An Unwelcome Break From Routine

So, something out of the ordinary finally happened :)

Last night I was in bed reading, telling myself "Ok, this is the last chapter for tonight, you've got to go to bed, Emily!" Around 1:30, my neighbor-across-the-hall's daughter started screaming and crying. This is a fairly common occurence. She's a noisy child, and I was pretty certain last summer that her parents sent her into the hall early Saturday mornings with a hammer and told her "Hit everything that will be loud."

So I waited for her to stop. She didn't. Just kept screaming "MOMMY!" in Korean, and I could tell she was in the hallway. My ovaries kicked in, and I opened my door to see what was going on. I found this 3-year-old girl standing in her doorway, red-faced, tears and snot streaming down, crying for her mother.

I started with "Shhhhh, shhhh" and still expected to see one of her parents behind her. Nothing. And she stared at me with her big eyes and said something in Korean about her mommy. All I could say in Korean was "It's ok, it's ok" and then pantomimed her going back to sleep. I tried "Mommy, where?" in Korean, but of course I had no idea what the response was. To this poor thing's credit, she quieted down while I was out there... But I could see it was a fragile calm.

Finally (maybe 10 minutes later?) her parents came in from outside. They saw the hall light on and ran up the stairs. When they saw their daughter and me in the hall, they exclaimed a very Korean "OH!" and the girl started bawling again. The dad just smiled at me, and they all went inside. Apparently Mommy and Daddy had stepped out (for a beer? a smoke? some soju?), and she woke up.

It was strange and frustrating. This also was after the evening I spent at the coffee shop trying to figure out why it sounded like someone was throwing bricks onto the awning over the patio. We learned it was cat litter. Someone was cleaning out their cat box and just launching the kitty-cakes out of their window.

What the heck, Korea? I realize you are used to being in very close proximity to others and their living habits, but is there no apartment etiquette at all?

Love you all!