Analyse af 'Only You Farang Are So Easy to Come and Leave'

Mai Nardone’s story “Only You Farang Are So Easy to Come and Leave” presents Lara, a teenager whose parents move to their house in the borders of Bangkok in 1997 after the Asian economic crisis. The family had to downsize to a smaller house because the father lost his job in finance. Even though their economic situation has worsened, Lara still goes to an international British school.

One day, Lara follows her father because he took on the habit of disappearing without saying where he is going. Lara suspects he might have a mistress but discovers her father is visiting an abandoned construction site. Eventually, the father decides to move back to the US so that he can pay for Lara’s English education in Thailand and support the mother. In the US, she finds out that her father does not plan to return to Thailand and that Lara can eventually join him in the US, but only when she goes to college.

The short story “Only You Farang Are So Easy to Come and Leave” is a short story written by Mai Nardone. It’s a short story about family crisis, economic crisis, friendships, love but most importantly Lara. She’s a teenager who is living a pretty tough life. She has a lot of trouble at home but probably also physical. Her outer characterization tells us that she is the teenage daughter of an “American” (l. 21) father and a “part Chinese” (l. 8) Thai mother and that she lives in Bangkok. That means that we actually don’t know what Lara looks like, but we know that she studies in English and that she is in love with someone from school: “My British international school was a luxury we maintained. I was fourteen and in love with a boy” (l. 9). She is probably mixed-race; she remarks that her boyfriend treats her like she is “wholly white” (l. 12), even though she presumably isn’t.