This is fascinating. I assumed the same, because most people involved in tech are white, and our brains are very good at generalizing and following patterns. In fact, I assumed you are white, male, 25-35, employed in tech.

Until I read the part about BKK police giving you physical abuse, then I figured you might be non-white because countries outside US are far more racist, generally speaking, than the US. The less developed a country is, the more openly racist it gets (the rich ones can also be racist but do so more covertly). And generally speaking racism against whites is not very common, because (generally) whites bring money and are (generally) considered a positive thing to have around. There are exceptions like maybe American troops in Okinawa but we’re talking about generalizations here.

I now think you are Asian, because that’s the second large demographic in tech. My other assumptions still apply.

Apologies for the unsolicited reply here, I just wanted to make N>1 as far as preconceptions go.

No worries, mate. It's always good to take a step back and challenge our assumptions about the person on the other side of the monitor. When you are the majority in a given situation, it's easy to have that mentally become the "default".

I'm actually a multi-generational mixed person. Both my parents and all four of my grandparents are "multi-racial" -- based on the current definitions of race. But that's a whole different conversation. Don't want to give out any more details than that for privacy reasons.

because the whole context was around a farang tax that you clarified was for white people, not just any foreigners - I see now that you never said you had to pay that tax, but this isn't some "hidden racism" twitter keeps going on about. I would've never put any thought to what you looked like if the whole context wasn't made about something exclusive to white people.

I'm curious, when people misunderstand some context on the internet that has to do with race - do you often find yourself thinking it has racist undertones?

Here is my point. OP said "farang tax". Farang == white foreigner. This is the Thai language and not something I'm making up. So OP is essentially saying a "white foreigner tax". I wanted to make it clear that it's better to call it a "foreigner tax" in order to be more inclusive (and correct) -- because that's how the "tax" is applied.

I don't see how this is confusing. Also, I never clarified any tax as being for white people. The only thing I clarified was that the word "farang" is typically used excluisively for white foreigners.

I have no comment on the absurdity of your last sentence, btw.

> I have no comment on the absurdity of your last sentence, btw.

The only absurdity here is that instead of attempting to interpret my questions hospitably, you immediately went on the defensive and then refused again to address my question with a lovely touch of asking me to ponder deeply why I would mistakenly think you were white. I'm not sure what fantasy land you live in, but the people I talk too aren't just sitting at their keyboards hoping everyone on the other end is white.

It's pretty gross that I replied with the most sincere curiosity and ended up with some not-so-veiled racism implications.

Hi Toolz,

I was also confused. The first paragraph requires clarification.

Specifically what you mentioned: the farang tax mostly applying to white foreigners followed by an anecdote of an incident of the farang tax in action. It biased me to believe the commenter was indeed, white.

The weird reply back when you asked for clarification was obviously immature and absurd. The second Expat chiming in was not helpful either - as if that person’s understanding is some global expert consensus on the comment and you’re a bizarre 5 sigma deviation.

Maybe they’re expats for good reason - they can’t communicate effectively on even the simplest of little things (with peer commenters). So what do they screw up?

You clearly missed my point. I was saying that OP should not call it "farang tax" and that they should call it "foreigner tax". The reason is that "farang" means "white foreigner". However, the tax is applied to all foreigners, not just white people.

I can only assume the confusion arose from the person in question either:

1. not being a native English speaker

2. assuming I was white

Hope that clears things up. I really don't know how I can make this any clearer aside from the lot of us hoping on a plane to BKK and you experience the place yourselves.

Yeah, sometimes it's best to just ignore people at the first sign of hostility. If I had done that here I could've avoided being called a racist, which would've been nice. Oh well, it's hard to tell when the person on the other end is going to engage in good faith or not.

Never called you a racist. Not even sure where you are getting that from either. You simply misunderstood what I said -- based on your own preconceived notions.

When I tried to explain (several times), instead of taking a step back and trying to understand -- you doubled down on your own misunderstanding and accused me of seeing racist undertones everywhere.

Again, I can only assume English isn't your native language, hence the confusion.

Being white farang and having lived in Thailand for 6 years now I immediately got what he was saying.

Maybe you should consider you might not have the full context of the conversation instead of launching into a rant.

The farang only for white people is something that just comes up here sometimes. At one point we tried to get the Thai colleagues to call black expats "farang dam". Didn't catch on haha.

Foreigner tax is the correct way to call it because pricing in national parks is tied to citizenship not race

I'm also scratching my head as to what was confusing about what I said. Boggles the mind. I can only assume English isn't their native language.

So you lived there for 6 years and didn’t require clarification? Are you impressed by your own comprehension?

I am not.