Hi Steve,
Don’t want to hijack the thread here, but as you asked:
My knee much better in the just last few days…After every test you can think of, (went through everything from STDs to tropical fungus, to arctic parasites!) an operation, and 5 days in hospital, they still don’t know what it was.
Problem was a blood reading, indicating some sort of infection, which was through the roof, yet other than the knee, I was fine…The many doctors said they just don’t understand why I was not very very sick with that reading.
They said either I had something very strange, or that “you have a very usual immune system.” (Personally, I think they stuffed up the tests!!! Maybe I would have been better in a Thai hospital after all – maybe this is a case of Aussie doctors saving face!!!! On second thoughts, no, at least they had the honesty to say “we don’t know” and “we don’t understand”)
There was also a secondary blood indication that I may have had some sort of virus, but they never found any direct evidence of one, and the secondary reading is back to normal now, so whatever it was they are certain it has gone, and with some physiotherapy I will be fine.
The humorous part is that the doctors would now like me to do some test in Seattle!!!! Not because I need to, but because they think “it would be interesting.”
I don’t know what that is all about, couldn’t understand their medical jargon…Strange. I don’t know what they would do there that they can’t do here, but as I am on the mend, to hell with more tests! Doctors, Shisshhhh!
-Better get back to the Face theme…Is the saving face concept typical of Asia in general, or only to Thailand?
In the ATPL theory (license needed to fly for airlines) there is a Human Factors exam. In the study notes they go into the authority gradient, or hierarchy, within flight crews. The Captain is obviously the boss, but he still needs to be able to listen to the advice and suggestions of the other crew – and they HAVE to be able to tell him if he is wrong. It is generally acknowledged that Australian crews have a fairly flat authority gradient.
-Interestingly, Asian crews have the steepest .
Friend of mine who is a Captain with a major Asian Airline (non Thai) keeps telling me he thinks he could fly into a mountain and his Asian crew would say not a word, because, he says, it is not in their culture to challenge someone with more authority…Obviously I think he is carried away with his suggestion, but it is an interesting observation….He says they are very difficult to work with, as they wont work with him as a TEAM, but as his SERVANTS (his words). Probably that relationship works fine in some environments, but certainly not in others.
In trying to preserve his authority, his crew succeeds only in increasing his work load.…So this whole saving face deal starts to get even more complicated and twisted when it is a superiors face you are trying to save even over your own!
