Audition. ~ This truly hit me whilst I was in Tianjin, though Beijing certainly had its fair share of noise pollution. ~ Even at around midnight, the commercial streets were a bustle of activity and people. ~ Peddlers selling their wares, children screaming in delight or anger, girls giggling over their phones, men loudly proclaiming their acts of valour or business profits of the day... It made no difference as to who I saw. ~ Then, there's sleeping - or rather, trying to fall asleep. Even on the sixth floor of an apartment building, you hear all sorts of noise traversing the polluted air to snake its way into your tender ears. ~ Most notably, of course, are the honks. ~ While I understand that honking is actually considered a kind, "polite" act in China (after all, it's a warning that will prevent you from being run over!), I still think it's excessive to blare your horn at every intersection, turn or even pause in the flow of traffic. And there must be something wrong when cars are so decrepit that they have doors that won't close properly, windows that won't roll down, and non-existent seat belts, but horns that sound as healthy as cows in their prime, demanding to be milked. ~
There's also the infamous "欢迎光临" that greets you no matter what store you step - or don't step, and merely pass by - into. This loosely translates into "welcome, customer" and sounds uncannily alike no matter who is saying it to you. ~ And the store keepers following barely half a step behind you don't take away from the Big Brother experience either. In fact, sometimes I felt myself resisting the urge to pull my phone out of my pocket to check the time merely because I was afraid of being tackled and accused of thievery if I did. ~
With all this going on, you might be wondering - how is one ever heard above this miasmic chaos of sound? ~ Not to worry - the tour guide leaders have mini speakers to travel over/add to the din. With their flawlessly memorized and delivered speeches at each tourist attraction, these people seem unfazed by anything, nearly robotic in their perfection. ~
As an aside regarding speakers here: One of my fellow Beijing adventurers bought a set of speakers that attach to any surface and transmit vibrations from a sound device, thereby amplifying the sound. ~ We had much fun testing out the amplifying power of different surfaces, and one of my most memorable experiences was strolling down the street at one in the morning, holding up a large piece of discarded Styrofoam attached to the speakers and an iPhone, blasting "Don't Stop Believing" into the pitch-black night. ~
Onto a different topic: Something else that surprised me was the sheer homogeneity of the language. ~ While I was not naive enough to expect that I would be regularly hearing English or any other foreign language on the streets of China, I had somehow developed the impression that I would feel at ease being surrounded by exclusive Chinese speakers, despite the fact that I only converse in the language with my parents. ~ Not so. In fact, after the week spent with English-speaking friends in Beijing, I discovered that I could not slip back into the Mandarin pool like the red fish I'd thought myself to be. ~ Instead, I found myself seeking any English lifeline I could. Sometimes, that included secretly shadowing tourists if I was lucky enough to hear the familiar English or French words rattle off their unsuspecting tongues. Other times, it meant delving into a bookstore and booking it (pun-intended) for the Foreign Languages section, losing myself in the works of George Orwell or F. Scott Fitzgerald. ~
Finally, there were also the numerous accents to consider. ~ I started off fairly easily - Beijing speaks Mandarin, after all. ~ Tianjin wasn't much harder to comprehend, though I was still mildly amused when I heard a middle-aged lady loudly talking in a strong accent into her phone, as mindful of the bus-full of people around her as us Calgarians are of a hailstorm in the middle of summer. ~ That's why Chengdu hit my eardrum and ear bones with such strong force. ~ The people's lilting, song-like accent seemed just beyond my grasp to understand. ~ I remember tilting my head to the side with a confused, plastered smile on my face when a waiter offered to take my offer in a restaurant. ~ Things got even worse in Gansu, where I spent two weeks with my relatives on my dad's side. ~ I became really good at holding my tongue - mainly because the only word I could contribute to any conversation seemed to be, "what?". My cousins did attempt to teach me the accent, which simply resulted in many gales of laughter and instances of mirth, albeit at my expense. ~ I didn't mind, though - after all, I can proudly say that I survived China and fit in well enough that people even came up to me to ask for directions on the streets of Tianjin and Chengdu... as long as I kept my mouth shut. ~
