The Storms

First, welcome to the fresh site look.

Last night, I had to try to sleep through two storms. Two storms? Yes two. The first was this typhoon like storm that pounded my windows and made my building sway for about ten hours or so. It reminded me quite a bit of the typhoon that I experienced in September. When I woke up, the temperature had dropped at least twenty degrees which is the difference between a light jacket and a coat.

The second storm was a domestic disturbance across the hall. Its almost a weekly occurrence that the couple across the hall will come home drunk. Then after an argument, one will lock the other out. the locked-out person pounds drunkly on the door, rings the bell, shouts, cries, pounds some more, etc. This night was different.

There was a second woman's voice. Around 3:30am I heard the sound of these two women fighting. When I heard one of them get pushed up against my front door, I went to the little video intercom monitor on my wall. The intercom is linked to a speaker/camera outside my door the helps me see and speak to visitors before opening the door. So, I pressed the button and there unfolded a Jerry Springer-esque episode before my eyes.

I couldn't call the police really since i doubt they speak English. Plus, by the time I turned on the monitor, the hair-pulling and screaming was being moved onto the elevator. Even after they guy and his girlfriend got the other woman on the elevator, she came back up, and screamed and kicked his door.

If I hadn't been awake already because of the typhoon, I would have thrown a fit. Standard Korean culture says to look the other way in domestic disturbances--even when a man is hitting his woman in public. Yeah no. I'm not Korean and that's one cultural trait I'm not going to adopt.