Countering Noise with Noise

Today's weather: High = 23 Low = 19
Cloudy

It's not much of a surprise that a metropolis like Shanghai is a very noisy place to live. Interestingly, my recent move out to the semi-suburbs has decreased the ambient noise level considerably -- another advantage. The ambient noise level downtown is considerable, and the multitude of sounds blends together into some mix of raucous cacaphony that the brain eventually tunes out after awhile.

The unfortunate and unanticipated side-effect of moving out of downtown is that the *ambient* noise level has decreased considerably, but the occasional background noises (car alarms, beeping, metro line trains, etc.) are noticeable. In other words, the noises are distinct and they no longer blend together into that continuous cacaphony that would otherwise exist downtown.

So this is taking some getting used to again. It doesn't really matter where you live in Shanghai, it's going to be noisy. The only thing are various degrees and types of the noise.

Earplugs are a reasonable solution but they don't always work because they are hard to find in China, and they don't exactly block out the noises. Yes, it really is that noisy in Shanghai. As it stands, the Chinese have a passion for noise and they can't live without it. You have to live here to experience it.

So I came up with another idea -- a white noise generator. When I lived in Bangkok for a few months teaching English, it was another example of a large and noisy city. But the place I stayed at had a massive air conditioner that pumped out white noise all over the frequency spectrum. The air-con generated enough of this, and stayed on all night, that it successfully blocked out all the traffic noise. The apartment was directly over Sukumhvit Road so yeah, it was noisy!

That idea came to mind of possibly replicating that here in Shanghai. But how? None of the air-condioners are large or powerful enough to pump out this much white noise, let alone warm or cold air.

Thanks to the internet, continuous MP3 loops of white noise can be found and downloaded. I'll then transfer the files onto my blackberry and give this a whirl, testing it out both downtown and at my new place, to see if this effectively masks the noise.

If so, then this will be a winner.