Making A Noise

I grew up in the city and have lived in places close to busy main roads. I'm not someone who complains about noise. You learn to live with it.

The extent to which it's possible to filter noise out of consciousness was brought home forcibly to me earlier this evening when I standing around in one of this Place's ubiquitous shopping malls for twenty minutes or so waiting for Noi to get back to me. Lost in thought, I was completely unaware of the fact it was noisy until it suddenly occurred to me to listen (carrying out an exercise I get students to do in drama sometimes, just listening to ambient noise.) At that point I realised just how ferocious the noise was, and how curiously empty. This is not noise I would want to live with.

That put me in mind of something that happened to us over the weekend. We went to a branch of a bank in which I have an account in another mall in order to transfer some funds to Malaysia, for payment towards our soon-to-be-realised renovation work. To my astonishment whoever manages the branch had arranged for extra loud music to be played on a big sound system, as part of some kind of promotion, right next to the information desk. Oh, and there were balloons as well, as if to soften the pain.