Batten Down the Pieholes!

As we approach the lunar new year and enter (this time for real) the year of the golden pig, everyone has their minds on the good fortune it may bestow on us all. Many Koreans are rushing to procreate and make sure they have a child born in this year of wealth and prosperity. While those things are appealing to me, the one thing I crave the most these days -which is not being offered by the honeyed hog - is some peace and quiet.

I think most who know me would agree I'm generally a sedate kind of guy. Before moving to the gargantuan city of Seoul, I lived a mostly calm and quiet life with few annoyances. However, whether it was loud, obnoxious goofballs living upstairs who thrashed about at all hours of the night, or some woman yakking into her cellphone on the bus, noise was usually the source of my irritation.

These days I feel as if I'm fighting a constant battle against noise. Everywhere I turn my eardrums are being assaulted endlessly. Blaring fruit trucks run the streets in the morning, whining and shouting children own my day, and even now all around me are the cacophonous sound effects from dozens of computer games being played at once. Although headphones are available to everyone at the Internet cafe, it seems I'm the only one considerate enough to use them ... and I mostly type and surf the interweb.

And don't even think about going to the mall. You step into that cyclone of noise and bustle for half an hour and you want to start kicking strangers in the face. As much as I enjoy shopping, I can't spend much time there before I become overwhelmed by the sounds, colors, and lights and essentially become a lost soul wandering from smoothie stand to smoothie stand.

My lord, there are a lot of people! And they're all trying to talk over one another. And when they're not talking to someone they're with, they're talking to someone on the phone. And when they're not on the phone, their phones are ringing with shrill versions of the same popular songs that the stores are playing for the customers at ear-splitting volume.

It's bad enough that about 2 million people decided to go buy jeans the same day I did, but I still cannot understand the logic of these stores in Korea where employees shriek continuously about sales and their products. I walk into a department store and we got an employee every four feet hawking their wares. Sometimes these pushy people are wailing into megaphones. I get the idea! You guys want me to buy something here! There's no need to add to the severe noise pollution and shout your guts up trying to convince people, who have come willingly into your store, that they should look around. And grocery stores need to learn that having a fruit-monger at every turn is overkill.

It seems like everyone has gotten so much louder these days and I really feel the world needs to to learn to shut the hell up. I can't hear myself think! Can anyone? A Golden Pig is all well and good, but I'm hoping next year is devoted to the deaf-mute badger or something.