Just got back from walking the neighborhood. Have been hearing the local temple’s music all day (part of a four day event). Was surprised to see they moved the musicians to another location. So there were 10 musicians in the parking lot of a fruit factory. Only them…no spectators. Wife thinks maybe the temple decided to give the neighbors a break from the noise…oh, I mean music.
Actually, I feel sorry for the people I see at this temple. They have many such events during the year which seem to basically be fund raising events. The “managers” of the temple are usually never to be seen except sitting at tables taking donations. Ten years ago they put up several signs in the neighborhood showing the future temple design to be built with donations. Shows a temple area about ten times bigger. The old people (like my mother-in-law) have been donating to this temple for 60 years. Most of them are people of limited means. However, there is so much pressure to believe all of the customs and support this temple. Today, a neighbor dropped by to remind my mother-in-law of the four day event. Every week there is some custom they must follow. Actually, she is in the other room listening to a fortune teller which will determine what color she wears tomorrow…
Thanks for the replies and chiming-in responses! Glad to know I’m not the only one who has been really worn down by this in the last few months. I’m willing to tolerate a lot and never want to end up as ‘that’ visitor who complains about everything ‘not being like in Europe’ – but, wow! All this noise really must take a biological toll on people.
I suppose my own personal discomfort at things like the climate, specifically the humidity, means my tolerance is way lower for other ambient discomforts ;). I don’t think it’s an accident that I’m really starting to notice this as the spring and summer comes around and the weather is nicer out. It’s hard to enjoy outdoor spaces or to relax in the sunshine with so much noise around! And getting a good night’s sleep can be hard enough, climatically speaking, without having to set your circadian rhythm to a pneumatic drill or neighbourhood dog.
I think the real problem is that Taiwan’s laws and way of life is too similar to the US. In the US you don’t notice all the annoying vehicles (there are many) because things are far more spread out, and zoning laws in the US except for the eastern seaboard cities don’t really allow multi family dwelling apart from apartments. So they exist, but they’re far away.
But come Taiwan, with everything so close together, and single family dwelling is rarer than hen’s teeth here, especially up north where stuff just happens in a smaller space, every one noisy vehicle, construction, etc. is noticed 100 fold.
The population density of Taiwan requires very strict and well enforced regulations. But I think people are so inured to the noise that they almost pretend not to notice it, or just says there’s nothing they can do about it.
By the way, one tip, next time they make noise like this just call 1999 and report the fucker. If it’s a loud scooter try to note down the license plate, if it’s construction file a complaint. They’re supposed to have a permit to do construction like this.
Yea I fucking hate Taiwan because of these thing too, and the humidity just makes me want to get the fuck out and envy those who are free to do so.
In terms of construction and renovation, treatment of public space, etc, generally – as attested to above in a lot of similar examples to mine – I think this is actually much more of an East Asian developing/developed economy scenario than like a US-derived attitude.
Shops being torn out and refurbed every season reminds me a lot of Korea. Ditto with it being right on top of residential housing in high-density neighbourhoods. But there just seems to be a lot less tolerance and a lot more consideration for noise there. Every building site will have a large digital sign giving a decibel meter reading at the entrance, for instance. They’re at least making a show of being conscious of it (even if sometimes unavoidably loud). Same with the barking pets and loud vehicles. That is just not a tolerated part of Korean culture (if you consider that every single apartment there will have on average 2.3 yapping Pomeranians, you’ll see why).
I’m living in an admittedly pretty antique corner of the city so I can appreciate somewhat that major construction isn’t the easiest thing to sort out, logistically. But it’s really been 2 months now of just two fellas going at this old building and ruined lean-to with a bunch of construction hardware probably better suited to fixing a water pipe or repairing a pothole. I’ve never seen a two-person outfit on a rooftop in Europe trying to take a five-storey concrete-rebar building apart using a jackhammer. They’re going to be there for 6 months at this rate.
This should be illegal, and dangerous as hell. So how do they know what to jackhammer? What if the structure collapses on them? They use explosives to take down buildings for a reason, but why is this never done here? Are explosives that restricted here?
Cow gets loose and somehow gets on the highway, causes multi-car accident on highway, one person injured. Owner, when found, will be fined between 300 and 600 NT…
I’m in no wise a construction expert, least of all from my vantage here, scowling out of a window, so ultimately I’m sure that they do know what they’re doing … tho’ I can’t vouch for on-site safety standards in Taiwan. But it does seem, as a poster above suggested, that they’re trying to do the job in a particularly low-tech and cheap, cost-saving way … at the great expense of way, way increased noise!
Is there a deadline? If there’s no deadline and they just want the structure gone, they might have elected to do it cheap. Otherwise time is money.
But it’s not safe to just demolish a building with 2 guys with jackhammers. Who’s going to call for help should the structure collapse for whatever reason?
I imagine those who are affected will file a civil lawsuit about it, this is just the traffic fine. Civil judgment often far exceed criminal or administrative penalties.
As regards a deadline … I asked the landlord today if she knows anything about the construction project or whether she has a vague notion of when it’s meant to stop (the single-storey lean-to structure they demolished was attached to my building so I figure she might have been given some information).
She replied she has no idea but “they only drill in the morning”. Which is just categorically, blatantly false, haha. I have no idea if she’s just repeating verbatim what she’s been told by the people responsible for the construction but … seems that’s the line she is trying to sell me. If the noise was limited to a few reasonable hours a day, I’d have no problem making myself scarce and going elsewhere … but it’s teeth-chatteringly loud from 8:30am until 4:30pm, without fail, every single day. It seems to be a bit of a big ask to request that I pay a monthly rent for a space that’s only habitable and suitable as a place to sleep. That sounds like a hostel, not a long-term lease!
I have zero desire to get into an endless he-said/she-said with my landlord so I think I might just cut my losses on this month’s payment and skip out of town. From the other responses above, it seems this is way too depressing a regularity for it to be worth me struggling against. Taiwan you are welcome to keep your hearing loss and respiratory illnesses!
Really hard to find a place that won’t have some noisy construction going on.
These things happen. Poor choices. I found the perfect space for my audio/video studio. Even though I had lived in the area my whole life and knew the area very well I leased the place.
My recording studio was at the approach/departure end of the runway at the local military base.
It wasn’t a big problem. Was crushed the first time I had to record a track over but it really wasn’t a major problem. Your problem just like mine was making a poor decision.
Anyhow, I live along a very busy road in Daan in Taipei. The building is maybe 10 years old and really nice. My lovely 5th floor balcony is really noisy. I can’t even hear my music while wearing ear buds. Now, I simply put on construction type hearing protectors, look like big, over the ear headphones, that are really great. They are very comfortable to wear and I can hear my music just fine now.
I was trying to take a nap the other day and the neighbor above me was building something. They were using drills and a hammer. It wasn’t pleasant.
Anyhow, you can get some great hearing protectors for around $100nt from almost any hardware store.