It’s true. I’m blond, blue eyed, 5’ 9’’ and also white. As you could imagine I blend right in. haha Actually Chiang Mai has a lot of tourists. You see farangs (foreigners) on vacation all over the city. So I really don’t stand out too much there, but out where I live on San Sai (about a 30-45 minute bike ride) from the city I’m definitely like the only one. People at school make a really big deal about it. I don’t think they’ve ever had an American teach here before.
The first day of school was peppered with all sorts of funny moments related to my caucasianness. One of the teachers told me I looked like a Barbie doll. I must say that was a first. If I had to classify myself as a Matel toy I’d probably think magic 8 ball or a viewmaster! But everybody's entitled to their own opinion. My favorite moment was when I was just talking to one of the Chinese teachers for a minute and all of sudden she looks at my arm and goes “Wow! You’re white.” And I’m like “Thank you?” haha I really need to learn how to say “I’m one-sixteenth black” in Thai. J
One of the bad things about being white is you always get the farang price. You can get ripped off so bad if you don’t know how much things should cost, especially when it comes to transportation. They’ve got tons of rot dengs (red cars) and tuk tuks in Thailand. They’re both pretty much like taxis, expect the prices aren’t set. You’ve got to haggle. At first we had no idea what we were doing, but by now we’re pretty savvy. So the other night Hayley and I were trying to catch a rot deng and this guy tried to charge us like quadruple what it should have cost. I was pretty offended and just walked away. He totally thought we were dumb tourists. To quote Stephanie Tanner “How rude!” I guess now that I’ve been here a while I feel so different from all the backpackers and people on vacation, I forget I look just like them. Darn this sparkley vampire skin.
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