farang tax

In Thailand very few prices are fixed. Sure, if you go shopping at the Bangkok malls selling designer clothes and Starbucks coffee, you've pretty much got to pay what's on the price tag. But just about everywhere else (markets large and small; street vendors; motorcycle taxis; some restaurants; even the rents on apartments and houses), prices are negotiable. The seller sizes up the buyer and makes an opening gambit; the buyer responds with a look of shock and a much lower counteroffer. Back and forth, back and forth, till an agreement is reached or the buyer decides to pass. It's actually sort of fun.

However, being giant, pasty, and round does have its disadvantages.

Not only are we less adept at bargaining (when was the last time you told the clerk at Target "$5.00 is too expensive for that T-shirt; I'll give you a buck fifty, and you can throw in a pack of Skittles"?) than the people who've grown up with it, but salespeople of all stripes routinely charge us more for the same merchandise or service.

We call it the farang tax.

It really doesn't bother me at all--it's not my country, I'm big and funny-looking and an easy mark, and the person I'm dealing with does have to decipher my rotten Thai, which in itself ought to be worth a little extra cash. And if someone won't come down to the price I want, I've always got the option of walking away. For instance, if the tuk-tuk driver wants to charge me 800 baht for a distance I could cover on the BTS Skytrain for 40 baht, is it really worth getting upset about it? Nah. I'll just take the train. If a ba-mee nahm (noodle soup) vendor insists on charging me 25 baht instead of the 20 that's clearly marked on his stall, well, I can either pay it or I can trouble myself to eat somewhere else. This is not a problem. And if I'm shopping for something less essential (let's say, another poorly constructed but oh-so-cute top from the outdoor market, which I'm going to wear a grand total of three times before it tears, unravels, or shrinks beyond all logical comprehension), I just set a budget in my mind and if the vendor doesn't want to be reasonable, then I do without whatever it is. I even get to feel a little superior ("I'm not a sucker like those tourists, ha ha ha"), however unfounded in reality that feeling might turn out to be.