Neighbours….

(To the tune of “This Old Man”)

Neighbours are big, neighbours are small,

Neighbours like jogging and basketball,

Neighbours are cute, neighbours are tall,

I like my neighbours one and all!

(lyrics lifted and altered from a local English primary school textbook)

There are 46 floors in Block Six. Each floor has four apartments. If you do the math then that’s 184 apartments in the building. If an average dwelling houses four people, then that’s well over 700 people residing in our tower. Gee, that’s the size of a small New Zealand settlement right there.

During the course of time, I hope to introduce you some of our neighbours. There’s Mr. Optimist (46th floor) who is always smiling and happy. The dear Old Dears, both retired teachers, well into their 80s who do everything together (27th floor), Mr. Liang on the 19th floor. He used to be a principal at a school I worked at until he retired. He’s having heart trouble nowadays which is a shame considering his love for biking and swimming. There’s an earnest young man on level three. I’ve named him Ernest as everything is said   with such conviction:

“I go to the Guangzhou Business Vocational School” or “I am now going to my violin lesson yes.”

There’s a factory of kindergarten kids (five of them) that periodically appear and stir up trouble. My heart sinks when the lift stops at the 29th floor. It’ll be a long ride down with the pushing and general naughtiness being displayed by this quintet.

A few foreigners live here too. Some Iraqis, Yemenis (unfailing polite people), and a mysterious tall blonde woman. She only appears on occasion, usually at night. Who is she and where is she going?

An honourable mention goes to the family living directly above us (36th floor). It’s great fun dragging heavy wooden furniture around the living room at 3am most days isn’t it?  Please drop your mahjong chips on the floor again, it makes quite the sound.

To end today’s post, I’ve included one of the advertisements from Lift C. This is clearly aimed at all the supermothers living in Block Six.