Convenience store owned by Chinese or Indian immgirants in downtown Toronto
I am listening to Chopin's Polonaise No. 7 in A flat major as I work on my computer.
Meanwhile the residents next door to us are either on the phone or have visitors, which occurs more frequently than not now. The male resident has an extremely loud voice and speaks in the abrupt guttural Cantonese. Over time, we learned that he used to own some kind of convenience store in one of the Greater Toronto boroughs - Scarborough I think, one of those convenience stores run by immigrant families from China or India, which sell cheap plastic goods an overpriced milk.
Several months ago, I made an official report on this behaviour, since their noise (louder than acceptable music, loud phone conversations, loud visitors) disturbed me in the early hours of the morning and late at night. There is some kind of official "no noise" period in the apartment's bylaw which I used to file my complaint. The building supervisor informed them of my complaint, but the didn't pay any attention to it. I returned to the administrator, and they changed their behavior to an acceptable reduction in noise, although still not quiet. The supervisor told me, after I wrote a follow up to all this, stating that I was still not pleased with the arrangement, that if I had any further complaints, to call "security" each time I was bothered. "I don't want to criminalize their behaviour," I said. "It is your responsibility that tenants live as harmoniously as possible alongside each other. You are saying that my concerns are not as important as their desires."
I left his office without waiting for a reply, and dropped the matter.
The neighbors have resumed, but with caution. After all, there is an official file against them. For example, the music is loud for some minutes and then it is turned down. The loud conversations again are short-lived, but the longer ones have moved to a different (and farther) part of their apartment. The early morning and late night noise (music, conversation, phone calls) still occur, but less frequently.
It is as though they work on some kind of odd logic that by reducing the amount of time this behavior occurs, the intensity (loudness, etc.) can be overlooked. But a three minute loud phone conversation at 7am in the morning (or at noon, for that matter) is as disturbing and as disorienting as a half hour one. If I am in the middle of writing an article (which I often am at the early hours of the morning) then my train of thought will be disturbed for an extended period of time whether the louder than acceptable noise occurred for three minutes or for twenty.
Multiculturalism has resulted in different kinds of logic that cannot co-exist, and therefore behaviour is not regulated by empathy for the neighbour, or the colleague, or the mall shopper, but by bylaws and regulations. For example the intensely multicultural Square One Shopping Centre in Mississauga has now armed security staff (i.e. policemen) patrolling the mall, even during the quiet hours. Conflicts could occur in a flash and fights can become an ugly episode when crowds of disconnected people roam around in close proximity to each other.
But this now the reality with multi-culti Mississauga, where each ethnic group lives in its own enclave, and any kind of generalized empathy does not, can not, occur.
So what I do as an antidote to the abrasive sounds coming from across my apartment is turn on my music, not loud of course (although I used to have it at maximum volume when the type of noise occured, partly to cut off the noise and also as a retaliation) but just loud enough, and barely audible outside of my own room, to drown the noise of these neighbours.
Today, I played Chopin's Polonaise No. 7 in A flat major. And something changed in me.
What luck have I to be able to turn to Chopin or Mozart or Brahms in these moments of distress! What great fortune have I to find consolation in these musicians! How blessed am I that I can find beauty in the great art of the West, the great musicians of the West, not as some accessory or some multicultural repertoire, but as a source of true art, true Western art the likes of which no other peoples have produced. How lucky am I to have deep connection with this music, with this civilization!
The Chinese neighbor cannot do that (or feel that) although he plays classical music at times, but also Top 20 pop music, and Latin music, and the weepy string instrument dominated Chinese music, as though unable to differentiate between the classic and the mundane, as though he is following the formula of some Mississauga radio station that gives him "Canadian" content.
Imagine not being able to appreciate Mozart for Mozart, but rather as yet another choice from the multicultural world, a place that many years ago this man decided to move to from his native land, packing his bags and travelling across continents to this Western world, not to be a be part of it but rather to feed off it.
What a disappointment that must be now, this opportunistic decision to leave his intelligence and wisdom behind and to trade it for this perennial dissatisfaction, this endless realignment and readjustment of his identity and his personhood, this numbing of his thoughts and intellect.
Was it worth it?