Truth In Labeling, Thai Style....

On a recent family excursion to Thailand, I took a picture of my hat with my alma-mater prominately displayed on the back. The thing that amused me wearing a University of Buffalo hat is that buffaloes play an important role in Thai life and culture.

The buffalo, back on the family farm, is the beast of burden that assists in the back-breaking work and has always played a significant role in Thai agriculture. However, Buffalo also has another connotation for the bargirls in Thailand's famous sex trade. The death of the family buffalo must be one of the most worrisome events in an agricultural Thai family's life and Thai prostitutes and internet scam artists use "the death of their family's buffalo" to pry money out of love-lorn men.

As the most amusing Mango Sauce website tells us,

These couplings are often genuine love affairs but the girl won't throw away her address book and she certainly won't ditch the love-sick farang buffaloes sending her money each month.

This somewhat confusing paragraph is what I enjoyed so much with Mango Sauce. Apparently, the Thai bar-girl slang for their love-sick clientele that send them money each month from Hamburg, London, Chicago, etc. is 'buffalo'. The family work horse without which the Thai farmer family would be unable to survive. So, the farang buffalo is the same thing. The stupid beast that works the fields to do the heavy work so that these gals can survive. Its just such poetic beauty.