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Posts: 35

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Q: Neighbors opening apartment doors while cooking

this seems to be a common habit in China. People open their door when they are cooking, so that the smell doesn't stay inside their apartment, and instead goes inside their neighbors' apartments. My neighbors like to cook Sichuan food, which has a strong smell. Telling them multiple times to close the door doesn't seem to work. They would close the door that one time, and reopen it the next day. They also don't seem to understand the fact that it's not just that one time that makes their neighbors' apartments smell like Sichuan peppercorn, but every time they cook. They don't look retarded though, so I'm not sure what's wrong with them.

7 years 33 weeks ago in  Culture - China

 
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Buy a fan...(Preferably big and noisy)...Turn the fan towards your neighbors door...Open your door and turn that fan on if the neighbors are cooking with their door open...Ignore neighbors if they are annoyed. It's just living the chinese way.

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7 years 33 weeks ago
 
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Posts: 7178

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I open the door to let the smoke out when I am cooking Shock

 

And all the windows.

 

But seriously, my issue is similar.  People burning paper offerings to their ancestors, on the balcony 10 floors up.

 

Last year we had an even more stupid experience. A family on the second floor had an elderly relative visiting from the countryside, and the old dear insisted on burning all the household rubbish in an old paint pot, on the balcony.  We had to keep our windows closed that week.

 

 

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7 years 33 weeks ago
 
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Neighbour smokes in the corridor so all his smoke wofts in to my place. 

iron-man:

How do you deal with that?

7 years 31 weeks ago
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7 years 33 weeks ago
 
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Hardly any different from people throwing trash right outside their own buildings. No care about anything outside your own little bubble. Thankfully that way of thinking hasn't made it to international politics. 

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7 years 33 weeks ago
 
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I feel like that's just one of the things you come to accept living in apartments. Neighbors, really close and sometimes annoying.

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7 years 33 weeks ago
 
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Buy a fan...(Preferably big and noisy)...Turn the fan towards your neighbors door...Open your door and turn that fan on if the neighbors are cooking with their door open...Ignore neighbors if they are annoyed. It's just living the chinese way.

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7 years 33 weeks ago
 
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The next time you leave for a week for a vacation, go to the market and buy a durian, slice it open into four pieces, open the vent to your front door for ventilation and leave it there on the kitchen table for seven days until you return. It's a great way to get rid of neighbors as well. I will try a fan behind the durian the next time I have to resort to this tactic, right now everything is peaceful.

Curiousdude:

durian ! my neighbor lovs n we wrote it same time

7 years 33 weeks ago
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7 years 33 weeks ago
 
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my neighbor is generally gud, just sometimes loves cuttin' big thai durian at their place

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7 years 33 weeks ago
 
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I had the same problem so I had a Chinese colleague speak to them and telling them that the billowing stinking smoke was not acceptable and they should keep their door closed or at least open the doors either end of the corridor so the smoke could at least escape via the balcony. The look on their face was pure ignorance that they were causing any selfish act.

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7 years 33 weeks ago
 
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Perhaps you've been trying to tackle the problem from the wrong angle... that is, the actual problem.

 

You should change tactics, and go for the "You are being rude and disrespectful to me/others Your behaviour shows nong-level ignorance, and you have lost LOTS of face to me and my friends/colleagues".

 

Either that or - "because of the smell and smoke, I've had to have all my clothes and fabrics professionally cleaned - you need to pay for it!"

iron-man:

I feel so tempted to tell them that.

7 years 33 weeks ago
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7 years 33 weeks ago
 
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This is a cultural phenomenon. Chinese LOVE to trouble the others like talk loud and bang the floor. Japanese are just the opposite.

 

 

Solution? When in China, do as the chinese do.

 

If you start to do what they are doing, all of a sudden, the problem will magically disappear.

Shining_brow:

"If you start to do what they are doing, all of a sudden, the problem will magically disappear."

 

No, it won't - because, as you said, this is what is considered normal in China! So, if you start doing it, you're just staring to fit in and act like a local.

 

However, remarking to a few "Japanese are so quiet and polite - why can't Chinese be like that?" might generate some response :p

7 years 33 weeks ago
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7 years 33 weeks ago
 
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Nice suggestions.

The guy started smoking in the corridor now. I think I might go crazy!

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7 years 31 weeks ago
 
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