Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Scorpion]

[le-paul]

[Captain Corea]

[EZE]

I think a lot of it in Korea has to do with population density. More people means more noisy people, even if the percentage of noisy people is the same.

Based on my experiences living in numerous apartments throughout the southeastern USA and Seoul metropolitan area, I think Americans tend to produce a lot more noise with televisions, radios, and other electronics. This is true with whites and it's doubly true with blacks. I just don't hear as many TVs and radios here. The bongo trucks are the one exception. One morning, one woke me up with the "old school" woman singing in vibrato. I couldn't go back to sleep, so I Skyped home. Mom commented that I was up early, and I told her about the truck, laughing about how it was similar to the rednecks cruising the high school (mom taught high school for decades) playing Skynard full blast, as if everyone else wanted to hear it.

Even though we turn our TVs and radios up a lot louder than Koreans, the area where they excel in noise is talking. Most do talk extremely loudly. Over the years, Koreans have asked me, "Why do you talk just loudly enough that the person you're talking with can hear you?" Korea is the only country where I have been asked that. They speak so loudly. And again, maybe that harkens back to population density. I grew up in a small town, so I didn't have to speak loudly. I wasn't drowned out by other people. The talking didn't have to escalate in volume with everyone having to talk over everyone else, since so few people were around.

So we're louder in some ways and they're louder in others.

[Smithington]

My English classroom is divided from the grade one classroom by a thin wall. The volume of the teacher's voice is really excessive. She's not speaking to the kids, she's yell-talking at them. And they yell-talk back. That noise is acceptable is ingrained in them from infancy. And if they want the teacher's attention they yell. If the teacher is busy with another student the volume is raised until the teacher gets around to addressing them. The teacher doesn't tell them that yelling, and demand yelling, is wrong. In fact she encourages them to yell answers to questions as loudly as possible. At my other school I share a class with a female co-teacher. She made a phone call the other day and I just had to get up and leave the room until she was finished. Is it really necessary to yell into a phone? Their conversation partner isn't holding their phone to their knee or their foot; they're holding it to their friggin' ear. Yelling is absolutely not required to be heard.

Sometimes when I want some real quietness I go and sit in the library. But guess what, that's where the office secretary goes to have her yell-talking phone conversations. The friggin' library - with me sitting there trying to read. Again, I get up and leave the room until the conversation is finished (it's that loud). Does she get the hint? Of course not.

Koreans be loud, and they be inconsiderate.

[EZE]

And yes, I know it's the pot calling the kettle black for an American to say Koreans talk loudly. We're probably the second loudest talkers behind South Korea, probably brought on by hearing loss of turning TVs and radios up too loud.

[fustiancorduroy]

[le-paul]

When I see some people talking on the phone (irrespective of country), I swear they think the person is too far away to hear them talking, so they have to shout into it

[jazzmaster]

I agree that it's due to the inconsiderate nature of many Koreans. Pushing on subways, spitting phlegm on the ground, shouting in the middle of the night, rude driving, speaking as loudly as they can, the list goes on.
It's all down to an attitude of "I'll do whatever the hell I like". The more educated and traveled Koreans tend to be more empathetic.

I'm pretty lucky, I have a Korean who leaves his officetel at 5pm on one side, and a foreigner on the other. I've told the foreigner if I'm ever being too loud to let me know. I try to be silent from midnight to 7:30am. I understand that the walls are thin and during the day people make noise, but at night I try to respect peoples need to get a good nights sleep. I appreciate it when others show that respect too.

[fustiancorduroy]

A lot of the noise issues stem from the fact that Korean apartments are built out of concrete. Concrete is actually quite good at blocking noises transitted through the air. A concrete wall that is 8 inches thick has an STC rating of around 55. This means it reduces noises traveling from one side to the other by 55 decibles. This is quite substantial, seeing as how a typical spoken conversation is between 50 to 70 decibles. With the flooring and the ceiling, the soundproof rating of concrete goes up further.

The problem with concrete is that it is very poor at blocking impact noises. Because concrete is so dense, the energy from most impacts gets transfered from one side to the other with little loss in the kinetic energy. This means that if your upstairs neighbor drops something on the floor or your next door neighbor hammers something into the wall, you'll hear it pretty much perfectly.

This video goes over some of the problems of noise with concrete construction and what can (and cannot) be done about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEs3jlNOzwY


Nevertheless, there are some factors to keep in mind when looking for a quieter apartment in Korea.

Concrete

The concrete in the building should be at least 20 centimeters thick. The thicker, the better of course. The easiest way to determine the thickness is to look how thick the concrete is between floors in the stairwell.


Flooring

Avoid places where the flooring is just vinyl placed on top of the concrete directly. That's not going to block out noise much at all. Instead, look for places with wood panel flooring that interlocks together. They create a floor surface above the concrete so that less noise from footfalls, dragged chairs, etc, will make it into the concrete.


Ceilings

A lot of cheaper, older apartments have a thin interior ceiling made from particleboard. That's not going to reduce noise much. Make sure that the ceiling is at least made from drywall, which has a stronger, deeper sound if you knock on it. It will help reduce noise further. Ideally, the ceiling should not have a hollow sound when you knock on it. This means that there is sound insulation above it.


Walls

Newer apartments have drywall over the concrete. This will help reduce noises by at least a few decibles from both next door and above (remember, noises from loud footsteps also come through the walls since the energy is transferred down throughout the entire concrete shell). In some cases, the drywall has a dense styrofoam board attached to the back for further soundproofing. Having concrete walls covered with drywall with styrofoam on the back should reduce noises by at least 7 to 10 decibles. (Keep in mind that a decrease of 10 decibles reduces apparent noise by HALF).

If you want to get a truly soundproof apartment, I think you have to spend about $2 million on the purchase price or around $5,000 a month rent. Those really highend apartments DO have soundproofing, and lots of it, along with strong flooring materials with subfloors beneath them and thick walls with insulation behind them. It's just a shame that getting a nice, perfectly quiet apartment -- even one with neighbors above, below, and next to you located near a busy area -- costs so much money.


Of course, the problem of sounds of footsteps, heavy objects falling, and yelling is not unique to Korea. Behold, a little bit of "advice" for living above this guy from Craigslist:

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/aaa/116389566.html

[atwood]

[Smithington]

[quote="jazzmaster"]I try to be silent from midnight to 7:30am. I understand that the walls are thin and during the day people make noise, but at night I try to respect peoples need to get a good nights sleep. /quote]

That's not nearly good enough. You're making noise up until midnight? Really? Not everyone is a night owl, and people who go to bed at 9pm shouldn't have to listen to your noise for three hours. I assume that my neighbors go to bed early, whether they do or not I cannot know, but I opt to err on the side of caution and decency. I hate being kept awake, or awakened from a sound sleep by loud neighbors. I assume that they dislike it too.

Neighbors should be seen, not heard.

[jazzmaster]

[le-paul]

[Smithington]