Noisy paradise

It’s 7.30 in the morning, and my familiar sources of noise aggravation have started for the day.

Below, along the railway line, roosters are crowing, or whatever it is that those birds do. The sun is up, but these birds are so stupid, they keep making noise.

The passenger trains have also started. The driver keeps his hand on the horn as the train approaches the station, which lies just beyond my place. That’s intended to warn monks and school children walking along the railway tracks that a train is coming.

The locomotives are old and noisy. According to a report in the papers this month, the nation’s stock of passenger trains is in a poor state – aged, poorly maintained and inclined to break down.

The local station

Occasionally they run out of puff before they reach the station, and come to a stop in the middle of the tracks. The driver revs the engine, trying to get it moving again. The folk who live along the railway line come out to watch.

If it was a car, they would give it a push, Thais being helpful types. But the train, which has three or four carriages, is too big. So they just look at it.

Eventually, the driver gets it going again, and the school children and traders who travel on it breath a sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, back in the condo, life is stirring. Across the hallway, the Chinese man with two wives has fled for the day, but his mother and two wives are trying to dress his two young offspring. The baby is compliant, and screams only occasionally. The first-born screams whenever he can, as an attention-getting device.

The boy does not like being dressed, so kicks up a ruckus. The Chinese family knows he does this every morning, as regular as clockwork (or as predictable as those birds cackling), but they leave the door of their place open anyway, so we can all hear.

It opens into the hallway which we share, and which the boy regards as his personal play space. His screams echo down the hallway, and wake up tenants.

Well, they wake me up. I haven’t conducted a poll. But as they are the only young family on the floor of this condo, their presence must have been noticed by other tenants. Thais, however, are less inclined to complain than foreigners, so the Chinese get away with it.

I am reading a dictionary of ‘new’ Thai words, published by the Royal Institute, keepers of the nation’s language. Most of the new loan words which make it into that dictionary are Chinese, or English in origin.

Each word is illustrated with an example in Thai. In one, two Chinese enter a bus, talking obliviously at the top of their voices, annoying the Thai passengers.

Even among Thais, Chinese are known for being noisy. Reading that cheered my spirits.

Postscript: Now they are arguing. The granny is getting stuck into one of Mr China's two wives (he has one child by each). They are going hammer and tongs at each other in Chinese. Of course, their door is open. I have put on the Eagles, turned up loud, to compete.