Dear Hillary,
Why are Thai women so noisy? I always thought they were nice quiet creatures, but they certainly aren’t. They shout at each other, instead of talking. They don’t bother walking next door to talk to their neighbor, they just stand at their doorways and shout across the street. Parties have them screaming at each other, over the top of ear-splitting music. Are they deaf from birth, or just going that way?
Mack
Dear Mack,
It is partly a cultural thing. If you hadn’t noticed before, Thai women don’t ever walk anywhere, so to communicate with the neighbors means a good full-bodied yell from the front steps. This also means that we save on mobile phone batteries. The volume from the boom boxes means that we have to shout louder to be heard over the top of them, which means that the little man at the music console winds the noise up even further (I refuse to call it “music”), and so it goes on. You’re not going to change things, my Petal. Just accept it. Have you thought about buying ear defenders. They are quite cheap at the bigger pharmacies.