Up the Down-stairs Nut-case
As some/all/both/none of you might know, I am a teacher of English as a foreign language. My students are all Chinese children ranging in age from seven to fifteen. Teaching EFL to kids is how I make ends meet. My bread and butter. I teach at a private language school (or bu-shi-ban, in the local parlance). Classes meet twice a week for two hour sessions in the evenings and on the weekends.
The bu-shi-ban where I've taught English for more than seven years has a goofy character who lives downstairs on the third floor with his wife and young son. About once a year, for longer than I've been teaching there, he decides that he doesn't like living with the sporadic commotion caused by classroom activities and the comings and goings of hundreds of children every day. Who could blame him? Twice a day, six days a week, a herd of diminutive din-makers 'schootch' chairs and desks across the floor at class dismissal and rumble out of classrooms and down the stairway.
He'd have ample right to complain except that when he moved into his apartment, which is designated as commercial property, the language school had been operating for more than five years. (There's a dental clinic on the floor below him. Whether he complains about any errant groans, moans or yips of distress which might be emitted by patients, I am unaware.) Besides which, he lives in the middle of a most notoriously noisy urban jumble. (You want peace and quiet? Try a cemetery, ya stiff.) He has no proper right to complain. Unlike yours truly. (ref: "Chinese Culture and All That Noise" April, 2002 and "Some More Chinese Culture (and all that noise) May, 2002)
But, we (the teachers and staff) try to be considerate - as all good neighbors should be - by marshalling our students closely and keeping the noise down to a dull roar (as my grandfather would say) despite the fact that Mr Down-stairs Nutter hasn't really got a leg to stand on.
My first encounter with him was early in my tenure at this bu-shi-ban when he rapped on the window of the classroom door and beckoned me to approach. Not being wise to the situation, I opened the door. Immediately, he began rapidly squawking his complaints in Chinese. My boss, who had seen this display before, took over and I, only slightly rattled, went back to teaching my class. Later, I got the full scoop on Mr Goofy.
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