Back in 2006 my then gf and I had an apartment in a big Thai city. We had A/C but soon discovered how expensive it was to run it, so we relied on our two fans: One on the wall, supplied by the owners, the other a small fan we bought.

One day the wall fan poops out. I go by the office and, with my poor Thai and a few hand gestures, explain the problem to the lady in charge. Just to be on the safe side I have my gf go by and remind her. No problem, the gf assures me, they'll take care of it.

One week goes by. Fan not fixed. I see the landlady and I smile and give her a wai and say, "Padlom, no work.". She smiles and says yes, yes, okay, etc.

Two weeks, still not fixed. I'm starting to get pissed, so I have the gf do the reminding. A few days later a brand new wall fan, still sealed in its box, appears on the floor just a few doors down. Ah, I think, maybe that's ours. They'll probably install it tomorrow.

I was pretty new to Thailand, obviously.

One week later, the fan in box is still sitting there.

Gf talks to the landlady again. Landlady shows up at our door around 6-7 PM, all smiley and apologetic, and gives my gf a plate of sliced pineapple.

Now, this is where my temper kicks in. At the time I didn't understand the way Thais do things.

I grab the plate of pineapple from my gf. "I don't want her fuckin' pineapple! I want the fan fixed!". I then set the plate on the floor outside our door.

"Let me show you how we fix problems in America!"

I stormed down the hallway, past the frightened landlady, and walked the ten blocks to an appliance store, where I paid about 800 baht for a nice tall fan. I then walked back to our apartment, pulled the fan out of the box, performed the simple assembley, plugged it in, and proceeded to sit in front of it for the rest of the evening.

"That's how you fix a problem! And it only took me about 30 minutes!"

Of course, the maintaince guy put in the new wall fan a couple days later.

If something goes wrong, Thais don't confront the person who fucked up. They smile and make excuses for why things went wrong. If your waiter forgets your ice tea, you (the inconvenienced customer) are expected to give him a knowing smile and say, "You are very busy tonight.".

This is a difficult concept for Westerners. Making excuses for another's mistake gives you the social "high ground". That's very important to Thais.

Fast forward to this past October. My sorta-boss, the senior Thai teacher in our department, wanted to change classrooms with me. She wanted the room with air conditioning. No problem, but I asked her if the school could provide me with a fan. Of course, no problem.

Do you see where this is going?

One week later and I still didn't have a fan.

However, what I DO have is more wisdom about how Thais do things.

I don't even bother reminding her, I just go buy a little fan and put it in my classroom. Only 300 baht AND I avoid all the aggravation of repeating the above scenario from 2006.

About one week later she walks into my classroom and notices the fan.

"Oh, you have fan? Where you get? Do you buy this?"

Now who has the social high ground?

"Yes, I went across the street and bought it. You must be very busy."

See what I did there?

She gets all nervous, talking about how my fan is too small and how she's going to get me a better fan. I protest, telling her not to worry about it, this fan is fine for me. She won't hear of it. Sure enough, a couple days later, she walks in with a big, new fan. She also insists on taking my little fan for her room. Of course the big new fan has the school name written on the base.

That fan is evidence of how well they treat me . . . at least in their bizarre way of thinking.

She trudged back to her room with my puny little fan in hand, and I could have sworn I heard her say, . . .

"Tis a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done before . . ."