Situation: Meena and Mesa are friends. They are sharing problems they’ve experienced in intercultural communication.
Meena: I‘ve found some problems communicating with people from western countries.
Mesa: Tell me what problems?
Meena: Let’s talk about the term we usually use to refer to them.
Mesa: What term?
Meena: Farang (ฝรั่ง). Many of them told me that they don’t like it when being called farang. I don’t know why. Do you?
Mesa: Recently, an American friend of mine told me that many people call her with by term. She said it was all right for her as she’s lived here long enough to understand us. But she says that it might be offensive for some to be called “Farang”. Farang is a term derived from foreign/ foreigner. To them being a foreigner equals being alienated or an outsider. They would appreciate specific terms referring to nationalities like an American, British or Dutch instead.
Meena: I see. It must be the same when we are overseas, we would like people to refer to us as Thai not Chinese. There people usually take any Asians as being Chinese or Vietnamese. To me they didn’t seem to care much who you are or where you’re from.
Mesa: That is ignorance I would say. Many people are ignorant about the detail of other races. Asians look alike, I guess. And it’s the same in Thailand as well. To lots of people westerners look alike. A westerner is a farang to most Thai people. It’s not nice when people are ignorant about other people who have different nationalities.
Meena: Yeah.
Mesa: Apart from terms used for calling people by, many words or phrases are used and understood within one culture differently from when they are used in a different culture, which causes misunderstanding.
Meena: I’m interested in terms that might sound offensive to some foreign visitors.
Mesa: Let me think. Ah…..in this culture a pronoun reference “you” can be used to address people (meaning คุณ/ ท่าน). However, this English pronoun “you” should not be used to address or call attention from anyone as it is impolite to do that in English. In English speaking cultures, “you” is used to address people in situations such as when someone is being reprimanded by his father or by his superior in the military.
Meena: I see. There are also cultural meanings attached to words, which many people do not know.
Mesa: That’s true. Sometimes in translation one must be aware of their socio-cultural aspects where the words originated. Some grammatical points in English like countable or non-countable/group nouns can be confusing to the Thais. When a non-countable or group noun in English like “culture” is translated and used in a Thai context as a countable noun “วัฒนธรรม”, misunderstanding can be expected because both words might refer to different scopes of meaning.
Meena: Yeah, you can’t take things for granted and assume that what we understand is understood the same way in other cultures.
Mesa: Right. When it comes to intercultural communication, people must pay more attention to detail and be aware of cultural differences in various aspects.
Meena: Thank you. I’ve learned a lot from you today.
Mesa: Oh! Don’t mention it. I’ve learned a lot from our conversation too.