Out & About: Quiet please… Please just a little quiet

The ancient Egyptians had a goddess that appeared in the form of a cobra-headed figure known as Meretseger.

That name translates as “she who loves silence” and, it is said, that she was a dangerous goddess that could spit poison at those who offended her and her kind. She was a protector and a fearsome one at that.

It is also said that she dwelled upon a hill overlooking the Valley of the Kings in ancient Egypt where the pharaohs were laid in their tombs, and presumably her name meant that she would look down upon the valley making sure that the pharaohs rested in peace. But despite her protection, grave-robbers and archeologists denied them this.

I would not condone spitting poison at anyone but sometimes in Jakarta it feels as though it would be nice if there was a figure like Meretseger to supply a little peace and quiet in the city.

Sometimes the noise is stressful and made even more stressful by the extent to which it can be just so unnecessary.

Okay, I know this is a city bursting at the seams with millions of people hustling and bustling about the place trying to make an honest buck (well mostly honest buck) but often there is noise here that is just so unnecessary.

The other day I was sitting in a mall dining with friends and commenting to them on how unusual it was to not have to talk over unnecessary and usually boring music, or masses of people talking so loudly that they inevitably would vie with each other to talk the loudest. Sadly this relative quiet was not to last.

Suddenly a booming voice could be heard. We looked around to see where this sudden and disturbing aural interruption was coming from.

It was from nowhere nearby, a number of tables were empty and those that were occupied were populated by other diners that similarly seemed to be enjoying the relative quiet to chat in.

We looked up and there was our answer. A man in a balcony above us was gesticulating and practically balling into his mobile phone.

His voice echoed off the marbled walls and shared his telephone conversation with people on two levels of the building.

Now it may be that he was getting bad reception and felt it necessary to literally be shouting down the phone but was it really necessary, or polite, for him to create such a disturbing noise for everyone else in the vicinity?

Noise is all around us, it cannot be escaped, but surely it can be avoided and surely people can discern when they are making a noise and becoming a nuisance.

There is, I suppose, a time and a place for most things in life, but sometimes people create noise simply by not recognizing the right time and place to do such a thing.

Cinemas are a good example of this. Jakarta’s cinemas always put up a notice, (in English?), to their audiences before the show starts asking them to “Shhhhhh” and “Please be quiet during the show” but this good, polite and reasonable request is not always responded to appropriately.

The consistency with which people seem to sit in a cinema to have a bit of a natter is truly disturbing. Is it because they just do not understand the movie that they are watching and are too lazy to read the subtitles?

Often during quieter sequences in a movie the chatterers get going in there disturbing conversations. When an action sequence bursts onto the screen they fall silent and watch.

Of course the action sequences are attention gripping but the dialogue, quieter sequences of a movie can play an important part too. Subtlety, though, seems lost on these people and their attentions waiver and the chattering begins again. Their chattering may not be noise to them but in the cinema it is.

We live in a big city and so noise almost inevitably has to be expected and lived with, but this still should not make it impossible for us to enjoy quieter times and quieter places.

There is a dignity and graciousness to being able to find quiet and be quiet. Quiet can and does help us with the stress that can come with city living.

— Simon Marcus Gower

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