I can hear you

While undoubtedly friendly, approachable and helpful, our columnist sometimes wishes some of her host city folk would do one thing more often – pipe down a little.

LET me preface this piece by admitting two things. One, I am not someone you’d typically describe as soft- spoken. My voice has and does carry, sometimes even to my own detriment. Two, my ears have now probably become more sensitive to sound after being lulled by the relative quite of Germany. I can only quote a girlfriend from Ecuador who once famously noted, “Even the dogs in Germany are quiet.”

I, too, once griped about the designated “quiet times” in German neighbourhoods; even wrote about it in this very column. But then again, Germans generally aren’t loud speakers. That is, unless, they are watching the World Cup and that’s a whole new ball game.

So against these two factors, the vocal power of the locals takes some getting used to. For despite their friendliness, warmth and approachability – which I stress, I will sorely miss when we eventually leave DC – I sometimes wish that some of them would pipe down just a little.

I also specifically mention Washingtonians for two reasons: First, some Americans I’ve met from other states often remark that my host city folk are “different.” And second, I do not wish to generalise as I’ve yet to discover other parts of this vast country where perhaps people do indeed speak less loudly.

In DC, you can get the latest scoop on someone’s love life, happenings on the Hill ( Capitol), quandaries in Congress, intrigue in international agencies. OK, I was stretching that last one a bit. Let’s just say you become privy to a LOT of unsolicited information while shopping, walking, or even waiting for a Mass to begin.

When my mum- in- law visited us in November last year, we took her for dinner at a restaurant that served Cajun and Creole dishes. We had been looking forward to this and even went there early to secure a good ( read: quiet) table. There was a vacant two- seater table beside us, but we figured given the close proximity to ours, it might turn people off from sitting there.

However, a couple was eventually directed to this table. They were on their first date, and the girl unabashedly and audibly shared her litany of bad first dates she’d previously had. It quickly became a monologue, punctuated by peals of her laughter. We noticed that we weren’t the only ones casting quizzical sideways glances at her.

In fact, I half expected someone to step out from behind the large potted palm with camera crew in tow, and holler at us, “Smile you’re on Candid Camera!” We eventually gave up trying to speak above her, and quietly gobbled up our gumbo and jambalaya and left.

Unfortunately, “loud” is an adjective that is often and generally attributed to Americans. This past June, a video by YouTube user SW Yoon, went viral for its interviews with international students at Japan’s Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University. They were asked how they distinguish US American students from other nationalities. Among others, “loud” was a common identifying factor.

Various media, including the Huffington Post and some radio talk shows, weighed in on it.

An online article quoted a Rick Steves, ( reputedly “America’s leading authority on European travel”) as saying, “We take hundreds of groups around Europe every year, and we have a meeting with them on the first day, and we explain that Europeans are quiet. When you go out to eat, you don’t talk in a way that everybody in the restaurant has to listen to you.”

British- American blogger Toni Hargis was quoted in the same article as saying, “The stereotype about loud Americans? I’m afraid it is true. Americans aren’t really shouting or being aggressive, they just have loud voices.”

There are contextual or cultural takes on this phenomenon. Some theorize that given the country’s vastness, people may have spoken loudly over distances before, and this has carried on to the present day.

Others point to the American culture of placing importance on the individual and his or her uniqueness. This in turn implies that they have unique opinions and thoughts, which they have the right to express.

As such, it is argued that when you’ve been nurtured to always speak up, you literally speak UP; that might help explain the din that often characterises after- work cocktails or networking events in DC. ( Add to this the fact that DC has a higher density of Very Important People doing Very Important Work).

So for cultures less transfixed by “unique selling points” or “elevator pitch”, this can sometimes be jarring. What more when it transcends work and becomes the norm even in regular conversations like that date I described?

Let’s put it this way. You know how you sometimes get hoarse trying to speak up over loud music in a club? That’s how loud it can get in a regular restaurant during dinner sometimes. In fact, the last time I met an American girlfriend for dinner, it was she who eventually suggested we pay up and leave the babel behind us.

As for the racket caused by the students in the adjacent university who converse with each other from blocks apart, we’ve now accepted that we have to keep our windows shut and our air- con on ( at least in summer).

And for winter, we have ambient rainforest sounds lulling us to sleep.