American cultural sensitivity

So this moment amazed me (although perhaps it shouldn't have). We were eating at a nice Thai restaurant, and there was a Elephant god statue on a pedestal in the corner. Potentially this could have been purely decorational (although it was likely connected with religious sentiment, given the ethnicity of the wait-staff). Now I mention all of these things because I would expect that there is one thing that it was not: a coat rack. And yet, one of the diners placed her jacket on top the statue. Michelle debated going over and tell her that she would have 5 years of bad luck for doing that (ie she would have done it if i had not dissuaded her). We still had entertainment however when one of waitstaff noticed. She took the jacket to them and asked if it was alright if she brought it downstairs (ie where the coat rack is), and proceeded to bow several times to the statue. Just a "slight" bit of religious significance to the statue...