Recently I read a letter in The Nation trying to explain why Thai people would look up to foreigners (because when they first met their King, they stood upright). The arguments in this letter were quite amusing. For someone who has spent a couple of years in Thailand in the past two decades it is obvious that Thais are driven by an underlying racism that is not common in Western nations anymore, and if it exists, it is more conscious there.
How long ago did Americans proclaim that "all men are created equal", and how often do we see a sign at a sightseeing spot which asks double the entry fee from foreigners than from Thais (and it doesn't matter if the Thai arrive in a big Mercedes and the foreigner on his bicycle). The excuses that are found to pay Khmer construction workers less than the minimum wage are another example. As a foreigner you can expect to be cheated on a daily basis; in Pattaya it has gotten worse again with the in-streaming Russians in the past years, as they do not know well enough what locals pay.
The majority of Thais will just use any chance to get more money out of foreigners than someone who'd look up to them would dare to do. And this is not a problem of poor people or a lower social class. Indeed when the requirements for a one year visa for pensioners (50 years and up) were changed, they were and still are required to have Bt65,000 per month coming in from home, opposed to the Bt9,000 that a Thai makes minimum when working every day.
In other words, foreigners are mainly seen as cash cows from the top of Thai society, too, which is responsible for those regulations. Those who do visa runs every three months on the basis of re-entry visas are totally stunned by the incapability of Thai immigration to handle foreigners within their country instead of sending them to the border for a stamp that could be done near their residence, and with much more control of their whereabouts. This hassle is another argument for a systematic maltreatment of foreigners. The argument that there are a lot of foreign crooks does not help much when we detect how much criminality the Thai society depends on itself. Prostitution, copyright infringement, fraud and overcharging are the most common.
It is also a myth that Thailand is so cheap, and quite a mistake to refer to prostitution. With one client, a prostitute could earn more than two days of a Thai's minimum income. With two-days' minimum income in Germany you would get more than 40 minutes in a brothel in Frankfurt. Simple T-shirts and jeans can be found for almost the same price in Europe, and for the cheaper food you pay with more bowel irritations and diarrhoea. That leaves the cheaper rent. In the end, you have to add the cost of your plane ticket and will easily find out that you cannot save much if you indeed indulge in the sensual pleasures. And the Thai government wants it that way, that's why they ask Bt65,000 from a (probably no longer employed) foreigner per month.
If you really want to find out what Thais think of foreigners, bargain like hell, give no tips and ask for the prices that locals pay. You will see a lot of smiles disappear. That is because for Thais still not all men are created equal. What a pity!
Bernd Schmid
Pattaya
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Article source: http://www.thethailandlinks.com/2013/01/20/ask-to-be-treated-fairly-and-the-thai-smile-disappears/
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