The Birthday Party and the Open Door
In Mexico, and in much of Latin America, people live and speak loudly. The music is loud. Musicians walk through the streets of the city playing their instruments to earn a little money for their families, and I find that beautiful. I support them here in a way I did not at home. I have learned that it is different here, and I have tried to learn it from the inside.
Birthdays are another thing I learned. Where I grew up, a birthday is a big day for a child and a smaller one as you age. In Mexico, a birthday is hugely important at every age. I have embraced that way of thinking.
One year, my wife had a birthday party. We had a DJ from noon until ten at night, playing loud music the whole time. Nearly a hundred people came and went, and at some point somebody left the front door open. I do not think anyone meant to. With that many people arriving and leaving, nobody thought about the door.
At eight in the evening, two people from my home country who live on my street walked in through the open door. They were looking for the owner, and I was the owner. They spoke English. They said, your party sounds so nice. Then they asked if there was any way I could turn the music down.
My first instinct was quick and loud. Absolutely not. Are you crazy? This is Mexico, not the United States. What are you going to do, call the police? The police will not come.
All of that went through my mind, and none of it came out of my mouth. What I said was, of course. Yes, I am sorry to bother you. I told them I would be glad to do what they asked, and I walked them to the door. I did not turn the music down. I did lock the door behind them, so they could not come back in.
I knew that our town has a noise ordinance that begins at ten at night. Ten o’clock was exactly when the DJ finished. And at ten, the police arrived, just as the DJ was carrying out his equipment. Everyone talked in Spanish and went on with what they were doing. Nobody was upset. I have not had a noise problem in Mexico since.
Noise is different in every country. In some, people wait patiently in their cars when the light turns green. In others, they lean on the horn before the light has even changed. Think of my own country. People drive one way in New York City and another way in Kansas. The same happens between countries, and none of it is right or wrong. Each is a volume people grew up with.
The two neighbors were not villains. They asked politely, in my own language, and it was a fair request. They were used to one volume, and for most of my life, so was I.
I felt two things pull at once that night. I wanted to protect a party that mattered a great deal to my wife, and I wanted to be a good neighbor to people who asked kindly. I will be honest about how it came out. I said yes with my words, and I left the music where it was. What made that fair, to my mind, was that the town had already drawn a line at ten o’clock, one that everyone in it recognizes, and I stayed inside it.
Those neighbors never stopped by again to say hello, and they never asked me to turn down the music again.
You could learn the noise rule in your town before you host anything: the hour it starts and who enforces it. You could tell your neighbors about the party in advance, give them your phone number, and invite them. You could also notice your first instinct, and then decide what you would like to say.
What is the loudest thing you have loved in a place that was not yours, or the thing that sounded too loud to you? Tell us in the comments. Someone reading may be planning a party.
Tell us in the comments