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

Only You Farang Are So Easy to Come and Leave takes place in Bangkok, Thailand and the course of the story covers a couple of months. The protagonist is a girl named Lara. Her mom is Thai/Chinese and her father is American. Her mom speaks Thai and her father speaks English. Lara enables communication between her parents by translating what they say to each other. The short story takes place during the Asian financial crisis, which means that Lara’s father is out of work. They want Lara to keep attending her international school so Lara’s father travels to America so he can work and send Lara and her mother money. He intends to perpetuate his stay in the US. In the end of the story Lara receives a plane ticket to America from her father. The readers do not know whether she stays in America or comes back to Thailand.

Analytical essay

This essay is about the short story “Only You Farang Are So Easy to come and leave”. It is about how Lara and her family are affected by the Asian financial crisis and Lara’s family drama.

The setting sets a very important stage for the story. Most of the action occurs in Bangkok Thailand, eventhough the US plays an important role for the plot of the story. The Asian financial crisis colors the mood of the story. “Bangkok that year became a graveyard of office towers and housing projects.” (p. 3, l. 118) The description of Bangkok during the financial crisis establishes a sense of the bleakness. Nardone (the author) also shows the conflict when she describes the house after Lara. “In the month before he left, I let the house divide us. It was easy to use the walls. I staked out territory and avoided common spaces. The family room stood empty. Ma left me food on the kitchen counter. Dad existed in a periphery, the sounds of his living always a layer removed, a room away.” This suggests that they are avoiding each other. They do not see each other even though they live in the same house.