If you are a Caucasian who has travelled to Thailand or mingled with Thai communities, you have probably heard the word “falang” and it felt as if Thais were using it to refer to you. The feeling is correct as they were, indeed, talking about you. Why were you called a “falang”?
The word is actually farang (Thai people can not pronounce “r”, just think how their “sorry” apology sounds).
“Farang” derives from a Persian word with the same spelling and meaning of “Frank, European” and the story of the word takes us back to the Middle Ages, and the Germanic tribe of the Franks, followed by the Frankish Empire which ruled a large part of Europe and to the Crusades, when eventually the Arabic world referred to all Westerns and Central Europeans as Franks. And by mid 17th century, the language of the Franks was labelled as lingua franca.
Farang is a generic Thai word which meaning is defined in the 1999, Official Royal Dictionary of Thai words as “a person of white race” and, as we had already seen, with a fairly clear etymological origin. And it is only an urban myth that Thais use the word to name the big noses of Caucasians, which noses, by the way, they find quite fascinating.
The first contacts between Thai people and Europeans date back to the 15th century, to the Southeast Asian travels of the Venetian explorer Niccolò dei Conti and the Portuguese explorations.
British relations with Thailand date back to 1612, when only 75 years later an East Indian Company conflict led to the Siam-England war and the banning of the Brits from Siam (old name of Thailand). Anglo-Thai relations opened back with a treaty of alliance in 1826 and tradeliberalisation in 1855.
Farang = foreigner?
In 1852, Frederick Arthur Neale, in a description of the manners, customs, and laws of the Siamese, described a boat travel which led to a conflict with a self-proclaimed river guardian: “Do you Franks dare to break the laws of this country, and set my authority at defiance, in broad daylight? ” I, who am the custom-house officer and reporter general, without whose permit no one is allowed to pass up this river!” The threads were accepted with amusement and the conflict solved by the guardian joining the boat trip. As the saying goes, “a smile can open every door and heart in Thailand”.
The first time the word farang appeared in print in the English language was in the 1860s, when describing his Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China, supported by the Royal Geographical Society and the Zoological Society of London, the French naturalist Henri Mouhot pointed out how material gifts can help Thais better welcome farangs: “The priests were much surprised to see a ‘farang’ (foreigner) in their pagoda, but some trifling gifts soon established me in their good graces”.
