THE ESSAYIST
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
About Four and a Half Minutes of Noise
Well, there was my friend in England telling me how the pathetic, patriotic, pathos and platitudes at this time of year in 'Blighty' pisses him off and isn't it funny how certain words trigger off certain thoughts and the "one minute silence" thing got me thinking about the Four plus minutes of noise for the victims of the Sichuan earthquake that they had in China.
Either the Chinese government had decided that three minutes of silence would be ushered in with the taxi drivers and bus drivers and truck drivers and car drivers all beeping their horns and then, when the three minutes were finished, the horns would be beeped again to signal the end of the period of silence or during the whole three minutes the cars and buses and lorries and taxes were required to beep their horns. Anyway what happened? Well some of the the bus drivers started to beep their horns twenty seconds or so before some of the lorry drivers and some of the taxi drivers started thirty seconds after some of the car drivers and some of the car drivers started ........ Alright, alright, you get the picture, don't you? Instead of three minutes of silence or three minutes of noise and reflection we got about four and a half minutes of noise and everyone in my class was standing there not knowing when to sit down and they looked at me and I looked at them before deciding to be very brave and saying, "alright you can sit down" and there they were all sitting for about ten or so seconds when all of a sudden some cars and lorries and some buses and some taxis started beeping their horns again.
Now, I am pretty sure that the concept of a period of silence is the same in China as it is in India, in Argentina, in England, in Poland, in Thailand etc etc etc. Anyway, I am pretty sure it is all about a common reflection. However, when I told one of my Chinese colleagues of the stupidity of what had just happened, he found it necessary to tell me that that is the "Chinese way". Alright, folks be informed, when there is a memorial service of the sort that requires one minute of shutting up and reflecting in 'Blighty' and in India and in Argentina and in etc etc etc, in China they have four and a half minutes of noise. Silence, absolute silence, is golden and much more condusive to reflection.
The clip gives you 28 seconds of the "three minute silence" in the land of "re nao". There is actually a seven plus minute clip of this available on youtube.
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