Sukhumvit Farangs Compulsively Emerge During Rain Like Worms
JOHAN YIVES JOHANOPOLIS, EDITOR-AT-LARGE
BANGKOK, THAILAND — Each monsoon evening, as the sky cracks open and Bangkok’s infrastructure surrenders, one figure reliably appears: Max Hastings from Alberta, 34, a digital nomad of uncertain income and increasingly damp conviction, who emerges from his fourth-floor studio in Phrom Phong like a slug seeking enlightenment—or at least a bag of seaweed-flavored Lays.
Wearing a sarong he claims was “gifted by a monk, but maybe it was just a guy,” Hastings ventures into the rain clad in flipflops and a linen shirt — a cellphone clutched in one hand and a tangle of conflicting life choices in the other.
“He comes every night it rains,” said Aim, 22, a 7-Eleven cashier with the thousand-yard stare of one who has seen too much. “Always buys the same things. Lays seaweed. Two eggs. A single banana. Then he stands outside. Smoking. Watching the soi. Like a damp gargoyle.”
Hastings, who once ran a productivity podcast that peaked at 38 listeners, insists him going out in the rain is “purely coincidental . . . I have a busy life. My errands can’t wait on weather patterns.”
Originally from Edmonton, Hastings left Canada in 2021 after a failed startup, a failed engagement, and a failed sourdough phase. He has travelling around South East Asia ever since, surviving on client work “in the mindfulness space,” vague affiliate links, and a dwindling belief that his productivity TikTok will be the key to his success.
Locals have taken to calling him “Farang Fon Fon”—the Rain Farang—a term equal parts affectionate and exhausted.
“He invariably arrives back soaking wet. He drips in the elevator,” said one visibly exasperated member of the juristic office at Hastings’ condo. “We have to mop up after him, every time.”
Hastings’ strange behavior is believed to be part of a broader phenomenon, where Farangs feel compelled to leave their condos when rain arrives.
Sociologists describe this phenomenon as Farang Barometric Syndrome (FBS), described by one researcher as a “psychosomatic urge to confront weather like it’s a metaphor for emotional growth.”
The compulsion to exist publicly during meteorological discomfort, often while contemplating whether to text their ex in the Philippines or finally Google ‘visa amnesty’ is believed to be unique to expats in Thailand.
“It’s like they remember they exist only when everything is wet,” said Nattapong Boonchuay, 24, an unpaid intern and amateur expatologist. “I saw a man emerge from a 7/11, take three steps into the rain, then just pause, as if he was rebooting”
Most farangs undergoing FBS are thought to return home shortly after a single non-urgent errand. However, some are known to undertake longer missions — such as taking a bike from Ekkamai from Samyan to order a succulent Chinese meal they could have ordered on GrabFood instead.