Is it hard to live in Thailand?

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<hr>Honestly I don't hear it used derogatory or even as a word that ads negativity<hr></blockquote>

Perhaps you haven't.

Or perhaps you've missed this point completely.... <blockquote>Quote
<hr>Putting aside your failure to mention the very common negative use of the term “Farang”, you miss the point that in terms of offense, it is the sense in which the person on the receiving end perceives the term that determines ‘offensiveness’. <hr></blockquote>

Possibly, but I'll just let other people reading this be the judge of that.

Over to you folks!

I just thought a litte more about the different experiences between Gorshar and myself. It still doesn't explain those people knowing your name, but perhaps for total strangers: a factor could be Chiang Mai: i always notice a difference between there and almost everywhere else in that in other places, Thais really don't expect a foreigner to speak/understand Thai. Even up to the point that you have to repeat yourself once or twice before they catch on that you're speaking Thai. In chiang mai there's relatively a lot of foreign residents who speak fairly passable Thai . So this expectation would perhaps reduce some of the 'talking about the Farang' thinking he doesn't understand. And then a second reason i experience differently could be that I'm virtually never in tourist environments where you'd get jadedness with tourists/foreigners. Anyway those are the only things i can think of. Maybe i'll bring this up as a topic on the cm branch on Thaivisa, see what other experience.

"second reason i experience differently could be that I'm virtually never in tourist environments where you'd get jadedness with tourists/foreigners"

Yes that could be a reason, but still in Bangkok I always come to non-tourist areas and still sometimes I encounter the Farang word.

Well, chan, we're planning to relocate to CM, so let's see what happens... Of course I'm always in a tourist environment, it's how I make my living.

Farang is always used instead of your name or a pronoun for 'that person'. Thais will use farang instead of saying 'the gentleman' or 'this person' or '[insert name]', which is rude, ignorant and possibly racist.

Its like referring to someone in the west as 'the Asian'. Such as a waiter in a restaurant says to another waiter "the asian sitting there would like another drink" as opposed to "the man/woman/customer/person/ etc sitting there would like another drink".

I hear this ALL THE TIME and maintain its rude, slightly insulting (although water off a duck's back for me), and displays lack of sophistication. I'm 50/50 on the racist angle.

But most Thais are very unsophisticated and immature in the eyes of most westerners, largely ignorant, nationalistic and often rude (without meaning to be possible at times). But that's old news...

"Your statement itself is racist. There are chinese/thais living in thailand as well as 100% thais that have chinese friends."

Yes I know, there are infact may chinese living in Thailand. I didn't mean that all thai people are racist, but from my own personal experience I know some thais who are very negative about especially the nationalities that I mentioned. And indeed that is something that makes me believe that somehow these people believe that being Thai automatically makes them better then their Cambodian neighbours.

There are two thai women that I know and respect, but that respect decliined on a trip to the zoo, where they constantly made negative remarks against Japanese people who happen to be visit that zoo as well. Not a very nice experience, and it does show the ignorance of these people.

Regarding the additude against chinese, they are viewed as money grubbing people by SOME thais.

Another angle to explore this is to see what words Thai use who ACTUALLY feel angered / upset with a Westerner. As it happened I overheard this yesterday evening, where a bar girl was having a go at her John-of-the-day who wasn't present. Like many do in such cases she referred to him as 'it' (man) which in itself is not uncommon in the sub-culture, along with some less than flattering remarks. Nowhere did the word 'Farang' feature in her tirade, surely if it was a negative then why not throw it in there?