It’s a little after midnight and I feel like a made man.  Sometimes you have to lean on people a little bit to get what you want.  But let me take a step back…

About twenty minutes ago, at approximately 11:45 p.m. there was all kinds of pounding going on downstairs. This is not uncommon. As many of you know our neighbors downstairs have been renovating their apartment for some time now. After they ripped out our tiles and sealed our bathroom floor, tested it for leakage, and then replaced the tiles, they began some serious construction in their own place.

The first phase was obliterating a few walls (scary).

The second phase was tearing out their own bathroom tiles.

Then they put floor in.

Then there was the drilling phase.  Don’t think of a dentist’s drill; think more in terms of using a jackhammer to drill.

The next phase was pounding…and then, for a whole month…

…it was quiet.

It felt like a doorway into heaven there for a while.  No sounds, no chaos, no knocking, grating, buzzsawing, bludgeoning, etc.

Well, tonight for some reason they got the hammers back out. I am not sure that the workers intentionally started pounding so late– after 11 p.m. (maybe we just had grown accustomed to it?) but it certainly seemed to intensify as we settled ourselves in for sleeping.

No matter what culture you’re from, having people pound loudly on the walls late at night is obnoxious. Christa stomped on the floor for a while to counter-attack the bass from below. I took a more subdued approach–silent belwilderment with a touch of fatalism. I ran through a few dozen scenarios in my head where I run downstairs and try to chew them out in my broken beginner’s Chinese. The best dialogue I could come up with went something like this:

"Hello. You are very bad men. This is very not convenient. My family is sleeping! Sleeping! (just for emphasis) This is a big nuisance. You go home now! Come tomorrow. Thankyou. Goodbye!"

While I’m sure that monologue would have been very persuasive, I just didn’t think it would have the desired outcome or tone. I envisioned the camou-wearing workers scoffing at me, feigning ignorance, and blowing cigarette smoke in my face.

But I couldn’t just sit there could I?

I went over to our front door to develop my game plan and providentially, I heard someone pounding on the door downstairs!

Yes, I had an ally (and most likely a Chinese speaking ally!)

I searched for my house slippers, but decided there was no time. I couldn’t miss this opportunity to join a disgruntled mob (of probably two). In my socks, I quickly ran out the door and down the stairs.

When I arrived at the scene of the crime, I suddenly saw my new ally. HE was the mild-mannered looking Tibetan guy from the first floor. All right, we’re complaining on both fronts, I thought.  He was knocking softly on the metal door.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi." he replied.  "It is very loud."

"Yes!" I whole-heartedly agreed.  We were pals.

"It is hard to sleep.  I came earlier, but no one opened the door…"

"Yes, it loud upstairs, too." Sometimes, I find myself speaking in what I call Cowboy-Indian English. Short stilted fragments with emphasis placed on each word.

"Yes, very boring," my Tibetan ally replied.  Boring isn’t the word I would have used to describe it but I was willing to overlook his terminological miscue. After all, we were in this together.

Much to my amazement (and his) a man in a military outfit opened the door. Worker bee, hard at work. His eyes got as round as saucers when he saw this perplexing duo in front of him–this formidible foe he had not expected at all–a soft-spoken Tibetan joined by a lurking, goatee-ed American. With grievances no less.

Within seconds we had negotiated an armistice. The noisy assault had ceased. The military man looked visibly shaken as he closed the door and we left. Maybe it was the words of my smooth-talking accomplice OR maybe it was my stern Waiguoren (foreigner) stares, head-nodding and grunts. (It’s very possible he thought I was ghost…)

I like to think it was a combination of both that lead to our victory. Whatever the reason, I came back grinning, with one word on my tongue,

"Solidarity."

And I really wished the Tibetan guy and I had high-fived before we’d said goodnight.