Farang occupy treacherous no-man’s land in Thailand
The kerfuffle regarding foreigners retained by Amnesty International without work permits illustrates the ambiguity of the whole subject - even if no pay is involved.
Apparently it is now okay for a non-Thai to sit on a condominium-management committee, but the same guy would be ill advised to offer free English lessons to the local kids. No official would query the legality of a foreigner acting as a translator for the courts or police, but that farang would need to look both ways before handing a can of beans to a customer in his wife’s corner shop. As the Latin poet Juvenal inquired, “Who is watching the watchers?”
Barry Kenyon
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