I live on a quiet street. Occasionally a noisy group of teenage scooter riders will come roaring past our house late at night, or the ever-present advertising vehicles, blaring loudly and intrusively, will scream at us to visit this or that restaurant or karaoke venue. But, for the most part, we are pretty much undisturbed.
We bought this house a year ago now, the first house I have ever owned, after a very short stint in the middle of last year in what turned out to be a dusty, leaky, rat infested dump of a rented home. The two homes could not be and feel more different. Our new home, which is still how I think of it, is clean, comfortable, spacious and, so far, rat free. It is a place I look forward to coming back to and being in, which, to my way of thinking, are the most important requirements for a home.
And unlike at the aforementioned rented dump, where neighbours felt free to wander through our home, or peek through our windows, comment on our numerous possessions and where everyone seemed to know everyone else's business, in our new neighbourhood people keep pretty much to themselves. Our next-door neighbour, a high school English teacher who has yet to exchange one English word with me, greets me, when we see each other, in Chinese, before we go our separate ways. Diagonally across the street from us lives someone who plays the most beautiful piano I have heard not recorded onto CD. I would like to meet this person, but haven't yet developed the courage to go over to ask which one of the household is responsible for that divine music. Next to them lives an old man who can often be seen smoking outside his house, which leads me to believe that he lives there with his wife, although I can't be sure who she is. He seems quiet and observant and once commented to Pei Han about the number and variety of students, in terms of their ages, who come to my English classes. We greet each other with a nod of the head when we pass.
Directly across the street from us is a couple who are running some sort of business from their home and whom we suspect of sabotaging our scooters' ignitions and front door lock soon after we moved in here. Since the house we now live in was uninhabited for quite some time, they got used to parking their cars in front of and alongside our house and when Pei Han one night decided to park our car alongside our house to prevent them from parking their car there, the trouble started. Since then the tension has eased and we have ceded that space to them, but we never exchange words. Car trouble was also the cause of my introduction to the neighbours next to them. I was teaching a class of Grade six students late one Saturday afternoon when this lady stormed across the street to demand which of my students had parked their car in front of her house! I looked at my young students, who were looking flabbergasted at this outraged neighbour, and calmly said that none of my students drove. Without another word, she turned and stormed back to her house. Fortunately, in the house next to hers lives a sweet and friendly family.
Yes, I live on a quiet street, where everyone keeps to themselves and I think I like it that way.
Dion Marc Delport
4 November 2008