Piano Wars: Round Deus

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.