Loudspeakers are really LOUD

Too many things here boggle the unfamiliar mind; it is dangerous to visit the question "why?" I could spend a lot of time there, and next find myself in the land of "if only." You see, as degenerate as we think Americans have become at solving problems, at least we still have some compulsion to take initiative and once in a while try. Here it seems that resignation is a necessary survival tool. I ask my Chinese friends how they can tolerate certain conditions (like the very very very sub-standard infrastructure in Gansu province) and they just pity me and tell me I'll get used to it. BUT HOW AM I TO GET USED TO THE CONSTANT ASSAULT ON MY EARS OF THE OMNIPRESENT LOUDSPEAKERS!!! Am I really going to be able to tune it out and continue my discussions, my transactions, and my classroom lectures and activities? This stuff is BLASTING several hours a day a mixture of talk radio and pop music, including, inevitably, the Carpenters "every sha-la-la-la, every wo-wo-wo-wo," which is taken here as second only to the National Anthem as an American favorite.

Here is the letter I really wish I would send to the administration:

Dear Mr. President of Lanzhou Jiaotong University,

It is an honor and pleasure to serve on your faculty as an English instructor. I enjoy my work and appreciate the diligent efforts of the administration to ensure that the education offered here follows the highest standards. Our mutual concern for providing the best learning environment is why I am writing you today. I believe we are inadvertently causing adverse learning conditions by training our students to ignore audio messages.

How are we doing this? Each morning at 6:30, each afternoon, and each evening our campus broadcasts very loudly a radio program. While the intention of the broadcast may be to enhance and support our community with information and culture, it has an unfortunate effect. Because most everyone has other things and people to attend to at these times, they must simultaneously ignore the audio broadcast while they continue with their daily routines. This sets the habitual practice of ignoring, or ‘tuning out,’ spoken instructions and information. The students arrive in class each day having practiced for a few hours already the skill of NOT listening. I believe we have harmed their ability to pay attention by assaulting them with background broadcasts during times when they cannot possibly pay full attention. I’m sure you agree that we do not want them to be good at NOT listening.

I hope we can resolve this inadvertent negative result by making sure that whenever we are delivering an important message we do it at a time and place when it is appropriate to expect our audience to be at full attention. The loudspeaker broadcasts should be used only rarely for extremely important announcements. Our community would then respect the broadcast and give it proper attention instead of habitually ignoring it. In this way, I think we can teach our students much improved listening and attention habits that will serve all of us better. It would seem that building a new standard for paying attention would be yet another way our great university could advance the quality of education we deliver.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Sincerely,
Sarah S. Davis
Lecturer of English,
Iowa State University and Lanzhou Jiaotong University