When it all hits the fan, the blades come down

I'm sure you are all curious as to how things are progressing with our neighbors.  Well, they sure are progressing!  Apparently, the neighbors upstairs are so unhappy that they have started spreading malicious rumors about our landlord.  In America, this might happen and we would argue against such rumors.  Since the US is a justice-based culture, rumors that aren't true are argued and proven to be not true.  In China, it's a different ball game.  China is a shame-based culture and the concept of "saving face" runs deep in Chinese culture and defines many of their relationships.  Thus, in China, malicious rumors cannot be met be argument alone.  The person "losing face" (in this case, our landlord) must do what one can to stop the rumors and appease the opposite party.  I do not fully understand the concept of face, but we have decided that this value has prompted the following actions of our landlord.  

The Hubby taking down the fan blades.

On Thursday (two days after this previous post), our landlord came back with her mom and requested that we take the blades off our fans.  The neighbor called our landlord and told her that he can still hear the noise and believed that we were still using the fans (even though we weren't).  He requested that we have the blades removed rendering the fans ineffective.  Our landlord also informed us that she will replace our kong tiao (air conditioning unit) with a brand new one.  The Hubby and I didn't really think either of these actions were necessary, but in light of the recent rumors our landlord had no choice.  She had to save her reputation.  Thursday, our kong tiao was removed and this morning (Saturday) we had a new one installed.  After setting up the new kong tiao (which is totally awesome by the way), I thanked our landlord.  She responded, "Thank my mom."  Whoa!  Her mom bought our new kong tiao in an effort to help her daughter.  Wow.  How much was the new kong tiao?  About $700.  No cheap endeavor.

All that said, we are now waiting to see what happens next.  Do we get to put the blades back on our ceiling fans?  Will the new kong tiao appease the neighbors and help our landlord gain her reputation back?  I sure hope so.  She is absolutely the sweetest lady and I would hate to see her lose more face over this incident (especially since it is over something ridiculous).  

In other news, the coolest thunderstorm rolled through tonight lighting up the sky with bright flashes of lightening and loud thunder.  I wonder if our neighbor is hoping we lose power...