-------- "This is the time for action not only words, use your God given gifts to develop this country, dont be afraid to speak up, and feel PROUD THAT U R EGYPTIAN." -------- Mohaly, Feb 2011

Sunday, June 10, 2007

197) Why are Egyptians so Noisy?!

I got this on my mail and thought of sharing it with you guys...I think it is worth reading and discussing...
Mohaly

Away from stereotypes and generalizations, why are we –Egyptians- so noisy? Why are we loud?
Down the street, at home, in a train, in a cinema, in the opera house, even in the desert!
When I say we, I don’t exclude myself and I don’t mean all Egyptians. The beeping horns, the loud music, the f__ mobile phone tones…what is it? Did we develop a “culture of noise”? Or has it always been the case?
I’m trying a naïve synopsis, and you are all invited to disagree, agree, and comment, to the end of the list:

First: Freedom & Ignorance
Given the high rate of illiteracy (let alone the decay of ethics), many Egyptians don’t even know what freedom means. They don’t know what it means enjoying their lives (sometimes, through very noisy practices) without offending or annoying others. None of us was spared a noisy street wedding or a funeral’s loudspeakers next door.

Second: Despair & Selfishness
I think there are millions of Egyptians who feel that “we’re going nowhere, we stand no chance”. If the ship is sinking anyway, then at least let’s enjoy our last hour! We will do it selfishly and noisily!

Third: Passiveness
A legacy of oppression, ignorance and absence of basic human rights fermented into a passive attitude towards everything and everyone, including those idiots who play their music at loudest, those who talk and laugh loud down every street and corner, to the end of the list.

Fourth: Heritage & the Big City
Since day one, a newborn is exposed to every form of noise that there is! Zaghareet, seboo3, loud birthdays…they grow up into a city of 18 million plus…a city of over a million cars…a city that never sleeps.

Fifth: Attention
A guy wants to impress a girl, and because he (and probably she) knows no other means to impress a lady other than money, muscle and property, he draws her attention using the common language of noise (honking, latest song, mobile ring tones, etc! You only need one train ride to experience the entire range of the mobile phone ring tones on earth…
And because I’m not a money and muscle guy, I come to realize that I am “only a voice in a city of noise” as Chris de Burgh once said! But no…Templars: We are all responsible…be positive…don’t be noisy…don’t let noise rule.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

it is so true. thanks for sharing.

Yasmine said...

i think lack of discipline should be mentioned here...

we dont understand the meaning of discipline. No one respects the no phones in cinemas/planes/hospitals/funerals... etc... everyone thinks they're the most important person on the face of the planet, therefore they are better than applying the rules.

Big cities around the world are very noisy; Paris, London, New York... but you rarely ever hear noise after 10pm on a weekday.. you know why? because people have discipline... they are disciplined and responsible enough to understand that they should go to bed early, because they have to wake up early the next day to go to work on time.

I went to the Louvre when i was in paris, and before you go in, there are signs asking visitors to switch off their phones.

i spent about 5 hours in there, in almost complete silence; not once did i hear a mobile phone ring, or someone call out, or speak loudly... even guides with groups were barely audible to anyone outside the group...

eb2a abelni law a3adt 5 mins fel mat7af el masry without hearing some sort of noise.

Fatiflower said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fatiflower said...

Yeah I was astonished by Egyptians loud voice when I was in Morocco. A friend of mine was married to an Egyptian guy and when he used to talk on the phone she was shutting all her apartment windows as in Morocco a loud voice means that people in that house are fighting. I personally suffer from this noise which I am not used to even if I come from an undeveloped country, Morocco, you hear loud voices when there is a fight in the street, my husband always says that we are discrete people. in the driving code we have a rule which oblige people not to use the beeping horn in "manate9 sakaniya" or around hospitals and people are applying this rule except of course some stupid ones (0.05%)...
I live in a building (nice chic area in Hurghada) on the ground floor next to the main gate, I can tell you that I know part of life of every neighbor, visitor as my reception's balcony is on the front side of the building and they don't find better place to discuss their lives on the phone but next to my balcony...I am really morally suffering from this as I can't get used to it after 4 years in Egypt :(
Also, late coming back at 1, 2,3 or 4am doesn't matter for my neighbors as they go in with loud voices without paying attention that it's late and that people are sleeping. Once I went to a neighbor who has 3 noisy kids to ask her to tell them to be quite inside the building but I was surprised when she told me that they are still young and that they don't understand yet to be quite (sorry but this is bullshit)my daughter doesn't play loud when she knows that papa is sleeping in the other room and when we are back late in the night she says (hush,hush ennas naymah) this is education which starts from early childhood.

Gypo said...

Ma3lesh ana mesh shayef en being noisy feeha ayy 7aga inconsiderate to others, if people find out that this noise is actually bothering other people I think they will quit.
Th e problem ya nas is the noise culture, it's an undeniable part of our Egyptian culture, I don't know when and where in time did we develop this destructive part of our culture, but it's a fact.
I remember the soboo3 thing in Egypt. Although I was a grown up, the (hoan) sound always hurt my ears, taking into consideration that I was never close to that hoan or among the shiny happy people singing for the new born, and sure that through these years I lost some of my hearing sensitivity. I was always amazed how these kids will grow up some day and still enjoy their hearing sense with that hoan bein struck about 20 cm from their ears.
I remember also that I lived close to a stupid sporting club called El nasr club (3arfo enta ya Mohaly), once Sha3bolla held a concert there, I was staying in the living room(the other side away from the sound), with all windows closed and still the noise was deafening(I foot measured it the next day and found out that my place is 200m away from the fence of the club, and the concert wasn't actually held at the fence but at the social building which makes me around 600m away from sha3bolla, but it was still too loud to a deafening level, imagine how was it at that concert) wa la ya3lo sawt fawqa sawt sha3bolla, and this thing went on till 4 am le7ad mal bolis geh tarba2ha.
And as Fati said, I used to share my neighbours' problems(mesh problems bass, laken rabbena amar bel satr).
Tayyeb, 3arfeen en hena el matarat mesh beteshtaghal belleil ya 7elween?
first flight on all australian airports is not a minute before 6am and not a minute after 10 pm(3ashan el nas te3raf terta7).
fee 7aga ghalat et3allemnaha e7na el masreyeen along the way, mesh bass being noisy, la2 emta koll 7aga fee 7ayatna simultaneously agreed to go wrong?

Yasmine said...

hehehe examples of noisy celebrations come rushing to my head...
the zaffa at a wedding... i remember when i was a kid, i used to hate being part of the zaffa because i could "hear the music inside me" as i used to put it when i was a kid... and it was not a nice feeling.

the zaffa fel share3, we honk and block the street...

the wedding itself, it seems that the louder the music is the better the wedding?

el sobou3 like gypo said...

we7na nas ne7eb nata7adas 3an bo3d... ya3ni typical example... we have a beach house, our neighbors are very loud, and they always have guests... so the typical scenario is, a group of them sits at the house's terrace, and another at the beach... and they call out for each other, have full conversations yelling across the beach... conversations like "ya nagwa hati el pepsi!", "diet wala 3ady??", "hatiha diet la7san el wa7ed tekhen awi!!", "wala tekhenti wala 7aga danti zay el amar!", "rabena yekhaliki ya 7abibty, bas hatiha diet bardo 3ashan manetkhansh"... etc

balash, i used to have a very loud boss... so loud that i could clearly hear him, while i had my headphones on blasting at full volume (i tried it as an experiment to see what volume would block him out), it truly felt like i was sitting gowa bo2o!!

te2olly mafish tayarat ba3d el sa3a 10... di nas morafaha ya 3ammy... e7na 3andena nas sakneen GOWA el matar, 3al runway zat nafso!

Mohaly said...

ahhh el zaffa....one of the major turn-offs in marriage!

Fatiflower said...

Ba3d Zafetak ya Mohaly 7ayasdor 9anoun yemna3 ay zafah bedawsha. El 3okouba lel 3arees wel 3aroussah enny dokhlethoum tekoun fel takhsibah :))))

Anonymous said...

Its extremely irating Noisy in this country. People do not respect space nor quitness. Unfortunately.

Anonymous said...

Also children are not trained to be quiet in public places. I hate Egyfpr this honestly.