Gambling again!

Over the long weekend (New Year's day weekend), I was looking forward to some peace and quiet around the house. Life's been quite hectic and this was a great opportunity for me to take a much needed break. Unfortunately, my landlord had other ideas.

He brought a group of his rowdy friends over to gamble... Sometimes they would play Mahjong, which is one of the nosiest game ever... the incessant clicking of the chips against one another just keeps me awake the whole night through. It's not just me though, my room mates are complaining too.

This time though, they played cards. I'm not sure what game that is but while the cards themselves are not noisy, they chat and smoke a lot. And you know how our Chinese men like to talk. It's like the louder you are, the more macho you are... so they try to outdo each other at the volume thing. The smoking makes the little kitchen very smoky too. I tried to get in there to cook a little something for my sister and  all I could smell of was cigarette smoke! I think many of the tenants here are going to suffer the effects of passive smoking!

What frustrates me is that these men gambles non-stop. I saw them come in on Friday evening and they were gambling as I struggled to sleep. When I woke up in the morning on New Year's day, they were still at it. At about 11am, I went with a room mate to the library but realized that it was closed for the New Year's day holiday, so we decided to have lunch out. By the time we got back at 2pm, these men were still at it. In the evening when I wanted to cook dinner for my sister, they were still at it... They sure have a lot of energy and stamina... I wonder where they get these energy and stamina from... Redbull perhaps?

"Finally a little PEACE!"

Saturday evening after my sister came home from work, we ate and chatted a little while these men continue their game. We again struggled to sleep and finally tiredness got the better of us, maybe at about 2am or so. When I woke up the next morning to see my sister off, they were still at it. Finally I went to church at 10.30am and when I came back at 1pm, they were finally gone. My landlord was snoring away at the sofa! Finally... a little peace!