Thank you to share so directly! Can you share some specific experiences?

In other words: your skin color.

No, your manners. Plus little details like a nice watch, clean shirt, how you arrive, perfume, hair style, etc.

It's basically the same as if you go to a trade show in the US. All the salespeople are trying to figure out which visitors are CEOs and, hence, worth their time, and which ones are just curious amateurs.

Maybe Google "Thuan Pham" - the Vietnamese Uber ex-CTO. He's doing it so well that even for us westerners it's easy to see that he's in a position of power. He isn't going to be charged tourist pricing due to his skin color (which is normal for Vietnamese). He's going to be charged tourist pricing because of his behavior which indicates that he's mind-boggingly rich and powerful.

He doesn’t seem particularly mind bogglingly rich to me? Maybe his behavior?

I thought he got $80 mio in Uber shares some years ago. In Ho Chi Minh City - the capital of his home country - you can buy a good freshly cooked lunch like Com Suon Op La (steak with egg, rice and fresh vegetables) for $0.50

So for everyday living, $80mio in Vietnam is going to feel like $8bio in the US (because steak in a restaurant is $50 instead of $0.5 for a 100x multiplier in living costs).

Parent was saying that if you saw this guy on the street, you wouldn't think he's a deca-millionaire just by the looks, which is what you implied. In most pictures he projects a middle manager look.

Vendors in Bangladesh, where I grew up and where my family is from and where I look like I was born, try to rip me off the second they get the slightest inkling I'm American.

Very little to do with skin color, it's just most often the biggest giveaway that the buyer is a foreigner.

No... please don't put words in my mouth. Social class is somewhat related to color in SEA, but not to that extent.

Social class is very related to skin color, at least in Bali. Balinese cover themselves up extensively to avoid getting any darker, cosmetic products are specifically advertised as having bleaching properties to make you whiter, etc – all because historically darker skin was associated with the lower/lowest caste (peasants) and lighter with the upper.

Most cultures in East/South/Southeast Asia have a similar reaction to skin colour for the dominant local ethnicity. For example, when in Tamil Nadu, (sadly) local people with darker skin are considered lower class. (Positive note: This is less and less true when you talk to young, highly-educated Indians!) As a counterpoint, of course, this would not matter if a group of wealthy South Indian-descent Malaysians walked into a business/shop/restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (For less knowledgeable readers: South Indian-descent Malaysians are a comparative minority in Malaysia -- Wiki says only 6.6%!)

This is strictly personal, but where I grew up with mostly light skinned people... showing up after winter holidays with a dark tan made you look so hot and so rich! Did anyone else feel the same? It carries into my life as an adult. :)

Holy crap yes! There are loads of very wealthy, dark skin South Indians in Malaysia! I can tell when they roll-up in a fancy car, good clothes, and private school accents!

That's a factor, but given the kaleidoscope of ethnicity in most of SE Asia, it's nowhere near that straightforward. People can and do pick up on social class based on dress, the way you speak, the way you address others etc, just as they do in the US.

Nah, that's mostly a western preoccupation.

As someone who lives in Bali: you are very wrong.

If you mean them hating expats and entitled nomads, everybody does. That's not racism.

Definitely not what I'm talking about.