My first week in Korea was an interesting experience but I must
say that nothing has gotten under my skin like the crazy lady in the building
across the alley. On my fourth night in Korea I was woken up by a
woman screaming. The first thing that raced across my mind was “oh
my gosh, someone is being murdered” but after about 30 seconds I realized that
this was not the case. I don’t care what language is being spoken,
some things are easily translated just by tone. I quickly deduced
that she was furious at her husband and was verbally berating him. I
assume that it was because he came home drunk or something (very common
here). You’ve never heard insane female shrieking until you’ve heard
this. This woman’s yelling started out like a normal angry tone and
quickly turned raced up the scale into what I would think would be
unintelligible shrieking to their Korean neighbours. She went on for
at least an hour! Lights are on all over the building across the way
so it was obvious that she had woken up half the neighbourhood but to my
surprise no one was shouting at her to shut up or had called the police. By
the way, this was occurring at 4:00 in the morning. And my rooster starts his
morning song at 7:00am so I was not a happy camper at this point. Once
again, I didn’t sleep much and went to work tired and cranky.
Well that wasn’t the end of it. The next night I was woken
up once again. This time it occurred at 5:30 in the morning and of course
no one shouted back at her. It was obvious that she was even angrier this
time around. I’m 90% sure that this woman was beating on her husband
because after smacking sounds there was the whimper of this poor man that was
probably begging her to calm down. I’m not sure if police get called for
domestic disturbances in this country but they probably should have been called.
This time around I opened up my window and screamed at her to “shut up and go
to bed.” It didn’t work. In hindsight, I should have learned
how to say it in Korean the day before. I haven’t heard anything
from her since that week but once again, I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve
started sleeping through the noise or perhaps she decided to kick her husband
out or seek out anger management classes.
No wonder people think women are crazy! They must have
spent some time in my neighbourhood. Just when I thought that I wouldn't
be disturbed anymore, there was an incident at 1:00am the next week. I
don't know what was going on and I wasn't about to open the door to poke my
head out and see. That's saying a lot because I'm the type of person that
is always listening in on the building drama in Canada. I find it more
entertaining than TV and I figure that if anything were to happen then I can
give an accurate statement to the police. Anyways, I woke up to another
woman screaming and pounding on a door down the hallway. It sounded like
she was trying to get someone to come out and from what I could hear, it
sounded like there was a man on the other side trying to calm her down.
Unfortunately for him, it didn't sound like he was lacking some skills in
the negotiation department. This woman just became angrier and angrier.
Eventually, I could hear the door open and another woman came out crying
and trying to speak in between sobs. Once again, I'm not sure of all the
details but it was definitely not pleasant to listen to.
I'm telling you, being around all of these events make it seem
like I'm in the middle of a Korean soap opera (which are quite amusing).
So the new question is, what's a girl have to do to get some sleep around
here? Oh well, at least I can say that my neighbourhood isn’t boring…
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