Life in an Asian mega-city requires punters to gracefully accept the relentless seven day a week cacophony of construction and demolition. Large-scale urban develop- ments and rising megalithic skyscrapers have become the Asian way – the one dream of transforming China into a giant, matrix-esque, HK-style playground.
Despite sharing this grand vision of urbanization, I can’t repress the troubling thought that the victims of construction-related psycho-trauma must now be in the millions. The unforgiving bang-drill-dust combo is not only an assault on the senses, but a key contributor to rising levels of sleep deprivation, migraines, allergies, and angry delusions.
A few questions I know I want answered are: how bigger stake do earplug multinationals have in construction? When will freelancers be compensated for low productivity due to noise pollution? Will that film of toxic dust ever leave? And on a more personal note, who is going to wean me off oxymetazoline? Oh, sweet nasal decongestant.
I realize my construction-related trauma withers next to Mr. X, the last stronghold in a demolition site near my apartment, but I started out on the back-foot – softened by a life in suburban Australia, where the most offensive noise pollutants are tone-deaf corellas. The following is my personal account as a survivor of long-term exposure to construction, and how I found inner peace in a sea of excavators, cranes and pile-drivers.
I spent my first year in Asia in an apartment circumvented by building sites. After about 93 consecutive 5am wake-up calls, my counter-construction terrorism fantasies began. They were usually preceded by fantastical nightmares, in which a mutant species of demolitionists would descend upon my pad with an array of chainsaws and jackhammers. I would always display a few crouching-tiger hidden-dragon style moves, before realizing the smallness of being a guard-dog for a rental property, and exiting through the back window with my Shakira poster and a few angry barks.
To manage my delusions, I began to meditate – bearing in mind that harmony with surroundings is a key principle in mastering the Tao of Construction. Instead of forging my own path, I began to go with the sounds. I allowed the whirring of distant graders to become ocean sounds, and the heavy thuds, the hooves of horses on open plains. When the sounds became too invasive, I harnessed their energy for positive action. I used the repetitive bangs as a metronome for playing my oboe, and when I felt more subversive than musical, as resistance training for relevant torture techniques.
My advice for all victims of the construction scram is: don’t let the demolitionists win – embrace the Tao. Those living in districts targeted for pre-Olympic developments are in the greatest danger, but all residents must use earplugs and dust-masks, and meditate until the August fervour declines.
If despite all your efforts, you are still unlucky enough to be one of the million Beijingers handed pre-Olympic eviction notices, look at it as a chance for a positive, new start – this is your way out of that bang-drill-dust rut, and back to a peaceful life in the countryside!
To see this article in print link to: Urbane China, Habitat, March 2008.
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Despite sharing this grand vision of urbanization, I can’t repress the troubling thought that the victims of construction-related psycho-trauma must now be in the millions. The unforgiving bang-drill-dust combo is not only an assault on the senses, but a key contributor to rising levels of sleep deprivation, migraines, allergies, and angry delusions.
A few questions I know I want answered are: how bigger stake do earplug multinationals have in construction? When will freelancers be compensated for low productivity due to noise pollution? Will that film of toxic dust ever leave? And on a more personal note, who is going to wean me off oxymetazoline? Oh, sweet nasal decongestant.
I realize my construction-related trauma withers next to Mr. X, the last stronghold in a demolition site near my apartment, but I started out on the back-foot – softened by a life in suburban Australia, where the most offensive noise pollutants are tone-deaf corellas. The following is my personal account as a survivor of long-term exposure to construction, and how I found inner peace in a sea of excavators, cranes and pile-drivers.
I spent my first year in Asia in an apartment circumvented by building sites. After about 93 consecutive 5am wake-up calls, my counter-construction terrorism fantasies began. They were usually preceded by fantastical nightmares, in which a mutant species of demolitionists would descend upon my pad with an array of chainsaws and jackhammers. I would always display a few crouching-tiger hidden-dragon style moves, before realizing the smallness of being a guard-dog for a rental property, and exiting through the back window with my Shakira poster and a few angry barks.
To manage my delusions, I began to meditate – bearing in mind that harmony with surroundings is a key principle in mastering the Tao of Construction. Instead of forging my own path, I began to go with the sounds. I allowed the whirring of distant graders to become ocean sounds, and the heavy thuds, the hooves of horses on open plains. When the sounds became too invasive, I harnessed their energy for positive action. I used the repetitive bangs as a metronome for playing my oboe, and when I felt more subversive than musical, as resistance training for relevant torture techniques.
My advice for all victims of the construction scram is: don’t let the demolitionists win – embrace the Tao. Those living in districts targeted for pre-Olympic developments are in the greatest danger, but all residents must use earplugs and dust-masks, and meditate until the August fervour declines.
If despite all your efforts, you are still unlucky enough to be one of the million Beijingers handed pre-Olympic eviction notices, look at it as a chance for a positive, new start – this is your way out of that bang-drill-dust rut, and back to a peaceful life in the countryside!
To see this article in print link to: Urbane China, Habitat, March 2008.
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