My third-world debt.

I lived in Thailand for almost ten years, yet many people - both Thai and farang (as all Westerners there are known) - would tell you that I remained almost totally unaffected by my sojourn. My spoken Thai is rudimentary, and I never mastered the rules of daily life that govern such seemingly simple things as whom to wai - that is, to whom to display the traditional Thai greeting of hands with palms together held high.

As I grew older and therefore more deserving of respect, the number of people who should have waied me before I waied them increased. Yet I frequently embarrassed myself and others by waiing too soon, surprising young professors who had held off waiing, thinking that a handshake might be more appropriate or that no gesture at all would best suit the circumstances.

But despite such inadequacies, Thailand shaped me in ways both profound and incidental.

I arrived as prickly as any newcomer, but over time I learned something of the common Thai strategy for coping with the unpleasantnesses of daily life, an approach very different from the relentlessly cantankerous style favored by the New Yorkers of my youth.

The Thais have a deeply rooted inclination to look for a way around interpersonal problems, to be kreng jai, to worry about causing trouble, and to be watchful of other people's feelings; to say, in a celebrated phrase, "mai pen rai," "never mind," and to move on. They realize that nothing is often a good thing to do and almost always the best thing to say when confronted with a slight.

When my friend Pramote Prasartkul was in a serious automobile accident, the people who brought him to the hospital relieved him of his wallet. Pramote said, "Mai pen rai. I paid taxi fare to the hospital. So what?" I never heard him complain, as I would have, that the theft added insult to his considerable injuries.

When I arrived in Thailand my values were relentlessly egalitarian. During the first days of my stay, I carried cartons of books into my university office, working alongside movers the school had hired to do the job. Today, I'd let the movers do the work. The well-ordered hierarchy of the Thai cultural map recognizes that to do others' work is often to demean them.

Once I and an older friend, someone I address (again following that map) as "Pi," or "older sister," were on the same flight from Bangkok to New Delhi. I had a business-class ticket. Pi Yaw was booked to travel in economy. We exchanged seats because younger brothers defer to older sisters.

Acceptance of hierarchy is in part an acceptance of the way things are. If I bargained and paid 50 baht - about U.S. $2 - for some fruit and later found the same fruit for 10 baht, I'd complain and feel cheated. In the same situation, my Thai friends would never grumble. They'd think, "What a great deal," and buy more fruit.

At times, this acceptance allows a bad situation to get worse. Thai experts have visited cities throughout the world to study ways of managing Bangkok's traffic problems. But the traffic remains wretched, not because of a lack of possible solutions, but because of an acceptance of the way things are and of kreng jai: The city government is unwilling to cause any of Bangkok's elite citizens trouble or inconvenience, say, by restricting the use of their cars.

Many of the Thai traits I enjoyed most are evident in the propensity of people in Thailand to smile. Thailand is called the "Land of Smiles" for a reason. Thais smile when they are amused, of course, but they also smile when they are embarrassed, or when they are bargaining, or as a way of saying thank you, or indeed when they are in doubt about what to say or do.

I traveled frequently between Bangkok and New Delhi. When I arrived at the Delhi airport, my inclination was to use my Thai manners and smile to ease each potentially awkward situation. I smiled at the immigration official, at the customs officer, at the man in the taxi kiosk. Each of them would look at me as if to say, "You are a dimwit." The characteristic Indian way of dealing with uncertainty and possible embarrassment is to glower.

The important part of Thailand's influence is that my cultural map has been altered. I have become more kreng jai, more inclined to say mai pen rai. I appreciate the accord that social hierarchies can provide, and I'm more inclined to smile and accept the ways things are.

I have changed since I first arrived in Bangkok, and Thailand has changed as well. The economy has been growing like gangbusters. Per capita income has increased almost ten times over the past twenty-five years, and - at least among the urban middle class who have been able to take advantage of this growth - an optimistic worldview has become pervasive. The positive aspects of Thai development were a delight for those of us who lived through the country's economic transformation. But for me, Thailand's transformation is less important than my own.

While he lived in Bangkok, Peter J. Donaldson was the director of the Population Council program in Asia. He is now president of the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D.C.