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Expat's Eye
Expat's Eye
UPDATED: October 21, 2008 NO. 43 OCT. 23, 2008
The Sound and the Fury
Silence is golden in Beijing
By HOWARD SCOTT
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An angry neighbor, complaining to me about making too much noise at night, recently confronted me. It was 7:00 a.m. when this happened. She was objecting to me stamping my foot to trigger the automatic light switch in the pitch-black corridor outside my apartment. Perhaps you heard it yourself. She was raising this point in a cacophony audible to most of the other residents, I'm sure. Most of the other residents of Beijing, I mean. Unable to speak Chinese and half-asleep, I reverted to pig-ignorant foreigner role, even drifting back to bed halfway through the tirade.

It went on. There she stood: an immoveable object in my own kitchen at 7:00 a.m., for at least half an hour as I attempted to snooze back to dreamland. No doubt my indifference increased her rage. I knew what she was prattling on about, but what could I do? I just lay there, hopefully wishing the source of this noise would go away. Eventually she brought in a volunteer to explain in English what I knew, and yet still the tempest did not calm--even when I offered her some moon cakes by way of apology.

I am really not a noisy person and rarely have guests to my place. I think I am also quite neighborly. In fact, when the builders in the apartment upstairs start drilling and hammering at 8:00 a.m. (including Sunday), my inclination is to get up for the day, rather than scream and shout and spit my dummy out of the pram.

That I can't speak Chinese means I can't complain about noise, so I'm resigned to their working practices. It also means that most of my days here are spent in near total silence and introspection. Silence might be golden, if it can only be attained in the modern world. For that you need an oasis of calm.

Beijing is a crowded busy capital, but it doesn't reach the Top 10 in the world's densest populated cities on either the Forbes or the World Bank List. It is also not listed as the noisiest city, which, according to the National Physical Laboratory, is Delhi (hard to believe if you have ever been to the Silk Market on a Saturday). Beijing is not the metropolis that Hong Kong is, where life is lived 24/7 and people tend to live directly inside and on top of the noise. Could Beijing even be one of the sleepiest cities in the world, given its tendency to shut down at around 10:00 p.m. in most areas? Beijingers seem to me to be an "early-to-bed, early-to-rise" type of people, with many a taxi driver or deliveryman catching a midday snooze spread out in his carrier.

The hutongs make for a peaceful residential atmosphere usually. However, having a vehicle swing behind you into one is a nervous experience. Why is it that something with an engine and eight times my size approaching me needs to use its horn to make me aware that it's there?

Recently walking through a tranquil back street, a noise nearly made me jump out of my skin. A man on a bicycle towing a freezer was using a horn built for a tugboat to warn the otherwise empty street he was approaching. Perhaps he was married to my neighbor and in a hurry to get home to avoid an earful for being late.

Noise pollution is a major factor in causing intense stress. The World Health Organization has found that chronic exposure to loud traffic noise causes 3 percent of tinnitus cases, in which people constantly hear a noise in their ears. It has also linked noise pollution and stress with heart disease. Frankly, I'm not sure that the sudden peace-shattering sonic boom blast from a taxi horn does not give my heart something to race about. Problem is it's when I least expect it. Isn't there a Zen lesson about masters slapping students to awaken them suddenly from their reverie? Hardly a taxi driver crawling through the lanes repeatedly disturbing the peace, I suppose.

To escape the noise of the city, I recently went to the Fragrant Hill in Beijing's western suburb. The approach to the hill was crowded with day-trippers like myself, shopkeepers asking me to "come have a look and buy," and the occasional hiker taking, yes, a taxi to the entrance, blaring away as they hurtled along. I didn't find any peace of mind there either. I was too distracted by people laughing at the foreigner climbing the mountain. And boy there were a lot of them. Even at the summit, I was routinely asked for a photograph as I sat listening to the wind and the noise of jaws chewing on picnic foods.

On the way down I met my neighbor who has been as good as gold since I upset her. We communicate telepathically now. We still don't understand each other, but a smile between us is enough to realize we are on the same wavelength. When we reached the village, she giggled and crept over to a taxi driver snoring across his seats, trying to get himself some peace. It was one of the same drivers who had startled me before. She motioned me close, then turned and sprung the Zen slap trick on the sleeping driver and ran away, leaving me standing watching, literally--of course--speechless.



 
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