When noise is good

PHUKET: I stopped at my local 7-Eleven on the way home from work the other night, tired out from a day of peering at my computer screen and mildly irritated for the umpteenth time at the inconvenience of having to buy something – drinking water – that I get out of the tap where I come from.

As I entered the store I heard, over the welcoming greetings of the staff, loud voices – loud Chinese voices.

One of the things that impressed me right away in Thailand is that speaking in a well-modulated way, at a low volume, is a desirable goal. Not that there aren’t screechy-voiced or boisterous Thais, it’s just much more likely that a Thai friend will ask me to lower my voice in public than the other way around.

I’ve met some people who have mastered modulation to such a degree their voices seem like black holes, sucking sound in rather than emitting it. Not to mention the volume of cell-phone conversations in public, carried on at decibels worthy of top-secret stealth activities.

But that night in the 7-Eleven, the Chinese permeated the entire sound space as they called to each other from different spots in the store. For a brief second I probably frowned, so accustomed am I to a murmuring quietness.

Then I noticed they were repeating their words, and my attention was drawn to the sounds: “Sher, sher, sher,” they cried out. And then, “aar, aar, aar,” just like the bark of a seal. It was adorable, and I smiled.

They were smiling too, and converging on the refrigerated drinks, three or four men and a woman, and as one of them opened a fridge door, he said something, and the others laughed merrily. Their good mood flowed through me.

And then it struck me: they are on vacation. Maybe they come from a place that is cold, industrial or urban, and they are on our lovely, warm little island, away from their everyday cares, and just being here makes them cheerful.

Their happiness blew away my post-work funk. Some noise is good, I realized, and felt thankful.

— Leslie Porterfield