The one about the speaker in the apartment

There are some things which people don’t warn you (or it just didn’t occur to them) about living in an apartment in Korea. Today, I realized what that metallic grille (circled in red) at the corner of my wall is—a speaker used to broadcast announcements to the tenants.

A quick search on the Web explains that the announcements are typically about basic maintenance such as trash removal, clean up, fire drills, etc, and they can come on any time of the day. (Big Brother, eh?) A musical chime signals the beginning and end of the announcements.

Yes, I got a shock when I heard a man’s voice out of nowhere in my apartment. Bleh.