To those who do not play piano all day long,
So the piano wars between my mysterious Chinese neighbors and I have reached a new level of animosity this past week as I brought in a new super-weapon that has wreaked havoc on my adversaries and now the Americans are defeating the piano-playing Chinamen. My super-weapon's power has developed into a true Gettysburg turning-point of the war. Or you could find an even more accurate similarity between the 1980 Soviet vs. Afghanistan War where at first the Afghans were getting cut to pieces by Soviet war planes and choppers; however, the tribal Afghans were soon sent aircraft-destroying heat-seeking missiles that a single person could fire (from the United States of course) that easily destroyed the Russian low-flying planes and helicopters. This changed the balance of power in the conflict and lead to an Afghan victory...true story. Irony can be quite ironic because these same Afghan militiamen are those with which American troops are engaged in conflict in modern day.
When I first moved into my apartment I brought with me one iPod stereo which is loud enough to hold down a Baltimore ghetto street corner. So loud that I initially decided that it was too loud for the paper thin walls between my apartment and the next, and I have had it stored under my bed for well over a year now. Nevertheless, as the Piano Wars have become official I have been forced to arm myself with the most ferocious/annoying instrument of eardrum shattering nausea that I have available...so the iPod stereo was recently dusted off and prepared for battle.
In China most people have a 'me-first' mentality and do not care much about those around them, and I have seriously tried not to embody this belief which I believe to be wrong. Unlike Chinese, I do not: spit on the street; cough all of the time without covering my mouth; sing "Lady Gaga" songs out loud like the metrosexual Chinamen at my gym; I don't throw trash everywhere; nor do I steal the taxis of old people or women with babies. Furthermore, I still hold doors open for people; tip on occasion (although much less than 18%); and try to help somebody if they are in need. I have been told that most of the people in China come from outside cities and villages and therefore they don't view the Beijing people as being their own; therefore, there is no kinship between most people. Or at least people that you see walking down the street. In terms of my apartment: nobody talks to one another and everybody seems to believe that they have carte blanche to be as annoying as they want. People sing late at night; jump up and down in apartments that have people living underneath; and of course...play the F%*&^ing PIANO all day long with no rhyme or rhythm. Until now I have tried to be different, but a man can only stay humble and true for so long before breaking...and I have quite simply, had enough with this bullshit!
I have spent the last few weeks downloading the loudest, most hardcore rap songs created in the last fifteen years; and a fine compilation of: Tupac, Master P, Nelly, Lil' Wayne, Warren G, and any other rapper who is willing to fight the good fight against my Chinese adversaries has been recruited from Compton, to New Orleans, and all the way to Queens. The Chinese didn't know what hit them....
One day at around 6PM I came back from a long of day of work to hear the "ping-pang-ping-pinging" of Chinese fingers hitting the wrong keys at the wrong time on the wrong song to create what most would call 'musical gibberish'. I waited for the right moment to strike as I placed my iPod stereo as close as possible to the wall and loaded it up with a rap megastorm of pain lead by Master P's true genius song "Make Em' Say Uhhh". By the third chorus the Chinese family/small village that is living next door started banging against the wall and screaming for me to stop like their house was on fire. Nevertheless, I made it rain for hours. I even went out and grabbed a coffee and left the music on full-blast to come back to an apartment where my neighbors were still banging on the walls for me to stop the rap rage referendum and let them continue their pursuit of piano happiness. I kept it going until about midnight.
The Chinese piano playing village next door probably thought this was a one-time occurrence but they were of course wrong because my rap warriors would came back again the next night, and the next night, and the next night after that. Until I changed my tactics to reinforce my disgust with their poor piano-playing by only blasting rap music when I would hear the piano. If the piano playing stopped the music stopped. They soon got the point. Since I have rarely heard the piano over the last few days; although, I hear a whole lot of the olde man yelling and screaming next door in a fit of rage that his piano super-school has been vanquished by the Western capitalist pigs.
The one fear that I have is that the old "Chinese Neighborhood Protector" group is gong to one day slit my throat. The old people in the surrounding apartments who have been retired for multiple decades have literally nothing to do all day. They have taken over the bulk of the territory around the school and the Chinese government pays them pensions (even though unlike our pension system they didn't actually have to put anything in...so it is a good deal for them). It's strange but the elderly may be the biggest demographic at many Chinese universities, because from the 1970's until recently they were all given free on-campus housing for life at most school in mainland China. Since real estate prices are too high they don't won't move out of their university homes, and the universities are too cheap to pay them to. My neighbors have created some sort of civilian militia in which they all wear red sashes around their right arms that literally say "Chinese Neighborhood Protector". I would bet dollars to donuts that the olde piano king is part of the militia. I get this eerie sense every time I walk outside while getting mad-dogged by the red-sashed gang of seniors that something bad is going to happen. Maybe it is because they whisper in each other's ears and stare at me like I'm an albino panda that has murdered their brother and must die...equal parts animosity and mystery are coming from the senior gang. I am pretty positive that they hate me.
However, at least I am comforted by the sense of calm knowing that I no longer have to deal with the piano torture tool all day every day. Hopefully this will be the end of the Piano Wars. I would like to get back to blogging about my classes and how I have named students Wombat & Alf.
signing off in victory,
Master P's Number #1 Fan
P.S. I can hear the Olde Piano King screaming on the phone next door as I type this. He has used the word "laowai" which means stupid foreigner maybe twenty times in the last ten minutes. Score one for Uncle Sam...bitches.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Piano Wars
To the proud few that are still reading this blog... I salute you. I need to be saluted right now as I am in not of the best of moods"
I am currently writing this blog with the most annoying sounds ever heard by man pulsating through my eardrums. This is because my mysterious neighbors (I don't know know them because they are actually in a different building but we share a common wall) play what sounds like a grand piano all day and most of the night...and they play it horribly. Horribly would actually be compliment for the nauseating "ping-ping-ping-ping-pinging" which is always ringing into my never-peaceful domicile. What makes this situation ten times worse is that the common wall is next to my desk where I spend most of my time at; and the common wall happens to be about as thick as a piece of sandpaper. For the 18 months that I have lived in my apartment the piano-playing of my neighbors has not improved one iota. Their repertoire consists of three songs which are played again...................and again............and again.............and they are never played correctly. When old man river who I believe to be the man of the house is feeling frisky he will do some singing while somebody else does the playing.
Initially I thought that they were running some sort of a piano-playing school so I was able to understand why their piano-playing was so incredibly irritating. However, I am able to hear their voices as well, and if there were any sort of coaching/teaching I would hear it. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that it is likely just this old couple trying to teach themselves how to play the piano; and that other family members take tries on their own at the piano death trap. Maybe they are blind? Or maybe they are running a social experiment to see how long it takes me to completely snap, and that the walls are actually see-through glass with a team of scientists watching my ever move? If that is the case...well they are close to the point of no return.
I have no idea how many people live in this apartment but my best guess would be five. Grandparents, parents, and one child; but I could be wrong. Most definitely there is an old man and a woman, and the old man's voice is the loudest and most obnoxious. You see the universities in China used to have a deal where the teachers were given housing if they taught for the university for a certain number of years; this was especially common during the 1970's after "The Cultural Revolution" when Mao Zedong had inspired the children to beat the crap out of their teachers and get rid of all the 'capitalist roaders' in society. What he really wanted the children to do was to help him retake power and get rid of all of his adversaries, which Mao was able to accomplish by using propaganda and destroying all education, religious artifacts, historical monuments, and anything of high value that had been an important part of the former society... all so he could become supreme leader again and continue to make poor decisions for the good of nobody. It's crazy to see Mao's face all over China these days when if you really know the history of things he was a bloodthirsty tyrant who is responsible for the greatest mass-starvation in the modern era and indirectly caused 50 million Chinese deaths...but that is another story. Chinese history books have literally omitted the time periods of 1959-1961 (Great Starvation) & 1966-1976 (Cultural Revolution); or shifted blame to others when it was really almost completely Mao's fault...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
Anyways, during the 1970's it was hard to recruit teachers because they had previously been used as human pinatas by their students. Furthermore, many of these students (called "Red Guards" at the time) went on to prominent roles in government and were never punished; I can't imagine this sits well with the families of former teachers who were beaten, tortured, and executed for trying to teach Math Class. Therefore, the universities needed a humongous carrot to encourage teachers to go to universities like the one that I teach at is; so they decided that all teachers would be given free housing; furthermore, the teacher's were promised retirement payments which are similar to American pensions except you only receive money when you retire but don't have to put any money in...yes, it's a very good deal. Nowadays, there is an implicit understanding that teachers who are hired will have their jobs for a lifetime, and that they will be given free retirement money. Unfortunately, the housing has all been given out and it is utterly ridiculous to me because you have these red-brick buildings that are at least forty years olding all over the campus that take up way too much room and look atrocious.
Nowadays, with real estate prices at historical highs in China these retired teachers are permanent fixtures in all of the best Chinese universities. The different universities have tried to get them to relocated but with their friends on campus that they have literally known for fifty year, the teachers have have made it crystal clear that they aren't going anywhere. When they have tried the teachers have revolted, and they have taken over all of the best territories at the different universities and act like they own the school...which is annoying but understandable. I guess if you go through famines, revolutions, and other shenanigans you should certainly feel as if you are entitled to a good slice of life...and they take it!
Additionally, there are lots of really good schools around my neighborhood so it is common for the grandparents to have their children and even their grandchildren come live with them. These are not big apartments by the way: bedroom, living room, miniature bathroom, small kitchen, and an even smaller dining room; and all of the apartments are the same. In my building and the surrounding buildings almost every other apartment is occupied by at the very least five Chinese people (it's a good thing that they are so short). It is quite common to see parents pushing their parents in wheelchairs with the grandchild lurking around in the background peeing in public; in China children under the age of seven are given carte blanche to go the bathroom in public whether it be #1 or #2...it is terribly disgusting! I can't tell you how many times I have been walking to class and I have seen a Chinese father holding a piece of cardboard under his five year-old son who is dropping a deuce in public...stern! Oh and of course the Dad applauds after the son performs his miraculous feat; as if the son has scored a three-point shot in basketball.
So I try to spend as little time in my apartment as possible because I fear that I will "snap" one of these days; and on average every three months I come very close. I try to take my laptop and Kindle to different coffee shops so that I can get away from my neighbor's painful piano of doom; nevertheless, with Chinese weather being downright awful I sometimes get stuck at my desk with a ton of work to do. When the full moon is out this can create one of two possible outcomes: #1, a basketball toss at the wall from three-pointer to slam-dunk depending on my anger; #2, a medicine ball smash. Today, it was a #1 & #2 day! Now this is not something I am proud of as I try my best not to get caught into these situations in China. The olde Thadeus Claymore (my former self) would have been smashing the wall on a regular basis. Nevertheless, I am trying to get along with my Chinese brothers even though they annoy the hell out of me, but sometimes I just can't...
After today's wall smash my neighbors are acting like a bee hive that was kicked in by a professional futbol player. At first they were shocked, as if there was an earthquake or a bomb had exploded. Secondly, screams shouted and I heard lots of moving around like maybe they thought that the wall was coming down, and they were frantic to see who was injured. Finally, the screamings of anti-foreigner slang (I guess they have figured out that I am not a comrade) followed suit with olde man river acting like he was going to charge thru my front wall with a Chinese battalion and pick up where the Korean War left off.
As I type this my episode has been unfolding and olde man river is really yelling and cursing. He is probably two-feet tall and can't walk, but his voice is starting to scare me a little bit. It sounds like one of those old-school Kung Fu movies where the Mr. Miagi ragged olde man beats the shit out of the upstart punk. I wish I had an air horn right now or something that could really tilt the balance of power in my favor. But alas, I have no heavy artillery with which to take my warfare to the next level. Anyways, I'm gonna get the F%^& out of dodge for a bit and grab a coffee. I'll update my story next time I am on here unless the enemy gets to me first.
from the war room,
General Custer
P.S. I have continued my extraordinary tradition of giving my students ridiculous names, so far I have added these names to my list of extraordinary gentlemen/gentlewomen of China: Wombat, Alf, Grouse, Lars, Bettina, Xavier, Caesar the VI.
I am currently writing this blog with the most annoying sounds ever heard by man pulsating through my eardrums. This is because my mysterious neighbors (I don't know know them because they are actually in a different building but we share a common wall) play what sounds like a grand piano all day and most of the night...and they play it horribly. Horribly would actually be compliment for the nauseating "ping-ping-ping-ping-pinging" which is always ringing into my never-peaceful domicile. What makes this situation ten times worse is that the common wall is next to my desk where I spend most of my time at; and the common wall happens to be about as thick as a piece of sandpaper. For the 18 months that I have lived in my apartment the piano-playing of my neighbors has not improved one iota. Their repertoire consists of three songs which are played again...................and again............and again.............and they are never played correctly. When old man river who I believe to be the man of the house is feeling frisky he will do some singing while somebody else does the playing.
Initially I thought that they were running some sort of a piano-playing school so I was able to understand why their piano-playing was so incredibly irritating. However, I am able to hear their voices as well, and if there were any sort of coaching/teaching I would hear it. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that it is likely just this old couple trying to teach themselves how to play the piano; and that other family members take tries on their own at the piano death trap. Maybe they are blind? Or maybe they are running a social experiment to see how long it takes me to completely snap, and that the walls are actually see-through glass with a team of scientists watching my ever move? If that is the case...well they are close to the point of no return.
I have no idea how many people live in this apartment but my best guess would be five. Grandparents, parents, and one child; but I could be wrong. Most definitely there is an old man and a woman, and the old man's voice is the loudest and most obnoxious. You see the universities in China used to have a deal where the teachers were given housing if they taught for the university for a certain number of years; this was especially common during the 1970's after "The Cultural Revolution" when Mao Zedong had inspired the children to beat the crap out of their teachers and get rid of all the 'capitalist roaders' in society. What he really wanted the children to do was to help him retake power and get rid of all of his adversaries, which Mao was able to accomplish by using propaganda and destroying all education, religious artifacts, historical monuments, and anything of high value that had been an important part of the former society... all so he could become supreme leader again and continue to make poor decisions for the good of nobody. It's crazy to see Mao's face all over China these days when if you really know the history of things he was a bloodthirsty tyrant who is responsible for the greatest mass-starvation in the modern era and indirectly caused 50 million Chinese deaths...but that is another story. Chinese history books have literally omitted the time periods of 1959-1961 (Great Starvation) & 1966-1976 (Cultural Revolution); or shifted blame to others when it was really almost completely Mao's fault...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
Anyways, during the 1970's it was hard to recruit teachers because they had previously been used as human pinatas by their students. Furthermore, many of these students (called "Red Guards" at the time) went on to prominent roles in government and were never punished; I can't imagine this sits well with the families of former teachers who were beaten, tortured, and executed for trying to teach Math Class. Therefore, the universities needed a humongous carrot to encourage teachers to go to universities like the one that I teach at is; so they decided that all teachers would be given free housing; furthermore, the teacher's were promised retirement payments which are similar to American pensions except you only receive money when you retire but don't have to put any money in...yes, it's a very good deal. Nowadays, there is an implicit understanding that teachers who are hired will have their jobs for a lifetime, and that they will be given free retirement money. Unfortunately, the housing has all been given out and it is utterly ridiculous to me because you have these red-brick buildings that are at least forty years olding all over the campus that take up way too much room and look atrocious.
Nowadays, with real estate prices at historical highs in China these retired teachers are permanent fixtures in all of the best Chinese universities. The different universities have tried to get them to relocated but with their friends on campus that they have literally known for fifty year, the teachers have have made it crystal clear that they aren't going anywhere. When they have tried the teachers have revolted, and they have taken over all of the best territories at the different universities and act like they own the school...which is annoying but understandable. I guess if you go through famines, revolutions, and other shenanigans you should certainly feel as if you are entitled to a good slice of life...and they take it!
Additionally, there are lots of really good schools around my neighborhood so it is common for the grandparents to have their children and even their grandchildren come live with them. These are not big apartments by the way: bedroom, living room, miniature bathroom, small kitchen, and an even smaller dining room; and all of the apartments are the same. In my building and the surrounding buildings almost every other apartment is occupied by at the very least five Chinese people (it's a good thing that they are so short). It is quite common to see parents pushing their parents in wheelchairs with the grandchild lurking around in the background peeing in public; in China children under the age of seven are given carte blanche to go the bathroom in public whether it be #1 or #2...it is terribly disgusting! I can't tell you how many times I have been walking to class and I have seen a Chinese father holding a piece of cardboard under his five year-old son who is dropping a deuce in public...stern! Oh and of course the Dad applauds after the son performs his miraculous feat; as if the son has scored a three-point shot in basketball.
So I try to spend as little time in my apartment as possible because I fear that I will "snap" one of these days; and on average every three months I come very close. I try to take my laptop and Kindle to different coffee shops so that I can get away from my neighbor's painful piano of doom; nevertheless, with Chinese weather being downright awful I sometimes get stuck at my desk with a ton of work to do. When the full moon is out this can create one of two possible outcomes: #1, a basketball toss at the wall from three-pointer to slam-dunk depending on my anger; #2, a medicine ball smash. Today, it was a #1 & #2 day! Now this is not something I am proud of as I try my best not to get caught into these situations in China. The olde Thadeus Claymore (my former self) would have been smashing the wall on a regular basis. Nevertheless, I am trying to get along with my Chinese brothers even though they annoy the hell out of me, but sometimes I just can't...
After today's wall smash my neighbors are acting like a bee hive that was kicked in by a professional futbol player. At first they were shocked, as if there was an earthquake or a bomb had exploded. Secondly, screams shouted and I heard lots of moving around like maybe they thought that the wall was coming down, and they were frantic to see who was injured. Finally, the screamings of anti-foreigner slang (I guess they have figured out that I am not a comrade) followed suit with olde man river acting like he was going to charge thru my front wall with a Chinese battalion and pick up where the Korean War left off.
As I type this my episode has been unfolding and olde man river is really yelling and cursing. He is probably two-feet tall and can't walk, but his voice is starting to scare me a little bit. It sounds like one of those old-school Kung Fu movies where the Mr. Miagi ragged olde man beats the shit out of the upstart punk. I wish I had an air horn right now or something that could really tilt the balance of power in my favor. But alas, I have no heavy artillery with which to take my warfare to the next level. Anyways, I'm gonna get the F%^& out of dodge for a bit and grab a coffee. I'll update my story next time I am on here unless the enemy gets to me first.
from the war room,
General Custer
P.S. I have continued my extraordinary tradition of giving my students ridiculous names, so far I have added these names to my list of extraordinary gentlemen/gentlewomen of China: Wombat, Alf, Grouse, Lars, Bettina, Xavier, Caesar the VI.
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