Quiet Asians

All my life I have fought against the stereotype of the 'quiet asian'. I get to China to discover that I have been seriously mistaken. Oh yes, Chinese (if I may stereotype here) are quiet (especially if you ask them if they speak English), but that doesn't mean they don't find hundreds of other ways to be heard.....

You won't last two days in China without being asked about what you make of the air pollution. But to me,  there is a bigger, or at least louder, problem that I struggle to deal with:

Noise Pollution.

Now this is a new term (like 'PM2.5', a measure bad air quality) that I hadn't come across in NZ, possibly because I'm uneducated and ignorant, or possibly because we don't have any.

So there is the noise of traffic, which isn't unexpected in any big city. Added to this, though, is the frequent and sustained sound of the horn, which screams 'yes I know its a red light but I'm coming through anyway', and the shrill whistle and shouts of traffic police, indicating they have seen red-light-runners but are powerless to stop them.

The bike is an  indispensable mode of transport here; in NZ I would want one with good gears and mudguards, but here what you really need are a basket and bell. The other day I proudly negotiated a basket and a lock into the price of my 2nd hand bike, but somehow forgot about a bell. I felt terribly naked and vulnerable as I pedaled (OK, on the wrong side of the road, against the flow of bike traffic) home. I don't hesitate to use my bell when necessary, but there are those who don't follow this pattern of thinking. I have seen many an old man riding along with not a car/bike/pedestrian in his way, ringing his bell constantly just... ? for entertainment? to be heard? who knows. Old (and also not-so-old) men also like to walk/bike along with big radio-like music machines attached to their hips, (who needs an iPod?) blasting Chinese opera or pop music to the world. The other day a grandfather pedaled along ringing his bell in time to the music.Well I'm glad for him that he was enjoying is little ride but for the sake of the rest of us and our precious ear drums....

On the surface, Chinese, (despite, (or perhaps because of) the slight disorderliness of traffic) seem to be very concerned with safety. Riding an escalator, its not enough to just plaster signs saying 'hold the handrail' all over the place. There must also be a audio recording playing the same message over and over again, just in case you are blind or illiterate. Boarding the buses (or subway), a lady's voice (seems to be the same lady on every bus) will welcome you aboard, state the bus number, urge you to move towards the back of the bus and, of course, pay attention to safety. Before reaching every stop, she will again be broadcasted: 'We are arriving at bus stop X. Please exit from the rear doors. Be careful when doors are opening and pay attention to safety'. This message is repeated about 4 or so times before actually arriving, such that if you have sat through 10 stops to reach your destination, you have been reminded to pay attention to safety no less than 50 times. The volume is set so high so that its not just bus passengers who get to hear her, but pedestrians, those inside cars and yes, me, as I lie in bed, my 5th floor apartment on the corner of a main intersection.

Groping around for my earplugs one night I foolishly thought 'oh to be living back on campus!'. I quickly retracted that wish, remembering that every morning without fail I would be woken at 6am to the next door sports area chants of 一！二！三！四: students participating in military-style drills; the traditional hymn-style music which old ladies holding something which resembled badminton rackets danced to  (the first Sunday I heard this I thought there was a church service next door....), followed by some group exercise pop music.

As a kid, the sound of the tinny Greensleeves music wafting closer closer could only mean one thing: Mr Whippy was near, and if we were lucky mum would let us buy an ice cream. So who could blame me for thinking the same (well, OK, I'd use my own money) when I heard the same tune here? To my dismay the music was emitted from nothing other than a big truck spraying water onto the road - to settle the dust, I think, or when its been raining, to 'wash' away the water on the flooded streets (!!). This type of truck circulates round and round the city; every time I hear it I hate it even more for corrupting my childhood memories. Why can't it just spray water in silence??! (or sell ice creams out the side window, at least?)


Go to any lively market anywhere in the world and vendors will be calling, crying out what they have to offer. Chinese efficiency, coupled with their love for microphones/loud speakers have improved on this, either by attaching a McDonalds drive through 'can-I-take-your-order-please?' -type microphone and portable speaker to their bodies (leaving their hands free to handle the money/meat etc), or, even better, by pre-recording what they have to say (after all, its only 1 sentence, right?) and blasting it from a standing speaker: 'Watermelon! One kuai yi jin!' 'T-shirts! Buy one get one free!'. Shops have also taken to this method, sometimes employing some poor, poorly paid worker to stand at the door with a mic advertising their promotion, other times just playing the automatic message through a speaker. I once asked a shop assistant if he got annoyed at hearing 'everything in store 9.90RMB!' repeated non stop from morning to night, and he just looked at me as if he hadn't heard me (well, I wouldn't have blamed him....), or didn't know what I was talking about.

One night I was busking with a guitarist and the police/street security made us move locations 3 times - the reason being that we were 'too noisy'. Now, I would gladly move if we were obstructing foot traffic, on private property or blasting inappropriate music (how a violin could ever be inappropriate I don't know). And yes, it was a busy street (we're not going busk in a rice paddy). But its a sad day, friends, when, given the un-tuned orchestra of everything mentioned above, its a couple of street buskers that are labelled as:

Noise Pollution.

Have our ear drums lost their sense of beauty?