[quote=“Rascal”]I don’t see why it should have anything to do with you being a foreigner - maybe they do hear the noises from your apartment (which isn’t unusual if it’s directly above theirs) or maybe they are just too sensitive. From your description I don’t see any wrong-doing by yourself however.
You can choose to talk to them and see if the problem can somehow be solved - or you just ignore them. But don’t make it at Taiwanese vs. foreigner thing before you know if that is true or not, else things might quickly escalate and make things worst for both parties.[/quote]
I don’t want it to become a foreigner thing either though one couple in our building said, with looks of horror, ‘do you live in this building?’ not hello or Naruwan or Hi my name’s X and this is Y sort of thing - as we did.
Why don’t they knock on the door and say “Please make less noise” or whatever. I’m very conscious of not disturbing others with noise as I’ve had insensitive neighbours in the past. I can’t work out why they have an issue with us when the noise around us is such a circus.
Marbles dropped on tile floors, classic torture technique
Many building make some noise from the expansion and contraction of water pipes embedded in concrete which sounds like that. Nothing you can do about it, but at least you have the peace of mind that it’s not the little bastards upstairs doing it.
A lot of buildings have very poor noise insulation so it only takes a few selfish buggers in a building to make it unbearable. If you have bare tile floors be aware that almost any sound will travel below and even be amplified in the process. Obviously there’s nothing you can do about the showering noises, but it shows how poorly your building was constructed. Perhaps some rugs or carpet in a few strategic places would make a difference to them. Furniture boots as suggested in case it’s the kids just bumping into furniture and the hard foot of the table or whatever transmitting the noise into the concrete. Some way of stopping doors from closing too hard goes a long way since this sort of low frequency energy travels through concrete very easily, although it can be almost silent at source.
These people do sound a bit sensitive, but unless they are just yanking your chain I sympathise with them having had some really noisy neighbors of my own.
Take Rascal’s advice and try to defuse the situation rather than escalate it. You have no idea of the lengths some people will go to in order to right some ‘wrong’ they feel you’ve done them. :help:
That marble dropping things sounds familiar (pun intented), have heard it many times when I stayed at my first apartment in Malaysia. That mixed with scratching noises that I thought my upstairs neighbours were moving furniture every other night or so.
Can’t you choose where you want to live within the company budget? OR
Are you living in some sort of corregated steel shanty where every sound goes right through the community?
I wonder if the landlady is really passing on information or just exaggerating? You’d have to be a light sleeper to hear talking in the morning through the walls/floors (or already awake).
[color=blue]The litmus test of this is whether YOU can hear anything from your neighbors – sound travels both ways, remember.[/color]
Tell them to go and fuck themselves and that Taiwan is such a noisy shithole that you can hardly hear yourself think anyway and if they don’t like living in an two-bit apartment block with no soundproofing why don’t they go and buy a house in Yangmingshan. Oh what ? You can’t can’t afford it ? Well then Mr Fucking Sensitive Ears, don’t get above your station. You pay peanuts you get a shitty house. And remember, I live above you. Be nice or I can make your life a living hell. Or is it perhaps that you just don’t like the white man ? Ask yourself this, Pencil Dick, if a Taiwanese family were living upstairs beating the shit out of their kids and screaming and shouting at each other all fucking day and night and having the ritual Pneumatic Drills Sunday Morning Service with Liturgy every fucking week would you be complaining ? No. You’d sit there and lap it up you little coward. Shit man, I think I’ll get myself a piano, and maybe a violin, they’re real popular in Taiwan now I’m told…
I have said it before and I’ll say it again. The Taiwanese are completely innured to noise UNLESS a foreigner is making it.
[quote]Tell them to go and fuck themselves and that Taiwan is such a noisy shithole that you can hardly hear yourself think anyway and if they don’t like living in an two-bit apartment block with no soundproofing why don’t they go and buy a house in Yangmingshan. Oh what ? You can’t can’t afford it ? Well then Mr Fucking Sensitive Ears, don’t get above your station. You pay peanuts you get a shitty house. And remember, I live above you. Be nice or I can make your life a living hell. Or is it perhaps that you just don’t like the white man ? Ask yourself this, Pencil Dick, if a Taiwanese family were living upstairs beating the shit out of their kids and screaming and shouting at each other all fucking day and night and having the ritual Pneumatic Drills Sunday Morning Service with Liturgy every fucking week would you be complaining ? No. You’d sit there and lap it up you little coward. Shit man, I think I’ll get myself a piano, and maybe a violin, they’re real popular in Taiwan now I’m told…
I have said it before and I’ll say it again. The Taiwanese are completely innured to noise UNLESS a foreigner is making it.[/quote]
What I really don’t understand is why my neighbours under us complained when my kids were playing 1-on-1 basketball around midnight or early in the morning (around 6-7 before going to school). They are a 3-generation family, so they should be used to kids activity.
Anyway, they compained to the management, the management complained to us, and we complained to the landlord (we move out if you don’t fix this, and it is a bloody noisy area anyway). A couple of rounds with that and no more complaints, even if we have escalated to baseball practice down the hallway. We have invited the downstair kids to join us, but somehow they are not interested.
我說它和以前我再將認為它。臺灣人是完全地innured 吵鬧除非外國人做它。
Complilments from Systran.
Will this help if I put it on the bulleting board and the nieghbours’ doors?[/quote]
What a coincidence - the moment I posted this, I got 400 posts, and was promoted to “Newspaper Editor”.
You thin that is a sign - maybe I should pursue a career in translating English News into Chinese…
[quote=“wolf_reinhold”]I dare you to translate hexuan’s missive and tack it onto every door in the apt. block.[/quote][quote]勸告他們去並且與和那臺灣性交是您能幾乎不聽見自己認為無論如何的這樣一喧鬧的shithole 並且如果他們不喜歡居住在微不足道的公寓樓沒有隔聲為什麼他們不去買一個房子在Yangmingshan 。噢什麼? 您不能無法買得起它? 井然後Fucking Sensitive Ears 先生, 不得到在您的駐地之上。您支付您得到一個shitty 房子的花生。並且記住, 我居住在您之上。是好的或我能做您的生活生存地獄。或它是或許那您不喜歡白人嗎? 請求自己這, 鉛筆迪克, 如果一個臺灣家庭是生存在樓上摔打shit 在他們的孩子外面並且尖叫和呼喊在彼此所有該死的日夜和有禮節氣動力學的鑽子星期天早晨服務以儀式每個該死的星期您會抱怨? 不。您會坐那裡和會舔它您小懦夫。Shit 人, 我認為我將得到鋼琴, 並且可能小提琴, 他們是真正普遍在臺灣我現在被告訴… 。。
[/quote]
There is a god, some where in Taiwan. :bravo: :bravo: .,…Now who ever did this translation, could you do something for me concerning the Taiwanese’s deniel of racism/
after reading the thread…i hv a comment to put in about the sound proofing in apts here. i wonder if any building expert here can shed some light on its design purpose.
where i live, at the lift landing, one can practically hear everything that is going on in any house, all conversations details. the other day, i visited my adjacent neighbour for the kids to play together, then i realised that at where my neighbour placed their sofa, they cud hear our TV loud and clear so I wondered how they enjoyed their own TV? from then, I am conscious in keeping the volume really low. Now as i am writing this message, someone is running vigorously upstairs to and fro…exercising??? And every night without fail…from my bedroom wall where our bed is placed, we can hear another neighbour’s 5-6 months old crying for a while…it’s like a “lullaby” we hear before bedtime
for our case, we hv no complaints about us nor hv we complained about others…but the issue is more on privacy. The irony is we all live in private apts but we have literally no privacy. I can only share that conditioning help to make us oblivious but does not rid the issue, they just become acceptable. So maybe yr neighbour has to know that many apts in taipei have lower sound proofing and perhaps this is the building standard that has been set up as an acceptable guideline. of course the cookies and friendly chats help too.
Most things are tolerable especially when it is not within our control. If yr neighbour still cannot see the light, then maybe it’s time they move to a “landed” property where they will hv no neighbours above or below them.
They have street reconstruction at night, 100 idiots with loud scooters every minute, people shouting in the streets at night.
Neighbour hammers at 11 pm, neighbour rearranging the stones in his backyard at midnight (boom!).
But before 9.00am and after 10pm on week days, nobody in our house plays music loud or TV, everybody is soooo silent regarding normal noise. But if you feel like reparing your wall at midnight, that seems to be acceptable.
My wife (taiwanese) reminded me often to respect the 10pm weekdays and 11pm weekend noise deadline. Last time I watched TV with normal volume at 11pm she reminded me to turn down the volume, but I could hardly understand her for the neighbourhood hammering and shouting and doing motor-scooter repairs (vroooooooom vrooooooom) like crazy.
Correct, I anticipated the translation to be so ridiculos that all the Chinese literate around here would understand it was posted as a joke. Did I really misjudge my audience so much…??? :help:
For us Chinese illiterate, I does not make a bit difference anyway.
You can find the 'Practical English-to-Chinese Joke Machine" here:
