next to me pay 30 baht for three hours of gaming on the internet while I am charged 120 baht for the same amount of time uploading photos and writing these blog entries - I mean, I could buy two plates of chicken rice with that difference.

But I guess at least I have the option of just keeping my mouth shut when I make my purchases, eh?