change is afoot. not a foot.

i was walking around the streets last week with two friends when i realized that shanghai had subtly, nearly unnoticeably, gotten quieter.


don't get me wrong, there are still blaring horns, screeching brakes, shouting, big trucks and buses rumbling by, but the additional layer of noise that blankets the streets - blaring loudspeakers, street-sweeping trucks that blast some unsettlingly cheerful and juvenile tune, men that ride their bike-carts with loudspeakers advertising their ability to haul away household appliances - THAT had lessened considerably. it was odd. you still go deaf on the streets, that hasn't changed, but now you aren't about to assault any one person for making you deaf AND annoyed. 


big difference.


i was on the subway yesterday for the first time in years, and normally the female voice that announces the upcoming station and which way the door will open and don't forget your belongings is so indescribably loud that you can feel your ear drum reverberating in your head. now? now she's just normal-loud, like on the red line on the chicago el. 


i saw a water-shooting truck cleaning the street yesterday - well really, it was just wetting the street - and it was playing an annoying little jingle, but i've seen many more street-sweeping trucks lately that just kind of roar along and sweep, without the added dimension of nerve-jangling hello kitty-esque sing-songiness. so i guess my point is that the noise has lessened, not halted, but that itself is so strange for china. such a subtle shifting down a gear instead of getting jammed abruptly to a stop, the extremity of which i have come to expect from this country. 


i hope more nice realizations like this are to come.