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China’s noisy ‘dancing grannies’ silenced by device that disables speakers

165 points by nickt 5y ago

kaonashi 5y ago
Passive-aggressive Taiwanese anti-china propaganda is such a funny genre.
dusted 5y ago
I wonder if it disables pacemakers too ?
robtherobber 5y ago
The article doesn't mention the device name or size, but I have to say that this is something I'm interested into as well.
- WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
  It's purported to be a version of this https://www.amazon.com/TV-B-Gone-Universal-TV-Control-Keychain/product-reviews/B0006GD9CE/ https://www.amazon.com/TV-B-Gone-Universal-TV-Control-Keycha... Kit: https://www.instructables.com/TV-B-Gone-Kit/ https://www.instructables.com/TV-B-Gone-Kit/
  - robtherobber 5y ago
    Thanks mate! I was expecting something more sophisticated and large-ish. But this is better.
haspoken 5y ago
"It's a flashlight-mounted TV-B-Gone The aunties music players have an IR remote" https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/1446462487247814658 https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/144646248724781465...
- junon 5y ago
  My first thought was "wtf, did they circumvent electromagnetism from a distance?"
  - psychlops 5y ago
    I came here with "That's not possible...is it?"
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Would have been funny if they could take over the speaker and play brown noise instead, lol
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Havoc 5y ago
  Damn was hoping for something more exotic. Actually disabling a speaker at distance would have been a feat
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  I'm not sure if I should be disappointed or relieved that it isn't a high-energy remote zapper. I kind of expected a Bluetooth jammer.
  - alphan0n 5y ago
    I though it silenced the people, like the speech jammer that made headlines in 2012 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japanese-researchers-make-speech-jamming-gun/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japanese-researchers-make-speec... Here’s the same concept you can try with headphones. https://www.clicktorelease.com/code/speech-jammer/ https://www.clicktorelease.com/code/speech-jammer/
- Zigurd 5y ago
  This explanation makes a lot of sense. I was scrolling through the thread looking to see if this just some rumor or a made-up technology. When I traveled to China frequently enough to soak up some aspects of city life I really enjoyed seeing the outdoor activities: Dancing grannies, martial arts classes in parks, old guys playing cards on folding tables in alleyways.
Finnucane 5y ago
I could have used one of these last night on the douchebros in the yard behind our house.
- WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
  You must live in my neighborhood; they live across the street from me. Sadly, the device looks like an infrared TV-B-Gone. Prob won't work for us.
- MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
  I doubt they are really selling a BT jammer, as A2DP is really hard to jam due to the frequency hopping. But I would love to buy one for sure!
  - vel0city 5y ago
    While its hard to target the particular device, jamming all Bluetooth isn't too hard. My old microwave was pretty effective at jamming darn near everything around 2.4GHz when operating.
    - MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
      > jamming all Bluetooth isn't too hard I've researched, and even with several ESP32s its impossible. There are 79 frequency bands, and one would have to jam most of them. Talking about battery-operated device here, not a 1000W microwave.
      - vel0city 5y ago
        You're approaching a topic of doing something against the rules with hardware that's certified to try and follow the rules as much as possible. If you're going to try and break the rules, its going to be easier to go about breaking it with hardware designed to break the rules, or at least without those rules in mind. There's 80MHz of bandwidth to try and raise the noise floor high enough that normal devices can't communicate. Using Bluetooth chipsets aren't a great idea as they're optimized to think of it as 79 independent channels of which you need to select one. And on that, then try and send something of the standards and all the limitations involved in a normal device. Luckily, 2.4GHz WiFi runs on the exact same frequencies, its pretty easy to get your hands on 40MHz wide channel chips, and they don't have any real considerations as to the protocols and limitations of Bluetooth. Two hackable WiFi chipsets might be able to get you closer to abusing Bluetooth, you'll just want to set it to the wider 40MHz channels on each, ensure you set it to the Japanese frequencies or you'll miss the upper end of the Bluetooth bands, and then start sending out tons of junk at a higher than allowed power level. If you can somehow find something that lets you transmit on 80MHz wide 2.4GHz channels then you'd only need a single chipset to do it, but I'd imagine those would be exceptionally rare. Note: as an amateur radio operator, RF enthusiast, and a fellow human being who likes his devices working, please don't break the rules.
amelius 5y ago
Give them bluetooth headsets.
- smcl 5y ago
  From the article: > Last year one group in Lanzhou city, Gansu, found a solution that make everyone happy by using bluetooth earphones, holding their own version of a silent disco.
- thatguy0900 5y ago
  It sounds like some of them at least are being loud just to make a point in and of itself, if the article is accurate
- dirtyid 5y ago
  I actually wonder if Bluetooth 5.2 with mass broadcasting features could be a solution. Some 5.2 hearing aids with voice pass through options to keep back ground music down, half the reason the music is so loud is they're old and going deaf anyway. With current tech, bunch of grandmas still need to sync up ipods like a flash mob which isn't going to happen.
  - throwaway472927 5y ago
    As someone suggested above - just use low power FM? We have the technology!
ecshafer 5y ago
This sounds like a bad device. The fact that people will use the squares and parks for large activities like this is a really good part of Chinese culture. You bring together community, you get exercise, etc. That's a great thing. US really underutilizes public spaces and many things become a financial transaction. This is just one of the many reasons why Chinese cities are almost universally better than American cities (more walkable, better transit, easy navigation, more public spaces. Though they do love their super blocks).
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  The problem are the apartments around those squares, or even just near them. Noise pollution is a touchy subject in dense urban China, and sound carries very easily.
- fxtentacle 5y ago
  Unless, of course, you would like to sleep after 6 AM. Some of those grannies will compensate for their own hearing loss by making the music more noisy. When I was living in Vietnam and opened the window of my flat, I could sometimes here them from a park that was 3 side roads away. It must be genuinely painful for those that live above the park.
  - jjoonathan 5y ago
    I heard a youtuber complaining about 11:30pm night owl grannies, so there's no escape.
  - jiminymcmoogley 5y ago
    seems like some of these dancing grannies would do right to invest in a few pairs of wireless headphones.. maybe theres an initial embarassment hurdle to overcome but ive been to a "silent disco"-type event before and that quickly passes
    - olyjohn 5y ago
      Funny, it mentions in the article that some of them have already done that...
mc32 5y ago
While I’m sure it’s rather annoying. Like when you live in a city and your neighbors insist on having you enjoy their taste in music, this is very cunning. They play retro communist-nationalistic tunes, which Xi is bringing back to prominence, so complaints could be taken to be counterrevolutionary )these grannies harken back to Mao’s movements.
turtlebits 5y ago
Happens in the community center lawn across the street from my house in the Seattle area. I can hear the music in my front yard but not inside my house. I do wish mainland Chinese were a little more mindful of others, especially in foreign countries.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Where in the Seattle area does this happen? I'm guessing somewhere over on the east side?
- ilaksh 5y ago
  I mean, community center seems like the place for it, and if you can't hear th music in your house then it seems like a reasonable volume?
NDizzle 5y ago
The US sure could use groups of people exercising in parks. Think about the reduction in medical costs from the attack on type 2 diabetes.
- b112 5y ago
  Yet the dancing grannies took over a soccer field, while a game was in play. And what of the lost sleep, the stress of their anti-social ways, on the rest of society. They sound like thugs.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    The interruption of a single soccer game is probably more damage than the benefit of the social activity of 100 million members of a group that is usually isolated and lonely in other societies? This is hysterics. Maybe if they interrupted every soccer game, there'd be something to worry about (then to think about, then to again stop worrying about.)
  - com2kid 5y ago
    > Yet the dancing grannies took over a soccer field, while a game was in play. I'd be interested in knowing the full story. Was it some kids kicking a ball around, or was it an organized match scheduled ahead of time on the playing field? Where I used to live in Seattle, I knew that the grannies would come every week at a certain gym floor. Did they have a reservation? No, but I wasn't going to be an asshole and try to interrupt elderly women dancing and socializing. (One could however criticize LA Fitness[1] for putting the dance floors and boxing bags in the same room!) Now if they barged into a professional sports arena and tried to take over, hah, yeah, that's a problem! :) [1] I actually have a number of criticisms of the old DT Bellevue LA Fitness but since they aren't there anymore, it doesn't much matter.
josefresco 5y ago
“Most of them are the products of the Red Guard era, they don’t respect society or the environment,” said a young Chinese resident of Guiyang, who did not want to be named. “Square dancing is a problem left over from history. Many elderly people feel that the whole China is built by their generation. They have the absolute voice and status. We young people have done nothing, and of course are not qualified to question them.” Is this accurate?
- dirtyid 5y ago
  Very much yes. Imagine all the obnoxiousness of current internet cultural wars. Red guard is that, except it was a literal physical cultural war and they were the winners, which shaped their identities and sense of entitleness. It's a cohort with very strong personalities from a era where lack of shame was both a survival mechanism and got you far.
- nathanyukai 5y ago
  I grow up in Beijing and I have to say this is not accurate but statement like this surely is eye-catching in western media... My view on this is that the old generation just don't have the habit and common courtesy of living in cities, they lived in poor rural areas for many years before come to the city. Things like queueing, keep voice down was simply not needed outside of city, The young generation is much better at these, though still have plenty of space to improve!
  - schleck8 5y ago
    This article is based on a piece by South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3151243/chinas-dancing-grannies-viral-stun-gun-claims https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/arti... > According to the Post, square dancing has its roots in the Cultural Revolution, particularly the great link-up of 1965 and the educated youth campaign in 1969. The damas are of middle age because square dancing links back to these moments of their youth when collectivism was an important social value in China.
    - 5y ago
exabrial 5y ago
Interesting... I've been to China a few times (Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, others...) and my experience has been a little different. I didn't notice so much "just grannies", but couples, and it was mainly ballroom dance, not square dancing. I don't speak much Chinese, but ballroom styles are fairly universal, and the women were delighted to dance with a foreigner. Younger generations just kinda sat around on their phones but didn't seem bothered.
- NAR8789 5y ago
  "Square dancing" here is I think a fairly awkward translation by the author. "Square" here refers a location, as in "public square" or "field". The literal chinese is 广场舞. 广场: public square (like Times Square or Tiananmen Square, but more commonly an open area in a park); 舞: dance. Put it together... "square dance". Hm. Accurate in a word-by-word literal sense, but the article writer is being obtuse in ignoring the more popular usage of "square dancing". I think "field dancing" or "park dancing" might be a less confusing translation that stays relatively literal. Though... if you're searching your memory for where you've seen this before and trying to remember by dance style... honestly I'd say it significantly resembles line dancing (which still shouldn't be confused with square dancing). Usually no caller (as far as I've seen), but everyone's listening to the same music, facing the same direction, and doing the same dance moves. Generally no partners--just a grid of people individually dancing in unison. I would probably accept "line dancing grannies" as a reasonable translation. Less literal, but more descriptive.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    Ya, square dancing in China literally means dancing in some kind of public square (which almost all parks in China have). They aren't doing the Macarena (usually). Whether there is a caller or not is usually left to local culture. Not sure how ayi gets translated to granny, however.
Waterluvian 5y ago
This entire article isn’t passing the sniff test for me. Not only am I skeptical of the technology but I’m skeptical there’s an actual problem here. On the surface it feels like a softball seat filler of an article.
- tqi 5y ago
  Yeah, the implicit tone of this article is "check out this foreign curiosity, isn't it so weird?" similar to the articles about rental families in Japan. The Guardian can fuck off.
- LeifCarrotson 5y ago
  It's less of a problem (on the scale of Covid or climate change) and more of a familiar annoyance. It's not causing major harm, but it's still a cultural problem: Some people don't care about others. Have you ever heard/felt a motorcycle going by while the operator flicked the throttle to cause the engine to backfire so loudly you felt it in your chest? Don't turn your head, if you look at them they'll think you think they're cool and they'll come back later so they can feel cool again. If you talk to them, they'll tell you loud pipes save lives, and when you point out that studies show that most motorcycle accidents occur due to vehicles in front of the bike, while the Doppler effect, modern cars' road noise deadening construction, and the bike's exhaust orientation direct most of the noise behind the bike, so they only serve to annoy pedestrians, they'll tell you they think they're cool. Have you been sunbathing at the beach, risking falling asleep from the comfortable warmth of the sun, gentle rhythm of the waves, and the laughter of children playing, when someone brought a surprisingly loud Bluetooth speaker and decided that instead of those sounds you all needed to hear 90s party pop? On asking them, they might turn the music up, clearly what this beach needs is a little more NSYNC. Have you been filling up your gas tank at a quiet gas station when a pickup truck rolled in with its windows down and country music coming over the radio, and the driver shut the engine off, opened the doors, and left the radio running so the entire assembled group of tired commuters, who were all clearly in need of some tunes, could listen together? Everyone loves country music, and those who don't, just need some exposure and then they'll like it. I've only been to Shanghai once, and yes, the dancing grannies are a real thing that were present at a bunch of parks, but even in American national parks the same Red Guard generation of Chinese tourists are well known to be frequently rude. This kind of behavior is rude. Put on some headphones, please, or at least turn down the volume: you shouldn't assume an exclusive right to the auditory experience of everyone at a public park.
bsedlm 5y ago
> But many are too scared to confront the women. This reminds me of this Monty Python sketch: Monty Python - Hell's Grannies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmzMzmnB-iQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmzMzmnB-iQ
christkv 5y ago
I can't believe that Hells Grannies actually came true. Monthy Python saw the future but it turned out it was Chinese and not British.
throwaway743 5y ago
Any new soundproofing tech to keep an eye on? White noise machines and ear buds can only do so much
- boomlinde 5y ago
  Get a good pair of ANC headphones. They won't cancel everything, but play a rain loop and you're gold. This has been very useful to me while WFH. I can't sleep with them on, though; I get nightmares if I sleep on my back. Someone should make an ANC pillow!
dirtyid 5y ago
Hoping Bluetooth 5.2 with mass broadcasting features could be a solution. Some 5.2 hearing aids with voice pass through options to keep back ground music down, half the reason the music is so loud is they're old and going deaf anyway. With current tech, bunch of grandmas still need to sync up ipods like a flash mob which isn't going to happen. Add in spatial audio to simulate physical boom box. Apple get on this. As someone with ANC headphones all the time, personally very excited for when communal audio / seemless enviromental broadcast becomes a thing.
WhySoGullible 5y ago
Dancing grannies are actually one of the aspects about China that I absolutely love. I can go out anywhere I want at any time of the night and feel safe. Why? Hoards of wholesome dancing grannies fill all of those dark spaces normally occupied by drug addicts and hoodlums in Western countries. They make the public spaces feel 'alive'. I've lived in my different cities in the West including those in Western Europe and North America, and all too often public spaces become completely dead and devoid of life all because people have become so fearful of offending others or looking stupid. Everyone just wants to keep to themselves and be left alone. Suburbs are practically ghost towns with everyone (probably on their devices) hiding inside their homes. Physical social networks are clearly on the decline and as a result, depression and loneliness has become an absolute epidemic in the West. The problem only gets exponentially worse as one ages. Happy dancing grannies engaging in physical exercise, socializing and helping to keep the community safe is what Western countries to be aspiring to have, instead of criticizing and ridiculing.
- snypher 5y ago
  >Hoards of wholesome dancing grannies fill all of those dark spaces normally occupied by drug addicts and hoodlums in Western countries. I know (hope?) you are being hyperbolic, but I don't think these two issues are as directly related as you make it seem.
- m3kw9 5y ago
  They are not going away anytime soon because they are actually endorsed by the state and tech solutions will come out to nullify this
  - ilaksh 5y ago
    It seems like the solution is to just play the music at a reasonable level? And if they can't do that then start arresting them.
- clairity 5y ago
  a fond memory of visiting beijing many years ago is all the old folks doing tai chi in various parks and empty lots around the city at like 7am. it made the city feel warm and alive. where i live (in LA), you see folks out jogging and walking their dog at that time, but it’s mostly all solitary activity.
aww_dang 5y ago
I couldn't find any details on the actual device or how it works?
HKH2 5y ago
In China, they're commonly referred to as '阿姨' (aunties).
peter303 5y ago
The return of "boom boxes" is ruining areas of US parks. This is facilitated by some smart phones with loud volumes or attachments to smart phones that turn them into boom boxes. I dont want hear other people loud music at times. P.s. these devices are on bicycles and hikers too.
- sonthonax 5y ago
  Agreed. I wonder what's driving the upsurge? It's the same in the UK too. I remember being at a park party a few months ago with some fellow 20-25 year olds; I suggested turning the music down, but it took the police to kindly ask for the request to be heeded. What astonished me was that the 20 something girls were indignant at the police's request, as if their human rights were violated.
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    I feel like in general there's been a big increase in selfish antisocial behavior since the pandemic started.
    - j_walter 5y ago
      I think the latest generation has been taught that they are more important than anyone else and really lack manners. This is evident in the rise of social media and "influencers".
      - nerdponx 5y ago
        I'm not sure we can blame any particular generation. I see it just as much in people over 40 as I do people under 30, and all ages in between.
      - speedybird 5y ago
        Maybe they spent too much time socializing on the internet (where manners are in short supply and consequences for rudeness nonexistent), and not enough time socializing in the real world (where being rude will eventually get you punched in the face.)
jrockway 5y ago
When I lived in Japan (high school exchange) there was neighborhood "radio taiso" in the morning. I got the impression that people loved it and it was one of those things that made living in a dense city tolerable -- a little bit of routine, a little bit of meeting your neighbors before work/school. It is amazing to me that China wants to ban it because it's loud.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  China doesn't want to ban it, just some grumpy people. There's always some grumpy person who blames loud neighbors for their own life or sleep problems.
  - SkinTaco 5y ago
    personally i am not grumpy about my life and/or sleep problems because i do not have neighbors that are loud and wake me up in the morning with loud music
- lhorie 5y ago
  My impression is that radio taiso is quite a bit tamer than dancing grannies. The former is usually mellow with slower tempos and relaxing uplifting vibes and it's really meant to be something for all ages; the latter is closer to electronic/club music, with faster tempos, and more aggressive beats (and yes, it's quite a bit louder too). In my experience, radio taiso also inherits a lot of the japanese polite culture. When I was young, my experience was that radio taiso always took consideration of surroundings: it was always in a designated space and time (e.g. the school gymnasium before class), whereas my experience w/ dancing grannies is that they just kinda make a habit of showing up at privately owned public spaces (e.g. malls) early enough in the morning and in a large enough group of people that security guards don't want to bother dealing with them.
  - jrockway 5y ago
    Got it. That wasn't clear to me from the article -- I guess I assumed it was more chill and just in public parks in the middle of the day. If it's indoors at a shopping center, I see why that would annoy people.
harimau777 5y ago
I remember a lot of this when I was living in SF's Chinatown. Personally, I thought it was a great part of the community and I was impressed by how healthy the elderly people in the area where. I can see how the music could be frustrating, but I think it would really be unfortunate if this part of the culture went away.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  I like the grannies, too. If they were dancing to US pop 70s hits, it might be the most awesome thing in the world.
  - peterburkimsher 5y ago
    The old grannies are Stayin' Alive! You can tell by the way I use my wok. Funny story about dancing grannies in Taipei, back in 2016. My boss asked me to go up from Kaohsiung to attend the Python Conference. But I was facing some very tight financial times, and paying several thousand NTD for the conference fee (which wasn't refunded by the company later) was difficult for me. So I took a cheap night bus instead of HSR train, rode a city bike instead of the MRT, and arrived at 6 am for the conference at 11 am, hoping to sneak inside the conference venue during setup. How could I loiter there without attracting attention? Well, there were a group of grannies dancing. So I joined them! We had a great time, and some of them even offered to introduce me to their granddaughters. And when the time came, I bid them farewell, tailgated into the venue, opened my laptop and looked busy. The dancing grannies were so hospitable, though, welcoming a crazy foreign boy and being rather too trusting.
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    the Macarena was popular with groups I saw in the morning !
- ilaksh 5y ago
  I think the issue is the noise pollution. Playing the music at lower volume would probably go a long way. Or using earbuds.
killjoywashere 5y ago
One thing that needs to be said, if I understand this correctly: the dancing grannies are explicitly a product of the CCP, correct?
- petesergeant 5y ago
  I'm in Oaxaca, Mexico, and they've got a group of people dancing to a boombox in the park here. I've lived many years in Bangkok, and the same. Seems hard to pin it explicitly on the CCP.
odiroot 5y ago
I visited Chengdu (among others) in 2017/2018 and saw the square dancing many times. Always found it charming, especially seeing that the elderly have some active ways to spend their time. It must be good for their health. But yes they really tend to blast their music very loud. Already back then, the People's Park had decibel meters in every spot the oldies congregated, warning them if they went over the limit. Once I also watched quite an old gentleman performing (singing live to a backing track) folk songs from Inner Mongolia. He was really good at this and his voice was very moving. Really wish I could see it in person again.
jzymbaluk 5y ago
Let the grannies dance, c'mon
dogman144 5y ago
Havana Syndrome cause discovered. Serious note, the tech sounds interesting and I’m surprised it’s on the mainstream market now. I wonder if any side effects will be tied to if.
kelnos 5y ago
I'm really torn on this sort of thing. I live in a city, and accept that dealing with noise is a part of life. And I expect these dance-exercise meetings are actually great for the people who participate; certainly here in the US I know that the elderly often feel alone and have trouble maintaining social relationships the older they get. Not to mention getting outside and exercising is great for physical health. But if you wake me up early in the morning with loud music I will end you.
- e40 5y ago
  "Viral videos and reports have shown the groups arguing and fighting with basketball players to take over their court, or, in one case, breaking into a football field and stopping the game to dance in the space, prompting a police response and arrests." That seems pretty unruly, but it could easily be the vast exception.
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    There are more than a billion people in China. You could find 100 examples of any group misbehaving and it wouldn't prove anything.
- qzw 5y ago
  > But if you wake me up early in the morning with loud music I will end you. Easy there, John Wick. Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad. — Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
stefantalpalaru 5y ago
A much better description of this phenomenon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-raCm2-rObI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-raCm2-rObI
scabarott 5y ago
Hooligan grannies lol, that's a new one. On another note where can I get this magical gun that silences loudspeakers from a distance?
jimt1234 5y ago
When I lived in Shanghai back in 2002, old ladies used to do this same thing, but to slower, traditional Chinese music, not this Chinese-dance-pop-fusion music. I'll take the traditional Chinese music any day.
richardatlarge 5y ago
This was already posted a few days ago. I thought HN automatically assessed submissions for duplicates?
jiggunjer 5y ago
This phenomenon occurs in Hong Kong too. When I asked a local why he disapproves he said it's not actually HK culture but a relatively recent thing due to the influx of mainlanders.
ldiracdelta 5y ago
What is this "remote stun gun-style device" they reference?
- luca3v 5y ago
  It's probably some kind of universal remote
- sixstringtheory 5y ago
  This is what I thought of when I saw the headline: https://singularityhub.com/2012/03/29/speech-jamming-gun-from-japan-silences-people-from-up-to-34-meters-away/ https://singularityhub.com/2012/03/29/speech-jamming-gun-fro...
illuminati1911 5y ago
I live in Shanghai and yes this is a real problem, but it's not just problem with square dancing, but older generations in general here. While there are of course lot of polite civilized old people, many of them have absolutely no respect for environment or rules. You'll often see them throwing waste oil to the streets, littering, yelling/screaming in public for no reason, breaking every single traffic rule in existence, jumping the queue in supermarkets etc. Lot of of younger and/or "less older" generations are also pissed off about this and local governments here in SH and elsewhere are trying to create new regulations to mitigate these issues: https://www.shine.cn/news/nation/2108183694/ https://www.shine.cn/news/nation/2108183694/
- lhorie 5y ago
  I think it's a byproduct of a deep cultural thing. In East Asian countries, there's a strong culture of respecting your elders. In China, it seems this sometimes manifests in a peculiar way where people getting older start to act as if they're entitled to unconditional respect and they abuse the heck out of it (abusing the heck of unspoken gray areas also appears to be another chinese cultural peculiarity). "I had to put up with my elders, now it's your turn to put up with me" is a pretty accurate summary of how some people seem to think/act. My mother-in-law is quite a reasonable and well respected person (she was a teacher and gets gifts from ex-students to this day, and she doesn't even live in China anymore), but the fights my wife has gotten into with her due to this "respect for elders" thing are... something else. The whole dynamic reminds me of a tradition in Brazil where senior students in universities play pranks on new students. The general gist is that pranks can be pretty nasty (getting your head shaved and your face covered in paint is standard fare treatment and things just get worse from there), and the tradition gets passed on in a "now it's my turn to be nasty" sort of way. Predictably, things can and have gotten out of hand on several occasions and pretty much everyone knows of at least one urban legend/story of someone drowning or getting seriously injured in some other way. Unsurprisingly, some schools ban these pranks, not unlike these regulations you mentioned. People will be people, I guess.
thedougd 5y ago
Reminds me of the famous gag by Gizmodo, who took a TV-B-Gone to the Consumer Electronics Show to cause mayhem. https://gizmodo.com/confessions-the-meanest-thing-gizmodo-did-at-ces-343348 https://gizmodo.com/confessions-the-meanest-thing-gizmodo-di...
toomanyrichies 5y ago
I'd pay a jaw-dropping amount of money to have a small, handheld version of this device for riding the bus here in SF. Only half-joking.
winrid 5y ago
Here's a video of said 'dancing grannies' from when I was in Beijing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXtDhnmqAFk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXtDhnmqAFk I found it quite charming, but I can imagine how it could be annoying in some areas. Just like how after spending some time in China, and then coming back and noticing all the modified cars in the US. :)
justshowpost 5y ago
> China is home to an estimated 100 million dancing grannies. Sounds like talking about a species of animals.

165 points by nickt 5y ago

kaonashi 5y ago

Passive-aggressive Taiwanese anti-china propaganda is such a funny genre.

dusted 5y ago

I wonder if it disables pacemakers too ?

robtherobber 5y ago

The article doesn't mention the device name or size, but I have to say that this is something I'm interested into as well.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
It's purported to be a version of this https://www.amazon.com/TV-B-Gone-Universal-TV-Control-Keychain/product-reviews/B0006GD9CE/ https://www.amazon.com/TV-B-Gone-Universal-TV-Control-Keycha... Kit: https://www.instructables.com/TV-B-Gone-Kit/ https://www.instructables.com/TV-B-Gone-Kit/
- robtherobber 5y ago
  Thanks mate! I was expecting something more sophisticated and large-ish. But this is better.

haspoken 5y ago

"It's a flashlight-mounted TV-B-Gone The aunties music players have an IR remote" https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/1446462487247814658 https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/144646248724781465...

junon 5y ago
My first thought was "wtf, did they circumvent electromagnetism from a distance?"
- psychlops 5y ago
  I came here with "That's not possible...is it?"
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Would have been funny if they could take over the speaker and play brown noise instead, lol
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Havoc 5y ago
Damn was hoping for something more exotic. Actually disabling a speaker at distance would have been a feat
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
I'm not sure if I should be disappointed or relieved that it isn't a high-energy remote zapper. I kind of expected a Bluetooth jammer.
- alphan0n 5y ago
  I though it silenced the people, like the speech jammer that made headlines in 2012 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japanese-researchers-make-speech-jamming-gun/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japanese-researchers-make-speec... Here’s the same concept you can try with headphones. https://www.clicktorelease.com/code/speech-jammer/ https://www.clicktorelease.com/code/speech-jammer/
Zigurd 5y ago
This explanation makes a lot of sense. I was scrolling through the thread looking to see if this just some rumor or a made-up technology. When I traveled to China frequently enough to soak up some aspects of city life I really enjoyed seeing the outdoor activities: Dancing grannies, martial arts classes in parks, old guys playing cards on folding tables in alleyways.

Finnucane 5y ago

I could have used one of these last night on the douchebros in the yard behind our house.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
You must live in my neighborhood; they live across the street from me. Sadly, the device looks like an infrared TV-B-Gone. Prob won't work for us.
MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
I doubt they are really selling a BT jammer, as A2DP is really hard to jam due to the frequency hopping. But I would love to buy one for sure!
- vel0city 5y ago
  While its hard to target the particular device, jamming all Bluetooth isn't too hard. My old microwave was pretty effective at jamming darn near everything around 2.4GHz when operating.
  - MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
    > jamming all Bluetooth isn't too hard I've researched, and even with several ESP32s its impossible. There are 79 frequency bands, and one would have to jam most of them. Talking about battery-operated device here, not a 1000W microwave.
    - vel0city 5y ago
      You're approaching a topic of doing something against the rules with hardware that's certified to try and follow the rules as much as possible. If you're going to try and break the rules, its going to be easier to go about breaking it with hardware designed to break the rules, or at least without those rules in mind. There's 80MHz of bandwidth to try and raise the noise floor high enough that normal devices can't communicate. Using Bluetooth chipsets aren't a great idea as they're optimized to think of it as 79 independent channels of which you need to select one. And on that, then try and send something of the standards and all the limitations involved in a normal device. Luckily, 2.4GHz WiFi runs on the exact same frequencies, its pretty easy to get your hands on 40MHz wide channel chips, and they don't have any real considerations as to the protocols and limitations of Bluetooth. Two hackable WiFi chipsets might be able to get you closer to abusing Bluetooth, you'll just want to set it to the wider 40MHz channels on each, ensure you set it to the Japanese frequencies or you'll miss the upper end of the Bluetooth bands, and then start sending out tons of junk at a higher than allowed power level. If you can somehow find something that lets you transmit on 80MHz wide 2.4GHz channels then you'd only need a single chipset to do it, but I'd imagine those would be exceptionally rare. Note: as an amateur radio operator, RF enthusiast, and a fellow human being who likes his devices working, please don't break the rules.

amelius 5y ago

Give them bluetooth headsets.

smcl 5y ago
From the article: > Last year one group in Lanzhou city, Gansu, found a solution that make everyone happy by using bluetooth earphones, holding their own version of a silent disco.
thatguy0900 5y ago
It sounds like some of them at least are being loud just to make a point in and of itself, if the article is accurate
dirtyid 5y ago
I actually wonder if Bluetooth 5.2 with mass broadcasting features could be a solution. Some 5.2 hearing aids with voice pass through options to keep back ground music down, half the reason the music is so loud is they're old and going deaf anyway. With current tech, bunch of grandmas still need to sync up ipods like a flash mob which isn't going to happen.
- throwaway472927 5y ago
  As someone suggested above - just use low power FM? We have the technology!

ecshafer 5y ago

This sounds like a bad device. The fact that people will use the squares and parks for large activities like this is a really good part of Chinese culture. You bring together community, you get exercise, etc. That's a great thing. US really underutilizes public spaces and many things become a financial transaction. This is just one of the many reasons why Chinese cities are almost universally better than American cities (more walkable, better transit, easy navigation, more public spaces. Though they do love their super blocks).

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
The problem are the apartments around those squares, or even just near them. Noise pollution is a touchy subject in dense urban China, and sound carries very easily.
fxtentacle 5y ago
Unless, of course, you would like to sleep after 6 AM. Some of those grannies will compensate for their own hearing loss by making the music more noisy. When I was living in Vietnam and opened the window of my flat, I could sometimes here them from a park that was 3 side roads away. It must be genuinely painful for those that live above the park.
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  I heard a youtuber complaining about 11:30pm night owl grannies, so there's no escape.
- jiminymcmoogley 5y ago
  seems like some of these dancing grannies would do right to invest in a few pairs of wireless headphones.. maybe theres an initial embarassment hurdle to overcome but ive been to a "silent disco"-type event before and that quickly passes
  - olyjohn 5y ago
    Funny, it mentions in the article that some of them have already done that...

mc32 5y ago

While I’m sure it’s rather annoying. Like when you live in a city and your neighbors insist on having you enjoy their taste in music, this is very cunning. They play retro communist-nationalistic tunes, which Xi is bringing back to prominence, so complaints could be taken to be counterrevolutionary )these grannies harken back to Mao’s movements.

turtlebits 5y ago

Happens in the community center lawn across the street from my house in the Seattle area. I can hear the music in my front yard but not inside my house. I do wish mainland Chinese were a little more mindful of others, especially in foreign countries.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Where in the Seattle area does this happen? I'm guessing somewhere over on the east side?
ilaksh 5y ago
I mean, community center seems like the place for it, and if you can't hear th music in your house then it seems like a reasonable volume?

NDizzle 5y ago

The US sure could use groups of people exercising in parks. Think about the reduction in medical costs from the attack on type 2 diabetes.

b112 5y ago
Yet the dancing grannies took over a soccer field, while a game was in play. And what of the lost sleep, the stress of their anti-social ways, on the rest of society. They sound like thugs.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  The interruption of a single soccer game is probably more damage than the benefit of the social activity of 100 million members of a group that is usually isolated and lonely in other societies? This is hysterics. Maybe if they interrupted every soccer game, there'd be something to worry about (then to think about, then to again stop worrying about.)
- com2kid 5y ago
  > Yet the dancing grannies took over a soccer field, while a game was in play. I'd be interested in knowing the full story. Was it some kids kicking a ball around, or was it an organized match scheduled ahead of time on the playing field? Where I used to live in Seattle, I knew that the grannies would come every week at a certain gym floor. Did they have a reservation? No, but I wasn't going to be an asshole and try to interrupt elderly women dancing and socializing. (One could however criticize LA Fitness[1] for putting the dance floors and boxing bags in the same room!) Now if they barged into a professional sports arena and tried to take over, hah, yeah, that's a problem! :) [1] I actually have a number of criticisms of the old DT Bellevue LA Fitness but since they aren't there anymore, it doesn't much matter.

josefresco 5y ago

“Most of them are the products of the Red Guard era, they don’t respect society or the environment,” said a young Chinese resident of Guiyang, who did not want to be named. “Square dancing is a problem left over from history. Many elderly people feel that the whole China is built by their generation. They have the absolute voice and status. We young people have done nothing, and of course are not qualified to question them.” Is this accurate?

dirtyid 5y ago
Very much yes. Imagine all the obnoxiousness of current internet cultural wars. Red guard is that, except it was a literal physical cultural war and they were the winners, which shaped their identities and sense of entitleness. It's a cohort with very strong personalities from a era where lack of shame was both a survival mechanism and got you far.
nathanyukai 5y ago
I grow up in Beijing and I have to say this is not accurate but statement like this surely is eye-catching in western media... My view on this is that the old generation just don't have the habit and common courtesy of living in cities, they lived in poor rural areas for many years before come to the city. Things like queueing, keep voice down was simply not needed outside of city, The young generation is much better at these, though still have plenty of space to improve!
- schleck8 5y ago
  This article is based on a piece by South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3151243/chinas-dancing-grannies-viral-stun-gun-claims https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/arti... > According to the Post, square dancing has its roots in the Cultural Revolution, particularly the great link-up of 1965 and the educated youth campaign in 1969. The damas are of middle age because square dancing links back to these moments of their youth when collectivism was an important social value in China.
  - 5y ago

exabrial 5y ago

Interesting... I've been to China a few times (Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, others...) and my experience has been a little different. I didn't notice so much "just grannies", but couples, and it was mainly ballroom dance, not square dancing. I don't speak much Chinese, but ballroom styles are fairly universal, and the women were delighted to dance with a foreigner. Younger generations just kinda sat around on their phones but didn't seem bothered.

NAR8789 5y ago
"Square dancing" here is I think a fairly awkward translation by the author. "Square" here refers a location, as in "public square" or "field". The literal chinese is 广场舞. 广场: public square (like Times Square or Tiananmen Square, but more commonly an open area in a park); 舞: dance. Put it together... "square dance". Hm. Accurate in a word-by-word literal sense, but the article writer is being obtuse in ignoring the more popular usage of "square dancing". I think "field dancing" or "park dancing" might be a less confusing translation that stays relatively literal. Though... if you're searching your memory for where you've seen this before and trying to remember by dance style... honestly I'd say it significantly resembles line dancing (which still shouldn't be confused with square dancing). Usually no caller (as far as I've seen), but everyone's listening to the same music, facing the same direction, and doing the same dance moves. Generally no partners--just a grid of people individually dancing in unison. I would probably accept "line dancing grannies" as a reasonable translation. Less literal, but more descriptive.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Ya, square dancing in China literally means dancing in some kind of public square (which almost all parks in China have). They aren't doing the Macarena (usually). Whether there is a caller or not is usually left to local culture. Not sure how ayi gets translated to granny, however.

Waterluvian 5y ago

This entire article isn’t passing the sniff test for me. Not only am I skeptical of the technology but I’m skeptical there’s an actual problem here. On the surface it feels like a softball seat filler of an article.

tqi 5y ago
Yeah, the implicit tone of this article is "check out this foreign curiosity, isn't it so weird?" similar to the articles about rental families in Japan. The Guardian can fuck off.
LeifCarrotson 5y ago
It's less of a problem (on the scale of Covid or climate change) and more of a familiar annoyance. It's not causing major harm, but it's still a cultural problem: Some people don't care about others. Have you ever heard/felt a motorcycle going by while the operator flicked the throttle to cause the engine to backfire so loudly you felt it in your chest? Don't turn your head, if you look at them they'll think you think they're cool and they'll come back later so they can feel cool again. If you talk to them, they'll tell you loud pipes save lives, and when you point out that studies show that most motorcycle accidents occur due to vehicles in front of the bike, while the Doppler effect, modern cars' road noise deadening construction, and the bike's exhaust orientation direct most of the noise behind the bike, so they only serve to annoy pedestrians, they'll tell you they think they're cool. Have you been sunbathing at the beach, risking falling asleep from the comfortable warmth of the sun, gentle rhythm of the waves, and the laughter of children playing, when someone brought a surprisingly loud Bluetooth speaker and decided that instead of those sounds you all needed to hear 90s party pop? On asking them, they might turn the music up, clearly what this beach needs is a little more NSYNC. Have you been filling up your gas tank at a quiet gas station when a pickup truck rolled in with its windows down and country music coming over the radio, and the driver shut the engine off, opened the doors, and left the radio running so the entire assembled group of tired commuters, who were all clearly in need of some tunes, could listen together? Everyone loves country music, and those who don't, just need some exposure and then they'll like it. I've only been to Shanghai once, and yes, the dancing grannies are a real thing that were present at a bunch of parks, but even in American national parks the same Red Guard generation of Chinese tourists are well known to be frequently rude. This kind of behavior is rude. Put on some headphones, please, or at least turn down the volume: you shouldn't assume an exclusive right to the auditory experience of everyone at a public park.

bsedlm 5y ago

> But many are too scared to confront the women. This reminds me of this Monty Python sketch: Monty Python - Hell's Grannies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmzMzmnB-iQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmzMzmnB-iQ

christkv 5y ago

I can't believe that Hells Grannies actually came true. Monthy Python saw the future but it turned out it was Chinese and not British.

throwaway743 5y ago

Any new soundproofing tech to keep an eye on? White noise machines and ear buds can only do so much

boomlinde 5y ago
Get a good pair of ANC headphones. They won't cancel everything, but play a rain loop and you're gold. This has been very useful to me while WFH. I can't sleep with them on, though; I get nightmares if I sleep on my back. Someone should make an ANC pillow!

dirtyid 5y ago

Hoping Bluetooth 5.2 with mass broadcasting features could be a solution. Some 5.2 hearing aids with voice pass through options to keep back ground music down, half the reason the music is so loud is they're old and going deaf anyway. With current tech, bunch of grandmas still need to sync up ipods like a flash mob which isn't going to happen. Add in spatial audio to simulate physical boom box. Apple get on this. As someone with ANC headphones all the time, personally very excited for when communal audio / seemless enviromental broadcast becomes a thing.

WhySoGullible 5y ago

Dancing grannies are actually one of the aspects about China that I absolutely love. I can go out anywhere I want at any time of the night and feel safe. Why? Hoards of wholesome dancing grannies fill all of those dark spaces normally occupied by drug addicts and hoodlums in Western countries. They make the public spaces feel 'alive'. I've lived in my different cities in the West including those in Western Europe and North America, and all too often public spaces become completely dead and devoid of life all because people have become so fearful of offending others or looking stupid. Everyone just wants to keep to themselves and be left alone. Suburbs are practically ghost towns with everyone (probably on their devices) hiding inside their homes. Physical social networks are clearly on the decline and as a result, depression and loneliness has become an absolute epidemic in the West. The problem only gets exponentially worse as one ages. Happy dancing grannies engaging in physical exercise, socializing and helping to keep the community safe is what Western countries to be aspiring to have, instead of criticizing and ridiculing.

snypher 5y ago
>Hoards of wholesome dancing grannies fill all of those dark spaces normally occupied by drug addicts and hoodlums in Western countries. I know (hope?) you are being hyperbolic, but I don't think these two issues are as directly related as you make it seem.
m3kw9 5y ago
They are not going away anytime soon because they are actually endorsed by the state and tech solutions will come out to nullify this
- ilaksh 5y ago
  It seems like the solution is to just play the music at a reasonable level? And if they can't do that then start arresting them.
clairity 5y ago
a fond memory of visiting beijing many years ago is all the old folks doing tai chi in various parks and empty lots around the city at like 7am. it made the city feel warm and alive. where i live (in LA), you see folks out jogging and walking their dog at that time, but it’s mostly all solitary activity.

aww_dang 5y ago

I couldn't find any details on the actual device or how it works?

HKH2 5y ago

In China, they're commonly referred to as '阿姨' (aunties).

peter303 5y ago

The return of "boom boxes" is ruining areas of US parks. This is facilitated by some smart phones with loud volumes or attachments to smart phones that turn them into boom boxes. I dont want hear other people loud music at times. P.s. these devices are on bicycles and hikers too.

sonthonax 5y ago
Agreed. I wonder what's driving the upsurge? It's the same in the UK too. I remember being at a park party a few months ago with some fellow 20-25 year olds; I suggested turning the music down, but it took the police to kindly ask for the request to be heeded. What astonished me was that the 20 something girls were indignant at the police's request, as if their human rights were violated.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  I feel like in general there's been a big increase in selfish antisocial behavior since the pandemic started.
  - j_walter 5y ago
    I think the latest generation has been taught that they are more important than anyone else and really lack manners. This is evident in the rise of social media and "influencers".
    - nerdponx 5y ago
      I'm not sure we can blame any particular generation. I see it just as much in people over 40 as I do people under 30, and all ages in between.
    - speedybird 5y ago
      Maybe they spent too much time socializing on the internet (where manners are in short supply and consequences for rudeness nonexistent), and not enough time socializing in the real world (where being rude will eventually get you punched in the face.)

jrockway 5y ago

When I lived in Japan (high school exchange) there was neighborhood "radio taiso" in the morning. I got the impression that people loved it and it was one of those things that made living in a dense city tolerable -- a little bit of routine, a little bit of meeting your neighbors before work/school. It is amazing to me that China wants to ban it because it's loud.

exporectomy 5y ago
China doesn't want to ban it, just some grumpy people. There's always some grumpy person who blames loud neighbors for their own life or sleep problems.
- SkinTaco 5y ago
  personally i am not grumpy about my life and/or sleep problems because i do not have neighbors that are loud and wake me up in the morning with loud music
lhorie 5y ago
My impression is that radio taiso is quite a bit tamer than dancing grannies. The former is usually mellow with slower tempos and relaxing uplifting vibes and it's really meant to be something for all ages; the latter is closer to electronic/club music, with faster tempos, and more aggressive beats (and yes, it's quite a bit louder too). In my experience, radio taiso also inherits a lot of the japanese polite culture. When I was young, my experience was that radio taiso always took consideration of surroundings: it was always in a designated space and time (e.g. the school gymnasium before class), whereas my experience w/ dancing grannies is that they just kinda make a habit of showing up at privately owned public spaces (e.g. malls) early enough in the morning and in a large enough group of people that security guards don't want to bother dealing with them.
- jrockway 5y ago
  Got it. That wasn't clear to me from the article -- I guess I assumed it was more chill and just in public parks in the middle of the day. If it's indoors at a shopping center, I see why that would annoy people.

harimau777 5y ago

I remember a lot of this when I was living in SF's Chinatown. Personally, I thought it was a great part of the community and I was impressed by how healthy the elderly people in the area where. I can see how the music could be frustrating, but I think it would really be unfortunate if this part of the culture went away.

rsj_hn 5y ago
I like the grannies, too. If they were dancing to US pop 70s hits, it might be the most awesome thing in the world.
- peterburkimsher 5y ago
  The old grannies are Stayin' Alive! You can tell by the way I use my wok. Funny story about dancing grannies in Taipei, back in 2016. My boss asked me to go up from Kaohsiung to attend the Python Conference. But I was facing some very tight financial times, and paying several thousand NTD for the conference fee (which wasn't refunded by the company later) was difficult for me. So I took a cheap night bus instead of HSR train, rode a city bike instead of the MRT, and arrived at 6 am for the conference at 11 am, hoping to sneak inside the conference venue during setup. How could I loiter there without attracting attention? Well, there were a group of grannies dancing. So I joined them! We had a great time, and some of them even offered to introduce me to their granddaughters. And when the time came, I bid them farewell, tailgated into the venue, opened my laptop and looked busy. The dancing grannies were so hospitable, though, welcoming a crazy foreign boy and being rather too trusting.
- mistrial9 5y ago
  the Macarena was popular with groups I saw in the morning !
ilaksh 5y ago
I think the issue is the noise pollution. Playing the music at lower volume would probably go a long way. Or using earbuds.

killjoywashere 5y ago

One thing that needs to be said, if I understand this correctly: the dancing grannies are explicitly a product of the CCP, correct?

petesergeant 5y ago
I'm in Oaxaca, Mexico, and they've got a group of people dancing to a boombox in the park here. I've lived many years in Bangkok, and the same. Seems hard to pin it explicitly on the CCP.

odiroot 5y ago

I visited Chengdu (among others) in 2017/2018 and saw the square dancing many times. Always found it charming, especially seeing that the elderly have some active ways to spend their time. It must be good for their health. But yes they really tend to blast their music very loud. Already back then, the People's Park had decibel meters in every spot the oldies congregated, warning them if they went over the limit. Once I also watched quite an old gentleman performing (singing live to a backing track) folk songs from Inner Mongolia. He was really good at this and his voice was very moving. Really wish I could see it in person again.

jzymbaluk 5y ago

Let the grannies dance, c'mon

dogman144 5y ago

Havana Syndrome cause discovered. Serious note, the tech sounds interesting and I’m surprised it’s on the mainstream market now. I wonder if any side effects will be tied to if.

kelnos 5y ago

I'm really torn on this sort of thing. I live in a city, and accept that dealing with noise is a part of life. And I expect these dance-exercise meetings are actually great for the people who participate; certainly here in the US I know that the elderly often feel alone and have trouble maintaining social relationships the older they get. Not to mention getting outside and exercising is great for physical health. But if you wake me up early in the morning with loud music I will end you.

e40 5y ago
"Viral videos and reports have shown the groups arguing and fighting with basketball players to take over their court, or, in one case, breaking into a football field and stopping the game to dance in the space, prompting a police response and arrests." That seems pretty unruly, but it could easily be the vast exception.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  There are more than a billion people in China. You could find 100 examples of any group misbehaving and it wouldn't prove anything.
qzw 5y ago
> But if you wake me up early in the morning with loud music I will end you. Easy there, John Wick. Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad. — Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

stefantalpalaru 5y ago

A much better description of this phenomenon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-raCm2-rObI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-raCm2-rObI

scabarott 5y ago

Hooligan grannies lol, that's a new one. On another note where can I get this magical gun that silences loudspeakers from a distance?

jimt1234 5y ago

When I lived in Shanghai back in 2002, old ladies used to do this same thing, but to slower, traditional Chinese music, not this Chinese-dance-pop-fusion music. I'll take the traditional Chinese music any day.

richardatlarge 5y ago

This was already posted a few days ago. I thought HN automatically assessed submissions for duplicates?

jiggunjer 5y ago

This phenomenon occurs in Hong Kong too. When I asked a local why he disapproves he said it's not actually HK culture but a relatively recent thing due to the influx of mainlanders.

ldiracdelta 5y ago

What is this "remote stun gun-style device" they reference?

luca3v 5y ago
It's probably some kind of universal remote
sixstringtheory 5y ago
This is what I thought of when I saw the headline: https://singularityhub.com/2012/03/29/speech-jamming-gun-from-japan-silences-people-from-up-to-34-meters-away/ https://singularityhub.com/2012/03/29/speech-jamming-gun-fro...

illuminati1911 5y ago

I live in Shanghai and yes this is a real problem, but it's not just problem with square dancing, but older generations in general here. While there are of course lot of polite civilized old people, many of them have absolutely no respect for environment or rules. You'll often see them throwing waste oil to the streets, littering, yelling/screaming in public for no reason, breaking every single traffic rule in existence, jumping the queue in supermarkets etc. Lot of of younger and/or "less older" generations are also pissed off about this and local governments here in SH and elsewhere are trying to create new regulations to mitigate these issues: https://www.shine.cn/news/nation/2108183694/ https://www.shine.cn/news/nation/2108183694/

lhorie 5y ago
I think it's a byproduct of a deep cultural thing. In East Asian countries, there's a strong culture of respecting your elders. In China, it seems this sometimes manifests in a peculiar way where people getting older start to act as if they're entitled to unconditional respect and they abuse the heck out of it (abusing the heck of unspoken gray areas also appears to be another chinese cultural peculiarity). "I had to put up with my elders, now it's your turn to put up with me" is a pretty accurate summary of how some people seem to think/act. My mother-in-law is quite a reasonable and well respected person (she was a teacher and gets gifts from ex-students to this day, and she doesn't even live in China anymore), but the fights my wife has gotten into with her due to this "respect for elders" thing are... something else. The whole dynamic reminds me of a tradition in Brazil where senior students in universities play pranks on new students. The general gist is that pranks can be pretty nasty (getting your head shaved and your face covered in paint is standard fare treatment and things just get worse from there), and the tradition gets passed on in a "now it's my turn to be nasty" sort of way. Predictably, things can and have gotten out of hand on several occasions and pretty much everyone knows of at least one urban legend/story of someone drowning or getting seriously injured in some other way. Unsurprisingly, some schools ban these pranks, not unlike these regulations you mentioned. People will be people, I guess.

thedougd 5y ago

Reminds me of the famous gag by Gizmodo, who took a TV-B-Gone to the Consumer Electronics Show to cause mayhem. https://gizmodo.com/confessions-the-meanest-thing-gizmodo-did-at-ces-343348 https://gizmodo.com/confessions-the-meanest-thing-gizmodo-di...

toomanyrichies 5y ago

I'd pay a jaw-dropping amount of money to have a small, handheld version of this device for riding the bus here in SF. Only half-joking.

winrid 5y ago

Here's a video of said 'dancing grannies' from when I was in Beijing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXtDhnmqAFk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXtDhnmqAFk I found it quite charming, but I can imagine how it could be annoying in some areas. Just like how after spending some time in China, and then coming back and noticing all the modified cars in the US. :)

justshowpost 5y ago

> China is home to an estimated 100 million dancing grannies. Sounds like talking about a species of animals.