Josh:
For those of you who need clarification of the title, play this song and you will get how it is supposed to sound (you only need less than the first minute or so to get the idea):
Don't worry. It'll make sense in a second. By the way, prepare for a long post.
We live in the classiest neighborhood. I am reminded to write about this because we were lucky enough last night to hear yet another show given to us so generously by our neighbors. We didn't even ask and yet we received. How kind and giving they are.
(Very off topic side note: When I reread the word "yet" I thought, "That word is really really strange." It was so strange that I had to look it up to make sure I was using it correctly because all knowledge of this bizarre combination of letters seemed to escape my head. Yes, I used it correctly: definition #6: nevertheless. I hope everyone who reads this will now look at the word "yet" and have the same thing happen to them. There also is the distinct possibility that maybe I'm just crazy. Who knows?)
Back to the story at hand. If you recall correctly before my little side note turned into a rant, I was building something up so that you would want to read ahead to figure out what it was that the neighbors keep giving us. What was it exactly? It was just the classy neighbors shouting at the top of their lungs at each other. What? All that build up for people yelling at each other? Well ladies and gentlemen, it is much more epic than that explanation seems to show. We have experienced two epic showdowns by our neighbors and one last night that was just shouting (we were tired and didn't care enough to investigate). Without further ado, I give you the story of "Our Landlady's Granddaughters' Fist Fight":
It started like any other weekend. We were getting ready to go out (I don't remember for what but it's not important) when Audrey mentioned that she heard something. We both stopped what we were doing and listened carefully. It sounded like girls speaking loudly. Then it turned into girls shouting. Then it turned into girls shouting with things making crashing noises. We stopped and thought, "What should we do? It sounds really close." We decided to finish getting ready and start heading out ASAP so we didn't have to hear all the ruckus. It took us about five to ten minutes to finish getting ready and the entire time we heard shouting. It wasn't just normal shouting. It was "I'm shouting at the top of my lungs and I'm going to kill you" shouting. Obviously this concerned us so we headed outside. As we open the door the shouting continues and we hear sounds that sound similar to hitting and Audrey heads to the stairs while I lock the door. I start to hear crying and I head downstairs to see one girl curled up in a fetal position under our stairs crying as hard as she can with another girl squatting in front of our landlady's door. I recognize these girls as the two girls that I ran into on my way home from school. They were young teenagers that said, "Hello!" happily as I opened the gate for them and they went into their grandma's house (our landlady) and now I see them both crying hard. Needless to say we both felt extremely awkward. What could we do with a language barrier and the fact that it really isn't our business? I wasn't sure how hurt that girl was or if she even was hurt but it certainly seemed like it. We stepped outside the gate and started talking. We debated for about five minutes in front of the gate what we should while keeping an open ear just in case anything got worse. The shouting commenced once more and we were really worried. Eventually, while we were talking about what to do, we saw a face look at us from in between the crack of the wall and the gate. We both saw this and we then decided to finish it so I stayed outside (who wants a really tall and scary foreigner trying to calm down a teenage cat fight) while Audrey went it. I, of course, listened for anything that could mean trouble and I waited. I heard Audrey start talking and then I saw all three of them go upstairs into our house. At this point I started getting a little worried because it would be hard for me to hear if anything went wrong. I waited a couple minutes and debated going up there but then I saw all three coming downstairs and the two girls went into the landlady's house and Audrey came out. Apparently she told them it was loud and scary and we didn't like that. She then gave them mini-Snickers and one of them apologized and that was that.
It was absolutely insane. Neither of us had ever seen or heard anything like that, especially that close to our house. They didn't even try to hide the fact that they were fighting. They were shouting at the top of their lungs and the entire neighborhood could hear them perfectly. Normally people care if other people are watching them have a fight but apparently that wasn't a factor for them. We thought, "How strange, maybe this is just a one time crazy thing happening." NOPE!
The story of "The Insane Neighbors and the Cops Who Don't Do Anything":
Once again, it was a fairly normal weekend. Audrey had gone out with some friends to go see Prince of Persia for the second time. I had managed to survive that movie once and I wasn't interested in trying a second time (I'll tell that story a little later). So I stayed home and Audrey went out. While I was hanging out, relaxing and doing the laundry a noise struck me as odd. It started off fairly quiet then I noticed it start to grow. It was slightly familiar. I opened the door to my terrace and immediately recognized it: it was the bloody murder scream we had heard not too long ago. It was, once again, a female shouting at the top of her lungs, "Oppa! Oppa!" (which either means older brother or father depending on the pronunciation but I don't remember how it sounded exactly). I looked around to try to find it but I couldn't pinpoint where it was. I started to get a little angry and worried that something bad was happening. I threw on my shoes, grabbed my keys (after minutes of searching all the while this screaming continued) and stepped outside and looked around. I saw a few other neighbors down the street looking in the direction of my house. I looked up and it was my neighbors who are directly across from my house (so they are on the second floor). I looked around and decided I couldn't do anything so I went back inside. I tried to keep a close eye on what was going on when I got a phone call from Audrey saying they were coming home. I warned them about the show and they hurried home. While I was waiting I saw a 20-something year old girl step outside crying and shouting. I also saw an older and heavier lady step outside and keep shouting also. When Audrey and company finally got back the screaming multiplied. It got even louder so we all decided to watch out of our bedroom window. As we were talking about it between ourselves we saw a small glimmer of hope. It was a light from a police car! Finally, someone called the cops. It wasn't like I could call them considering I don't speak Korean. We all crowded by the window to see what would happen. The police rang the doorbell a couple of times and a fairly old man came out and started talking. Then the heavier older lady came out, started shouting at the police, put the man in a headlock (not kidding), shoved him back inside the house and then went back to continue yelling at the police. After about a minute of this the police shrugged their shoulders and LEFT! I can only imagine, "Oh well, Bob. It seems to be a fairly violent situation but it's upstairs and I really don't want to climb."
"I feel that, Jim. Let's roll."
And then they leave. Immediately after they start to leave the heavy lady (by the way she was younger than the old man) slaps the old man across the face and shoves him in. At this point this is getting too farcical for me and I grab my camera and here is what I get at first:
This isn't much obviously. The lady in the video is the crazy one that put the old man in the headlock and slapped him into the house. The people you hear are a gentleman named Nolan (awesome guy), Meg (mentioned earlier in the blog) and me. I only managed to get a little bit and, of course, I had missed the police. We then decide to do the responsible thing and not even bother trying to hide the fact that we are watching and step outside onto the terrace and "do laundry". Basically we all gathered onto the terrace and blatantly stared at their house. We also decided we needed a recording of the noises that they were making because they were something of legend. So we hit the record button and set it down on top of our laundry rack. Enjoy!
Have you ever heard a human being make those noises? I certainly haven't until that point. It reminds me of some sort of harpy screech. You can hear Nolan, Audrey, Meg and I commenting such as, "Oh I'll give you something to cry about!" or the imagined translation of what the lady yelled to the police, "YEAH! WE GOT THIS!" You will also notice shuffling and then a blue thing fly past the camera. In an attempt to look like we were doing work we started taking down the anti-wind screen on our window and somehow they broke a piece of plastic off of it and it shot into another neighbors yard and we giggled about it. Back to the story.
So after a long time of these terrible noises, things eventually calmed down and then stopped. I even saw that younger girl step out and do laundry like nothing ever happened. What kind of neighborhood do we live in? I feel that I need to bring a banjo along with me every time I leave just in case I need to duel someone. It's utterly ridiculous. After seeing the shouting match happen for a second time we knew that it wasn't just a fluke the first time. This was a common thing here. Apparently it's fairly common to have strangers shout at you and even have older people hit you! Where I'm from, if someone hits you, they are fair game for a "beat down" (as the young kids call it), old or not. This idea that it's acceptable to broadcast your drama across the town isn't okay with me at all. Apparently they were saying some nuggets too because when Audrey and company were on their way back they would see the other neighbors who were watching flinch or make a face. To completely nerd out, one quote is sticking my head for some reason:
"When did...the wise abandon reason for madness?" - Gandalf
I'll end this entry with that thought, even though I could rant for pages talking about what kind of life it would be to live where that was a regular occurrence and that some kind of abuse was passed over by the police. I will stop at where I am before I get too riled up and I talk about something I honestly don't know much about.
"Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
Side note: You know how I said my neighborhood is classy? It goes beyond just the shouting. I forgot to mention when we first came up to this house (and up to this day) the streets were littered with garbage. There literally is a cardboard pile with other garbage all around it, it smells like cat feces and there are swastikas all over (yes, I know that this is a Buddhist symbol but imagine when you first walk into a neighborhood and you see them everywhere, you can't help but think, "I'm going to die here, aren't I?") It was a bit much to take in at once when I first moved to Korea. Despite all my complaining, would I move? Probably not. The descriptions make it seem like some hellhole but it really isn't that bad. Let's use a euphemism and say that my neighborhood has "character", shall we?
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