Unexpected Noise

The first place I lived when I moved to Japan for work was a ninth floor apartment in a twenty-five story building that was part of a public housing projet in Osaka city. After that, I lived in apartment buildings and a dorm, and whether from the room next door or above me, or the house next door, I was always in an environment where I could hear the noise of neighbors. Not only was there the noise of people moving about, but also the sound of cars and motorcycles in the street, and, since I lived near a hospital, the sound of ambulances passing was a daily occurrence. Even now, if I close my eyes, I can hear the sing-song voice of the truck selling sweet potatoes, the campaign cars broadcasting the names of political candidates over and over again before there was an election, and the appeal of the truck coming around to collect used goods to be recycled. My apartment in Osaka was near a Shinto shrine, and whenever it was time for the summer or autumn festival, I couldn’t get the sound out of my head of the rhythm of those practicing drums or the shouts of those carrying the portable shrine through the neighborhood. When I lived in Kyoto, my apartment was next to the train tracks. I would awaken to the sound of the first train in the morning and my whole apartment shook whenever a train passed.

When I moved to RyoMimi Farm, it was the first time in my working life that I lived in a stand alone house. It was also the first time in my life ever to live in a place with no neighboring houses or buildings. I never get bored with looking out the front door and seeing our fields and the forest and the open sky spread out before me. There is a road nearby and I can hear the sound of passing cars, but since our house sits slightly uphill from the road, the road itself is blocked from view and all I can see is our yard, our landlord’s garden, and lots of trees. The one eyesore are the floodlights from the nearby sport’s ground, but even so the surrounding green brings peace to my heart. If I glance between the trees, I can just make out our landlord’s house, but it takes two minutes to walk there, and that is the nearest house. I’m still amazed by this place even now, and as someone who lived my whole life surrounded by people, I was looking forward to living a slow life in a quiet place.

Perhaps typical for someone who spent more than half their life in big cities, I held the presumption that “Cities are noisy; the countryside is quiet.” However, when I moved to our current house, I realized that the countryside has its own kind of noise. I can say that living in the countryside is peaceful, yes, but it’s hard to say that it’s quiet. When we moved here last March, we were woken up by the voices of our neighbors on our very first night. These were not the voices of human neighbors, but rather the honking of the seven geese which reside in our landlord’s garden behind our house. Why do geese honk so much in the middle of the night? I still don’t know. Surely, they must sleep some time! Yet, we were awoken by the unfamiliar noise at 2 am, 5 am, and all my husband and I could do was complain to each other and laugh. It may be possible to ask the people in the apartment next to you to “Please keep it down,” but there is no way a flock of geese are going to listen to such a request.

Yet, just as you stop noticing the sound of passing trains over time, we got used to the sound of the geese and were somehow able to sleep. No sooner did we feel relief, however, when along came spring, and with it, the sounds of all kinds of bird calls, mixing with the sound of the geese, so that a chorus could be heard morning, day, and night. After the birds came the frog choir. From seemingly out of nowhere, frogs of various sizes appeared in our field and yard and added their voices to the mix. Among them, the most unforgettable noise was that of the bullfrogs living around the pond in the back garden, croaking at such a volume that it sounded as though an entire symphony was playing, except only the bass instruments. Our nights were so disturbed that we went so far as to look up on the internet how to catch and cook bullfrogs. We didn’t actually eat any though.

Just when we thought we were finally used to the frogs, next came the cicadas, and not just one kind either. There were the higurashi that would wake us in the morning. There were the min-min cicadas which sound like they are calling my name. And then, there were the even more distinctly sounding tsuku-tsuku boushi. With the end of summer, the cicadas calmed down, but then it was time for the crickets to emerge. We could tell by the volume of their singing whether they were outside or inside our house and, as often happened, if they were inside our front door, my husband would go shoo them outside or else the noise was so loud it would keep us awake. Autumn also brought with it the peck-peck-peck of the woodpeckers, pecking away at the trees in front of our house.

Eventually, winter arrived, and just when the living creatures began to quiet down, we began to notice the sound of the geese again. It seems they are immune to cold and snow and make a racket all year round. I thought that their racket had ceased to bother me, but I think it wasn’t that I had gotten used to them, it was just that my ears had been distracted by other sounds. Once the other sounds were gone, the days returned where I was again laughing at “those noisy geese!” and I was reminded of when we first moved here. And now, a year has passed, and spring has come, and the sounds of many kinds of birds are coming to my attention again. Recently, I am noticing the cries of the Japanese warbler and the pheasant. I can also hear bird calls that sound like whistles and some that sound like humans talking, and I fondly recall that these guys were around last year, too.

So… our house is surrounded by gardens and fields and forest, but that doesn’t mean it’s quiet. I think it’s interetsing, though, that we can not only differentiate the seasons by sight through the vegetables, trees, and flowers; we can also differetiate the seasons by sound through the living creatures around us. I am expectant for the year to come, sure that if I listen closely with both ears, I will come to hear even more sounds. There is one voice that will definitely be added - the cry of our soon to be born child. To be honest, I’m relieved that I don’t have to worry about bothering the neighbors, no matter how much she cries. I’m sure she will be loud enough to beat those seven geese, but I am looking forward to seeing how her unique voice will change with the passing of days and months, how it will influence our lives, and how our daughter will grow up alongside the birds, and frogs, and insects, surrounded by nature. I just hope the geese don’t start complaining.