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Thailand and the expatriate experience

By Murray Hunter - posted Wednesday, 16 March 2016


Many foreigners run bars through proxy owners without the right visas. These establishmentsare sometimes a front for other activities, which are crimes on the books of Thai Law. These ventures have not followed Thai investment laws, and are flaunting the system in Thailand.

This is particularly rampant within tourist precincts. My informant told me that occasionally directives are given to crackdown of particular types of activities from time to time. My informant when on to say that "It's our job to carry out these directives ….and it's the job of the top to allocate our scarce crime fighting resources. We have many areas to focus upon, and when we stop focusing on one specific area, the police are accused of being inconsistent and corrupt".

There is a massive screening problem on long term visa applications. Although police reports may be required when foreigners apply for visas at embassies within their home countries, those that apply for them within Thailand, are rarely required to provide police checks. This loophole within the visa system allows many foreigners to reside in Thailand without any proper screening of previous criminal activities.

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Another issue cited by my informant is that many farang are living hand to mouth in Thailand. This includes many on retirement visas. As a consequence many are unable and/or unwilling to seek regular medical check-ups and attention. Not all have medical or even accident insurance, and risk large medical bills if they are unfortunate enough to have an accident or get sick. There are no provisions in retirement visa arrangements for 'retirees' to have access to medical facilities locals have access to, at the nominal rates Thais pay.

When we touched upon visa issues, my informant became somewhat emotional and concerned. My informant said "while many have followed the correct procedures and acquired the correct visas for long stay residency, there are also many who are dodging this to stay in Thailand, by abusing the system". Tourist visas and visa exceptions it was explained are not intended for long staying foreigners within the Kingdom. Those who have the correct visas will not have any difficulty staying in Thailand. My informant saw those who abused the visa system as those who showed no "respect for the legal system of Thailand".

This point led onto another gripe which brought out more emotion.

"Thai culture is very accommodating. However the things many farang do here can be considered ignorant and even rude". My informant gave the example of loud music often played by neighbours during the day or night. This generally presents little or no problem for a Thai, but some farang make complaints about these issues which are culturally acceptable to us. My informant said that many farangs expect the same cultural standards here in Thailand as they have within their home countries. This sometimes makes things very dangerous such as on the road, where farang drivers, 'dangerously' impose their own standards on Thai roads. This makes them the dangerous ones, when they don't follow the general traffic flows here.

Many farang never make any attempt to learn the Thai language, come and live in Thailand, building barriers of 'us and them'. The onus is on farang settling here is integrating and assimilating, at least to some extent in Thailand. This is expected of Thais living in their countries.

Many farangs are condescending towards locals, often seeing them as a bunch of ignorant and lazy parasites. At the same time they expect Thais to love them. Farangs often have a superiority complex seeing Thais falter according to their set European standards. Thus they complain when things are not on the same par as their country.

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Thais don't necessarily hate farangs. However in the more remote areas of the country not subject to the tourist trails, locals still believe in the media portrayal of farangs as wealthy people, hence the term 'walking ATM'. Consequently, there will always be a small proportion of people who will seek to take advantage. It's only when farangs move to and settle in an area that locals can see them close up, they make their own judgements upon observed behaviour. So in some parts of Issan, there is distain for farang drunks who behave badly.

From the Thai point of view farang have brought out new social problems to the country.

Many marriages are unstable because of farang husbands trying to control their wives, who have generally been independent people before their marriages. Thai women generally run the household and are enterprising, although some will abuse their freedom, which causes conflict.

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About the Author

Murray Hunter is an associate professor at the University Malaysia Perlis. He blogs at Murray Hunter.

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