a culture of tolerance

I was going to write an informative post about Holy Week here, but some guy in the net cafe is playing a loud game at max volume and it's getting really old, so I'm going to rant instead. Imagine being in the theater during a battle scene from Lord of the Rings, except there is no epic music. I keep telling myself I'm going to go to the other cafe that's a bit farther away, that has headphones, but I don't, and then I regret it.

The words "well adjusted" occur to me daily in reference to people here. I'm not sure if they are incredibly good at surpressing annoyance, if social norms are just that much more stringent about forbidding complaining (this is certainly a factor but can't be the whole story), or if they just genuinely don't mind when people do things that I mind very much.

Sometimes animals do things I mind very much, too. My host family has a dog in a cage outside my room that squeeks for hours, sometimes days, on end. It sounds like someone is cleaning a window very loudly, except there's a disgustingly piteous quality about it that you don't really get with windex and a paper towel.

The difference between people and animals, of course, is that human beings are responsible for their actions. Or that's the idea, anyway. At least in my town police officers actually pull people over.