2005年NPR美国国家公共电台九月-Cross-Cultural (Mis)Understandings with t

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Indian neighbors seemed to her to be a happily married couple until recently.
When I first heard the noise, I almost called 911. It sounded like my downstairs neighbor was bashing his wife against the wall. But I couldn't imagine Gion, a gentle pacifist Sikh, hurting his kind, beautiful wife. Gion, meditated¹ daily, was a pillar in the community, and regularly helped people in need. Whenever I saw him with his wife, Kaleen, they'd be holding hands, a look of serenity² on their faces. So the night of the wall-bashing, I tried to convince myself that maybe they were moving furniture or hanging pictures. Of course that didn't explain they yelling preceding this smashing noise, or Kaleen's cry of pain after it. But it was nearly midnight, and the LAST thing I wanted to do was call 911 over a little redecorating. But when I saw Kaleen outside the next day, I asked pointedly³. "Hey, is everything OK? " She seemed content as always but I knew enough from "Law & Order" reruns that if she suffered from battered⁴ wife syndrome⁵, she probably wouldn't admit to any abuse. I looked at her face for evidence of bruising⁶, but she was wrapped in a scarf and wearing sunglasses. I was instantly suspicious.Then that weekend it happened again. Not the banging, but the screaming. Then, silence. A few minutes later, it started all over. In a weird⁷ way while the scream alarmed me, part of me found it titillating⁸ to hear my Zen-like neighbors going at it like guests on "Jerry Springer. " But then the banging started again, and when I saw Gion in passing, I returned his smile and friendly wave with a dirty look. After another night of banging I called downstairs and expressed my concern. Kaleen answered. "Oh, are the reheasals bothering you? " She asked. Rehearsals⁹? ! Apparently¹⁰ Kaleen had enrolled¹¹ in an acting¹² workshop that I'd been hearing her run through her performance. Or so she said. "wasn't REHEARSALS the oldest excuse in the book? At least in LA? "

Meanwhile, I hadn't been getting along with the boyfriend I was dating at the time, and often we'd argue. The day after a particularly noisy fight, Kaleen saw me outside. And now was her turn to inquire. "Hey, is everything all right? " Embarrased, I lied and said YES. But as I turned to go upstairs, she called after me and met my eyes. "So you are rehearsing too? " She asked. Suddenly I realized how wrong I'd been to suspect my compassionate¹³ neighbors of domestic atrocities¹⁴. It seemed like my natural inclination¹⁵ was to assume the worst about her and Gion, while her impulse was to assume the best about me.
Soon the curtain went down on both of our dramas:her performance ended, my relationship broke up. And from then on, if Kaleen played a particularly anguished¹⁶ character, she called me in advance saying she didn't want to disturb me, but probably also worried that I might dial / 911. I thought about charater a lot since then, because the way we responded to each other's suspicions revealed far more about our real life characters in the dubious¹⁷ noises heard through the walls. Lori Gottlieb in Los Angeles.