The voice of the people

Crowds in China cannot be ignored. Certainly, in confined spaces like trains, coaches and planes, just a trio of excited Chinese talking all at once is enough to grab your attention, willingly or not.

Why is it that we talk so loudly? I asked my young Chinese colleagues, and they came up with a very interesting theory.

It's the loudspeaker mentality, they say with conviction.

Not so long ago, being able to speak through a loudspeaker meant you were a person of authority. Only leaders had the privilege of rousing the community in the morning or at noon for daily lessons on how to be better citizens.

It was so throughout those turbulent decades of the 60s to 70s, and that was probably when the "loud and proud" culture seeped into general consciousness.

I am tempted to subscribe to this because loudspeakers still blare daily from the school next door, broadcasting the discipline master's constant displeasure on how slow the students are gathering for assembly, or how lethargic they are in doing the mandatory morning exercises.

Frankly, the microphone is redundant. He is loudly intimidating enough to almost scare us in our apartments into going through the motions with the students down below.

It is a strange concept for me, having been transplanted two generations ago to another mainly urban Chinese community abroad that still clings tenaciously to the Confucian tenets of gentility, propagated in properly muted tones.

My own theory is that we are natural show-offs, no matter the nationality.