My family recently sent me a care package and fulfilled one of my requests that makes me especially grateful: ear plugs. Here’s a tip if you are traveling to Thailand: bring ear plugs. Thailand is loud.
Whether is the music bumping from eight 1.5-meter tall speakers, with the bass turned all the way up or the trucks, whose engines are designed for much lower pay-loads and are not in the correct gear anyway, sputtering past, there is almost never a moment of silence. Even in the dark of the night, that is when the dog packs being to prowl and defend their territory. Even in the pre-dawn light, that is when the roosters begin their day-long cries. Just when you thought you had a moment of quiet to yourself, the neighborhood announcements come booming over the town loudspeakers that can be heard for kilometers around.
A kind of urban legend among Thailand Peace Corps volunteers is that one volunteer was hosting staff, who are based in Bangkok, for a visit to their site – to check the safety and security of their housing situation, check in on the work they were doing, etc. At one point in the conversation, a Thai staff member asks the PCV, “How do you deal with all the noise?” The PCV’s response, “What noise?” I’m convinced my hearing is going to be irreparably damaged after my service here, and I was curious about the effect of all the noise here on Thai people. Hearing loss must be a national epidemic, I thought, so I set out in search of some data.
A friend found this Web site, which discusses noise pollution, its effect in Thailand and mentions some World Health Organization (WHO) statistics. I found the WHO report with the data that is referenced. The conclusions are from a 20 year old study; it was found that 11.6 percent of the adult population experienced hearing loss, and 5.9 percent of children between 15-19 were experiencing childhood onset hearing loss. Compared to the other countries included in the WHO report, Thailand’s 11.6 percent was the highest, with only Sri Lanka coming close with 10 percent.
I also found this study, which looked at data collected from studies conducted from 1988 to 2000, so the data may be more comprehensive, but still doesn’t account for recent technology such as mobile phones blasting music or headphones. The five different studies recorded 18.6 percent, 8.3 percent, 4.6 percent, 22.7 percent and 3.5/3.6 (urban/rural) percent and the linked paper interpreted the studies to conclude that the prevalence of hearing loss in Thailand to be between 3.5 and 5 percent.
Another study, which was really looking at the effectiveness of the testing methods, but show results comparing “noise exposed” individuals with “non exposed” individuals, as well as comparing audio-metrically normal versus abnormal ears. I was unclear as to who might fall into the “noise exposed” category, but it seemed that this study took place in an urban area and those individuals were people who worked in noisy environments. The results show that noise-exposed individuals perform worse on the hearing test than those who are not and that those with audio-metrically abnormal ears perform extremely poorly. What’s interesting to note is that audio-metrically abnormal ears can develop over time from repeated exposure to noise, it is not necessarily something that occurs from birth.
Anecdotally, from mine and other PCV’s experiences, I would feel safe saying that hearing loss is a problem in Thailand that is not acknowledged or even seen as a problem. Conversations are had at shouting levels, sometimes you can’t get the attention of the people around you and there must be an explanation for turning the music up so loud. So I say again: if you are coming to Thailand, bring ear plugs.
Elisha Lillian February 19, 2014
Yeah, the noise is little loud here. Have you gone for hill tribe trekking?