The Soundtrack of My Apartment

I woke up this morning about 10 and noticed the most bizarre thing -- absolute silence. No noise inside, no noise outside. It was so out of the ordinary that I started to wonder if something was wrong. Was my hearing gone? Had the government told everyone to stay inside? Was there something horrible going on that I didn't know about?

You see, it is usually noisy here. Very noisy. I live in what would normally be considered a quiet neighborhood by Seoul standards, but since I am about a quarter block away from an elementary school sports field, I almost never experience quiet. Furthermore, I am on the first floor of my apartment, and the stairs are right outside my door. So it is a rare moment when I cannot hear ANYTHING.

I guess you can say that I was spoiled by growing up in a calm suburban neighborhood. There was the occasional lawn mower, car alarm, or barking dog, but for the most part it was pretty quiet. I remember my dad, who loves to take afternoon naps on the weekend, seemed to be cursed by always having neighbors who chose to bust out the leaf blower right as he started to doze off. It's always driven him crazy, because he absolutely can't sleep with noise. If he lived in Seoul, he would go nuts. It makes me nuts sometimes too, but I have pretty much learned to deal with the noise that comes along with living in the city.

I like to call it the "soundtrack of my apartment." The shouting of children is the most pleasant noise. Then there are the soccer games, which I also don't mind. Various teams use the field on the weekends and early weekday mornings before school starts, so I usually wake to the sounds of players yelling and whistles blowing. Someone nearby also has a rooster that crows at all hours of the day, a sound which I actually enjoy because it lets me escape into my fantasy world where I am living in the countryside instead of the city.

The rest of the noises, unfortunately, are not quite as charming. There are the cars and motor scooters of course. People talking as the walk by, neighbors chipping ice off the sidewalk. Then there are the cats. This neighborhood has tons of strays, so there are always loud bawling cat fights and "mating songs," which can be excruciating to listen to. I mean these cats really get going, sounding like someone is slowly gauging out their eye balls while yanking out their claws one by one. I'm a cat lover, but this sound makes me want to find a pellet gun and go kitty hunting, especially when it wakes me up at night.

Then there are the vendors. They walk or drive around with loudspeakers, repeating their rhythmic calls of "Buy my stuff! My stuff is good! Buy my stuff!" Over and over and over again. Except in Korean of course. They sell everything from fruits and veggies to computer parts. I even saw a truck selling nothing but socks once. I am listening to one as I write this, and I am very proud to say that I actually can identify two of the things he is selling because I made an effort to learn a lot of food words in Korean -- hobak, which is squash, and koguma, which is sweet potato. Somehow though, the noise of these vendors if far more irritating when I can understand what they are saying.

Let's see, what else? Oh yeah, the spitting. This is my least favorite noise, and as long as I am here I will never, ever get used to it. You see, Korean men smoke a lot. So they always have nasty gunk in their throats, which they expel very loudly ever few minutes. You know the sound, the one that is considered rude and disgusting in Western culture. Hocking up a huge wad of phlegm and spitting it out. Yeah, that sound. It is everywhere here, and I grosses me out every time I hear it. I have a neighbor who stands right outside and smokes and spits all the time. And its so loud that it's like he is standing in my apartment doing it. Its nasty, and apologize if I have grossed anyone out by writing about it.

My other neighbors aren't all that quiet either. There is the occasion yelling fight or noisy lovemaking, but mostly it's just loud talking. There is a woman and a man that always seem to be standing right outside my door having discussions at top volume, usually at 3 or 4 am. And since the stairs are literally RIGHT outside my door, I always hear people going up and down, up and down. They are tiles stairs, and the women in Korea all wear shoes with very loud clicky heels, and they stomp and run up and down these stairs all day. The morning rush is the worst, when everyone is going to work and I am still sleeping since I work in the afternoon. It sounds like elephants wearing high heels are escaping from a zoo upstairs.

Then there are the musical doorbells. The apartments here don't have the simple "ding-dong" bell. Instead, they have tapes that play very loud little tunes that last for 10 seconds or so. Really catchy things like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or It's a Small World. What I don't understand is why such tiny apartments need to have such loud doorbells. Can't we just knock? It's not like you are going to be in back room where you can't hear it. So every time someone gets their bell rung, the entire apartment hears it.

The people in the apartment next to me also have one of those electronic locks that beeps a whole lot every time they go in and out. And the people above me are constantly dropping what sounds like a golf ball on their floor. Or something hard that bounces just a few times. For the life of me I cannot figure out what the heck it is, but I hear it everyday.

So that should explain why the idea of waking up to absolute silence was so eerie for me. I guess I can say that I have somewhat gotten used to the noise, although it still irks me now and again. And I know that I will never, ever, take a quiet neighborhood for granted again.