Saving Face is a very good title, what an utterly absurd credo it is to live by.
Yeah it's so demented. But they take it ridiculously seriously; they get really emotional about it. It's like "politeness" on steroids.
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I can't remember if I was told this story or if I was the teller but it has happened to me, if you stop to ask an Asian the way to your destination THEY WILL GIVE YOU DIRECTIONS WHETHER THEY KNOW WHERE YOU NEED TO GO OR NOT, because to admit they don't know will mean they 'lose face' and of course you'll follow these directions and get more lost and pull over and ask another innocent looking local if he could possibly help as you're lost and now quite late for your appointment and of course he probably doesn't know where you're going either but he's damned if he's going to lose face to a foreigner and he'll send you on your way with a smile.
ROFL yeah that happens all the time. It drives people nuts because they think they've been fucked with but it's not malicious. It's just Saving Face. So demented.
In a NotTheNation (satire) article after the riots:
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BANGKOK – Several foreign correspondentswere spotted in the skies over Bangkok today, parachuting in to the capital the day after the crisis subsided in order to file one report and bolster their resumes. Upon landing they were seen looking disoriented and asking passersby for the way to “Bang, bang? Shoot, shoot? This way?â€
After getting pointed in opposite directions by helpful, nodding Thais, and walking in circles for several blocks, they then jumped into a tuk tuk which ground to a halt in rush-hour traffic for over an hour. Then one journalist suggested taking the “elevated rail†to “Democracy Monumentâ€.
Finally reaching the nearest fire, a smoldering noodle shop on Rama IV, they piggy-backed on the hard work of locally based correspondents who had been covering the story for months and years, been shot at and risked their lives.
With the cameras rolling before the last embers faded, the journalists filed wildly discursive and incongruous stories about the crisis: one, on how an extremely Buddhist, forever peaceful and unified nation steeped in pacifist principles had combusted overnight, another on how Thailand is a monarchy famous for its spicy food, prostitution and elephants, and the final one, in flak jacket and helmet, on how the lese majeste laws enforced by “King Phoopiphan Dulyjej†prevented him from reporting openly from “this civil war-torn Asian metropolis†as several people drank beer nearby.
The journalists were reportedly flying out early tomorrow.
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