The Carrefour 2021 Thread

Combination of English mode and poor quality speakers. It will never leave my head even though I can understand the song.

If you see a foreigner giggling in the aisles. It’s me

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I love it!

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I’m in there constantly and I’ve managed to totally tune that out lol

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I bet you’re tapping your foot subconsciously.

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Or shaking his booty subconsciously…

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You’ve gone native. I can’t be the only one who hears things over PA systems over and over to the point where I think I’m loosing my mind, only to point it out to a Taiwanese friend who says “oh, I didn’t even notice”.

My favorite case of Taiwanese “not even noticing” being when the MRT arriving trains started announcing the terminal station in English around 2015: “platform two to Taipei zoo”. I was teaching at a school on the brown line at the time and “Taipei Zoo” was a vocabulary word for them. I did my best impression of the announcement…and no one had any idea what I was doing. They told me they didn’t “pay attention to those things”. Meanwhile I could announce every single thing that’s announced on the brown and red lines in Mandarin, English, Fukkianese and Hakka because I was hearing it all the time. Yet, everyone was like “well maybe it’s because it’s in English that you noticed it”.

Ya overstimulate the brain from birth and takes in nothing from the environment. Explains a lot actually…

(Also, annoying music is scientifically proven to get people to leave a store faster, which means people spend less money. I have actually stood outside if PxMarts running through my shopping list and picturing where things are in order to make sure I don’t have to endure the music for more than I have to. What exactly is Taiwanese grocery store logic on this? I mean, giant Carrefours I get, since the whole family goes in and crowds the place for hours, but grocery stores?

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Impressive, very impressive.

Guy

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Ditto. A side benefit of headphones that I hadn’t previously considered.

The Chinese New Year stuff at Wellcome, however, I never managed to tune out.

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Which store do you work in?

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I feel you brah. I have extreme audio sensitivity and that shit drives me mad. I turn off the loud hailers that are set up on loop outside Watsons. I shout at songs in Seven telling everyone how bad they are. Sometimes I put my fingers in my ears to block out announcements. I tell the elevator to fuck off when it tells me to stand firm and grip the sides.

I do all the dumb things.

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That stuff is next level. The gongs alone are enough to drive you batty.

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You’re my hero. I’ve always wanted to turn off those loud megaphones just blabbing the same thing over and over. Noise pollution at it’s finest.

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Omfg I thought I was the only one who sang it this way lmao. It always plays when I’m there.

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Great explanation haha. Explains a lot!

This definitely works with me - I try to get out of there ASAP. Aside from trying to determine whether they’re really singing “shake your booty” or similar, the other thing I’m often reminded of is an old scene in The Simpsons about low employee morale. No idea how the PX Mart staff can tolerate the same annoying song over and over again all day.

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I have thought about what I would do if I had to work there. Or at Family Mart with their door noise. I would actually go crazy. As it is, I wake up in the middle of the night with store “theme songs” going through my head all the time. No amount of other music or white noise can get it to go away. It seems like a form of brainwashing or torture.

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I need to pay more attention next time I go to my local branch. I know the song used to annoy the heck out of me, but I haven’t registered it lately. Now I’m wondering if the staff mutinied and had it turned down or even off.

I suggest you not disrupt the new balance you’ve found, lest it turn out to be irreversible.

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GONG XI GONG XI GONGXI NI ya, GONG XI GONG XI GONGXI NI , LA LA LA LA BLAH BLAH, LA LA LA LA LA LA, BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH, LA LA LA LA GONG XI

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Sheesh, you people just don’t appreciate a good earworm… :roll_eyes:

I can see it’s seared permanently into your brain. Surgery may be necessary at this point. :grin:

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