You might have heard the phase “ทัวร์ลง” (pronounced as tour lohng in Thai), a relatively new Thai slang that means getting backlash online. The phase literally means hordes of tourists getting off a bus at your doorstep.
Earlier this week, the Thai media concluded that hordes of angry Thai netizens descended upon the Facebook profile of British Ambassador to Cambodia Dominic Williams after he posted a photo of an array of Khmer desserts, but the same photo was construed by some Thais as definitely not Cambodian but Thai desserts.
Williams was accused by these Thai cultural supremacists as being blatantly ignorant. Some even suggested the envoy deliberately tried to appropriate intangible Thai cultural heritage and claimed it to be Cambodian or saw rift between Thailand and her neighbor, Cambodia.
