By continuing you agree to eChinacities's Privacy Policy .
Sign up with Google
Sign up with Facebook
Q: What's the first thing you hear upon waking up in the morning in China?
I get up early each weekday morning thanks - or no thanks - to work. Usually 5:30 to 6:00. The pattern extends to the weekend as a matter of routine, but I'm not fussed about that.
Aside from your wake-up alarm, the early-morning homely and loving sounds your significant other and children make, your pet bird chirping or whatever, what's the first thing you hear in the morning upon awakening in your part of China?
This is what I hear in Qingdao at 5:30 in the morning, every morning of the week:
First, I hear no cars even though I live 10 minutes from the city centre. My neighborhood is pretty quiet EXCEPT for...
There's someone... somebody... nondescript... a mystery..., but clearly male, in the outdoors - it's still dark, mind you, at 5:30 in the morning - who, at the top of his lungs, begins to scream as if he's being physically tortured or murdered, a deep primal scream (not a banshee wail or witch's shriek) that penetrates the stillness of the neighborhood like a knife. He screams 3 or 4 times in succession, each time lasting a few seconds. And it's loud! And a little scary. And then I hear the same voice grunt - again loudly but muted - a drawn-out grunt that comes from the gut and reverberates throughout the hood with a timbre far deeper than the scream, but just as unsettling. And then it stops. Until the next morning. Every morning.
I'm really curious to know who the hell is screaming and grunting at that time of day, but even more curious to know why the fuck he's doing it. Could it be some form of harmless, Chinese, self-help therapy that keeps the bugger sane, helping him start and get through another miserable, crappy day in China? Whatever it is, I'm curious and I just may go down to the road one of these mornings and bloody well find out.
So, yeah. That's the first thing I hear when I wake up in the morning in China.
What about you?
subway trains are above ground outside my window - starts at 6.00 am
not too bad during the week, but at weekends......
Red_Fox:
QD is building a subway system, but they keep putting it off. First line was supposed to open early this year. Postponed to 2015.
I'm a big subway fan, much preferring it to surface transport coz it's generally faster.
Hey, maybe my screamer-grunter is just another subway digger on his way to work at 1,500 kuai a month. Not a surprise then that he's screaming. And scaring the shit outta me.
sorrel:
i like the subway system here
i now calculate my journey time by the subway stations.
but not at 6.00 Saturday morning 
Scandinavian:
@Red. The train line from Guangzhou to Zhuhai was going to open "later this year" for several years. I have in close proximity of my home two malls that are opening in 2013 (I think original plans were even earlier)
My wife telling me to get my butt into the kitchen to make coffee and breakfast.
Some quiet tunes from the alarm softly wakes me as the sun rises. We have almost no street noise, there will in the morning be the occasional truck honking in the distance. A little later there will be more honking. People gunning their cars down the street past the schoolchildren etc.
I am also in QD, and unfortunately I hear those 're-cyclyer guys' with their pre-recorded messages, or whats worse when they actually scream out !
WTF! They sound like an animal in distress ~ and I feel like the person to put em outa of their misery. Where's my shot gun? haa
Also been woken up in early hours by jerks honking their horns. Cant think of any reason guys would blow their fuckn horns at 3/4/5/am in the morn? I mean..where's the traffic man? Idiots.
Other than that, I live in a nice area. I also hear the near-by Kindy singing their songs. Very sweet..
If I heard that screamer you described every morning, one morning that scream would be followed by the sound of a large metallic thud from my wok. But here I hear the same thing in the morning as I do at night and all throughout the day, my son shouting "WAZHEJI!!!" which means 'mechanical digger'.
Some jerk with hand mashed on the horn.
HONNNNNNKKKKKKKKKK
That is the bad side of the gorgeous mountain view out my window - the four lane road directly below.
I hear a recording being played on a loudspeaker over and over, I never understand it, but I think it means ''Bring out your dead, bring out your dead''
The sounds of pucking silence. Either that, or pipes clacking on the wall. Pipes they didn't properly fasten to the outside of the walls... TEGLKLKLSDGV YZEHGS. Oh yeah, fireworks. Oh, I hate fireworks...
I hear the squealing of old rusted metal doors opening and closing...
ScotsAlan:
Don't you mean banging?
I am sure the sound of a banging metal door is supposed to be a message to any potential crooks, The louder it is the more effective a deterrent it is.
Loud bangs to scare the demons away etc......
ironman510:
Good point of view, I hear this guys door just make this terrible sound everyday, it needs some oil or WD40, haha but you have a good point, any robber would run for their life if they opened his door. lol
I hear the absence of song birds.
Red_Fox:
Ain't that the truth. Around here we get hoards of screeching magpies and they're supposed to be good luck symbols!
I feel for the Australians here, coming from a land rich in flora and fauna. Especially song birds. (Well, cockatoos ain't exactly bell birds. Pretty, yeah, but hardly crooners.)
And speaking of birds, you've heard the tired joke about the national bird of China?
I feel a pain in my lower regions (by knee ) followed by Children asking : Dad , can we go to Nana's today?
Trucks blasting down the local road. There's an intersection right outside my window, you know...the kind without red lights, and just a yield sign with speed bumps in one direction. Basically a free-for-all. So when the trucks come down this 50 km/h road doing 80+, they make sure to use their multi-toned (I'm sure you've heard it, three horn presses resulting in three differently pitched honks BLEEP BLOOP BLAAP) ear blasters to let others know what's coming. Quite fantastic at 4am (alarm is set for 7am).
Sometimes, as an added bonus, it's an empty truck traversing the speed bumps at full speed. Earth shattering calamity of a noise. Like someone slamming a pair of cymbals in your face.
If I stay at my girlfriend/wife then I get to hear one or all of the following: car horns, a rooster, or fireworks. This all usually starts around 5:00. What is worse is the smell of the burning plastic bags they sweep into piles in the street. The worst noise I ever heard at night was the upstairs neighbors wife screaming as her husband beat her :-(
Jackhammer ..... removing the bulk of the concrete slab that they poured/placed last week. This has been going on for the best part of a year. They are building 10, - 30 story apartment buildings (5 within earshot) right next to my place. If not jackhammering, it is the crane dropping scaffolding pipe as they dismantle it. The end is near!!!!!!!!! I'm on the 5th floor and watch and listen to, this fiasco every day.
The WWII type London bombing has begun already for the New Year celebrations. 2 months of this in the evenings and through the night, I suspect.
Most days, I wake up hearing ... nothing, almost nothing, not even birds. Faint sound of the distant horns from the truck loading & unloading construction materials.
Recently, I have been waking up every morning around 4:30 to the neighbors baby crying. I guess that that is feeding time...paper thin walls. Although I am very happy they have a new member to their family, my sleep schedule does not share in that joy.
icnif77:
You could go and warm up the bottle 
, while you're awake
...
mostly car honking, tai chi music from the elders or fire works...
when i lived in guangzhou it was the school music because i lived next to 2 schools -.-
Construction, traffic and the wind blowing through our apartment. Although after two years in Beijing I have gotten used to it, don't really even hear the sounds of traffic anymore. It just always is..
My wife farting. Then my son farting. Then of course me farting. It's like a scene from Blazing Saddles. Talk about the smell of napalm in the morning, light a match and we'd all go up like a Roman candle.
Light_of_Lambs:
u fart king ???? NOOO !!!!!!!!!! my fater , my father big fart king !!!!!! He fart lik sheeep when afraid! u fart on sister and baby !!!! u gonna goto hell !!!!
I have a school yard right next to my apartment so my alarm is the children doing their morning exercises, starts about 07:30 Mon-Fri. Kind of perfect timing as then is when I have to wake up. I just wished they exercised to some nicer music. Communist chants get annoying after 4 months.
