After flying to Pitsanulok from Bangkok, I boarded a bus about 8:00AM to Uttaradit, a small, rather nondescript but pleasant city of about 75,000 people located in Northern Thailand. The bus ride, which would take approximately 2 hours started out very inauspiciously when the bus driver turned on the sound system full blast. The music was absolutely deafening and immediately this bus ride starting was turning into a real nightmare.

Rather than submitting to this early morning torture, I decided to take action. Since most of the passengers probably didn’t understand English, I pleaded with them (I was the only foreigner on the bus) to tell the bus driver to turn down the volume by using my hands – I made a circling motion with my right index finger in front my ear, then covered both ears with my hands, simultaneously uttering “Mai chorp, Mai chorp” (means I do not like).

I knew the other passengers understood me but all they did was make strange faces at me and smiled as if they were saying “You stupid Farang, you’re in our country now and we are not going take any action because it is not our custom, so you’re going to have to suffer.”

As the Thai passengers were not going to be cooperative, I decided to execute Plan B. Whipping out my cell phone, I called Khun Moongmink, my good friend in Bangkok, and I explained to her in English, my problem with the loud music.

Walking towards the front of the bus, I then handed my cell phone to the bus driver so Khun Moongmink could voice my displeasure to him. After talking with her for about 1 minute, lo and behold, the bus driver turned the music off. I smiled to myself, very content with my ability to be assertive.

About 5 minutes later, I looked behind me to find that some of the Thai passengers who were making faces and laughing at me before were now dozing off.

LESSON LEARNED - In Western Culture (or at least in America) we are very assertive and will protest or complain if something is not right and take action if need be while in Asian culture (at least in Thai culture), people have a tendency to be somewhat passive and considerably less assertive; I guess you could say, they just go with the flow! Viva la Difference!