Farang Relations

In case you were wondering, "farang" is the Thai word for foreigner. You should probably know that before you continue to read this story:

During our stay in Chiang Mai, we are expected to attend a class on the Thai language. This, of course is a handy skill to have in a foreign country, so I have no complaint. However, I have to sometimes wonder if the teachers who are giving us our lessons have any clue as to what they are making us do:

Over the past few days, we have been learning the basics of the Thai language, such as how to introduce ourselves, give information about our whereabouts, and how to say we are hungry and should go to the cafeteria. We have also learned how to ask for that information from other people. Up until yesterday, we had practiced our Thai on our fellow classmates, thus saving us the embarassment of having to butcher someone's language in front of them. we practiced by the a-jaan (teacher) giving us a small sheet of paper for us to fill up with the information pertaining to our fellow students, with slots for name, last name, nickname, and something concerning where they are from. Easy, right? Well yesterday, the teacher announced that we would be going outside for part of class. Seeing as the weather is beautiful here (75 and sunny), we had no complaint. That is, until she handed a full sheet of paper with more slots than could be filled by our class. That's right, we had to go talk to actual Thai students.

Now this might seem like a good idea. Who better to practice with than someone who speaks the language, right? Well that would work if the students knew we were coming. So the teacher led us to a group sitting in a study hall, where most of which were working on their homework and such, and let us loose. She also hadn't told us the phrase in Thai to explain that we were asking these questions for a class assignment, so these students had to deal with a bunch of farang showing up out of nowhere and asking the following questions without ay sort of introduction:

What is your name?
What is your last name?
What is your nickname?
What Province are you from?
and (my favorite) Where are you staying?

You should also know that after they gave each answer, we would quickly write it down on a sheet of paper, which I'm sure helped us look a lot less sketchy.

Being that they had no idea who we were, most of the students were generally helpful when it came to answering the questions. When they would tell us their name, only to be met with a blank stare, they would laugh and save us the trouble of trying to spell it out. But when it came to the last question, most would give us a weird look and say something indecipherable. Some would give us numbers (which might have been in referece to the dorms, I can't be sure), others would tell us random words like "Ho-ha" or "Moshi", and another student stold us outright that she would not tell us. She also gave us the last name "Gitaway" which gringo and I believe is probably not her real name.

I'm not sure what the point of this assignment was, other than to embarass us in front of a decently sized group of Thai students. Or maybe the lesson was that if you are a white student at a Thai university that can barely speak the language and have to constantly write stuff on a sheet of paper, you can pry all sorts of important information from unsuspecting Thai people.

Though if that's a good thing, I'm not so sure.