258 CultureShock! China
morning. That is cut short when a high-pitched noise and
rattling wall wake you up at 6:30 am. The construction crew
renovating the upstairs apartment seem to have decided to
get an early start at it today. You respond by: Calling the management office and asking them to make
the crew stop drilling.
Personally going upstairs to ask the crew to stop drilling.
Covering your head with a pillow and hoping you are tired
enough to sleep through the noise for a few more hours.
Personally going upstairs to not only ask the crew to stop
drilling, but when they laugh at you, to take their drill away
from them and bring it back to your apartment, lock the
door behind you and go back to sleep.Comments
Although is a response that was deployed by a person
who had been doing battle with a construction crew for
two weeks, the appropriate response is . In the last five
years in China, regulations have been passed at a city level
and within compounds about the hours that construction is
allowed. It is the obligation of the building management to
enforce these regulations. If they don’t, in many cities you
can call a citizen complaint line and the police will follow
up. Most construction crews are made up of peasants who
come from the countryside and live in the apartment while
they are doing construction. Typically they are sleeping on
the floor and are paid upon completion of the project, so it
is in their interest to finish quickly. They are up with the sun,
have no interest in being your neighbour, and come from
a place where there are no rules. They will find a hundred
ways around the rules, which have little relevance to them,
to get the job done.SITUATION 9
The kindly Chinese family living next to you shows up one
evening en mass, explaining to you that Junior in the corner
has been accepted to Harvard but is unable to get a visa.
Since you are an American, they would appreciate it if you