This cartoon could sum up so much of our lives living in a foreign culture. Before coming to Thailand, we read several books and talked with experienced people about living here. In spite of this, we might find ourselves doing something that seems so innocent and which we can't imagine being something that would offend someone, but we manage to do so anyway. We have found that no matter how many books we read about living in an adopted culture, there is always something that you miss—something that wasn't covered in all the pages you've read.
It gets to where sometimes we end up second-guessing ourselves. Just in the past few weeks, we haven't been able to arrange to meet with someone because they were always busy. The reason they gave was legitimate enough, but was it the real reason? Or were they avoiding us because we somehow offended them unawares? We've had that happen enough times before.
Thai people generally avoid confrontation, so when they are offended, rather than saying so, they will just avoid the offender. I can relate to this because I, also, am one who would prefer to avoid than confront. So if we cause someone to be upset or somehow feel shame, if we hear about it at all, it will probably be from someone else.
On one occasion, I offended someone by confronting them too directly about something they did. That person contacted a mutual friend of their same culture who happened to be in another country. That person, also being of their culture, did not want to contact me directly either, so he contacted yet another mutual friend in another part of Thailand, who then called me. So then I went to apologize to this person who happened to live just 1/2 kilometer away from me. Seems kind of like flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles with connecting flights out of Paris and Sacramento.
It's not like there isn't a reason to be confused by all this. When I ended up talking to our mutual friend in the other country about the things I had said or done that offended this person, he said, "I can speak to that person in that way, but you can't." Something about the relationship of that person with the person I offended allows him to be able to speak into their life a way that I can't, but I still don't know exactly what that is. It's like one of those unwritten exceptions to the "wagging tail means friendly" rule that is not covered in the guide books.
The longer we live in Thailand, the better we get at not offending people, but we still want to be careful. We don't want our lives to be the reason that another refuses to believe in Jesus.
Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. Romans 14:13 (NIV)
