The Miseries and Pleasures of Toilets

Fear the Chinese, declared my sister upon the conclusion of our recent trip to Western China. Not because they are the growing, massive, hard working nation to watch out for, but because of their ability to endure harsh, unsanitary lives on a daily basis.

As I do a quick run over the internet on Chinese toilets, it becomes apparent that many people have written about their experiences in China specifically because toilets seem to make a visit to China most memorable. And memorable it is. As I am flipping through the images I found online, the inner of my stomach squirm, and the vision and stench of the last few public toilets I forced myself into spring up unrepressed, regardless of the fact that I did stuff tissues on my face and tried to intake as little air as possible.

Against my initial inkling to publish some pictures along with this entry, I have decided to spare us the more explicit visions and my own verbal but very graphic description of my experience. Instead, here is a highly sarcastic, hilarious entry – albeit the fact that the writer should consider himself lucky not to have encountered some of the much more horrible ones these.

I can’t help wondering why so little attention is given by the Chinese to the hygiene of their toilets, although I should note that the government seems to be making some efforts by giving stars to cleanliness of public toilets, and contrasting it to the very memorable passages from Junichiro Tanizaki on the same subject:

Every time I am shown to an old, dimly lit, and, I would add, impeccably clean toilet in a Nara or Kyoto temple, I am impressed with the singular virtues of Japanese architecture. The parlor may have its charms, but the Japanese toilet truly is a place of spiritual repose. It always stands apart from the main building, at the end of a corridor, in a grove fragrant with leaves and moss. No words can describe that sensation as one sits in the dim light, basking in the faint glow reflected from the shoji, lost in mediation or gazing out at the garden. The novelist Natsume Soseki counted his morning trips to the toilet a great pleasure, ‘a physiological delight’ he called it. And surely there could be no better place to savor this pleasure than a Japanese toilet where, surrounded by tranquil walls and finely grained wood, one looks out upon blue skies and green leaves.

As I have said there are certain prerequisites: a degree of dimness, absolute cleanliness, and quite so complete one can hear the hum of a mosquito. I love to listen from such a toilet to the sound of softly falling rain, especially if it is a toilet of the Kanto region, with its long, narrow windows at floor level; there one can listen with such a sense of intimacy to the raindrops falling from the eaves and the trees, seeping into the earth as they wash over the base of a stone lantern and freshen the moss about the stepping stones. And the toilet is the perfect place to listen to the chirping of insects or the song of the birds, to view the moon, or to enjoy any of those poignant moments that mark the change of the seasons.

Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, 1977, Harper T.J. & Seidensticker, E.G., Trans., 1991: 13-14.

Now I have never been to Japan to check whether or not its public toilets are as sanitary as Tanizaki mentioned, but his passages, which I first read while studying architecture and laboriously attempted to achieve in my designs, impressed upon the importance of cleanliness to create such a pleasurable, sensual, and phenomenal toilet experience twice.

Why such difference in appreciation towards the act of exerting our bodily waste?

Travel Warning to Indonesia

In light of these recent disasters in Indonesia, I was reminded of a sticker that was given to me by some of the people in Common Room last week. The prints on the back said:

" Several countries have issued travel warnings not to visit Indonesia. It is now your time to make statement that Indonesia is too beautiful to be passed. Please stick this on your vehicle, luggage, etc."

Here is where I have decided to 'stick' mine to:


This campaign is started by iwan_esjepe@yahoo.co.id.

About a Boy (Who Wants to be a Tour Guide)

Several weeks ago, while on a business trip in Ubud, I took a moment to go see the famed rice terraces. As is typical in tourist sites of Bali, the moment I got off from the rented car, a group of people swarmed around me to sell things off. I walked quickly passed them and cascaded down to be at the edge of a cliff from where I could savor the view much treasured by most urbanites who have been away too long from nature.

While indulging my eyes among the greens, I heard footsteps coming over – they belonged to my colleagues and a young boy. He was amongst the group that surrounded me, I noticed, as he brought with him odds and ends that one would be tempted to buy as souvenirs, but then would shove it somewhere and forget about it the next moment. He commented to my Indonesian colleague in Bahasa (thinking that I was not Indonesian for some reason) about how fast I walked. And then he asked my friend where I came from.

After finding out that I am Indonesian, he started talking to me, trying to sell things off – all for merely ten thousand Rupiah. He pleaded that he had followed me a long way, and so I should buy things from him (I wonder how effective is it to sell things off by evoking one’s sense of pity and/or guilt?).

Trying to overcome my own temptation, thinking that these souvenirs would be of no use once I am back in Jakarta, I started asking him questions about himself: does he go to school, how long he has to work everyday, where does he live, what does his parents do.

This boy, who is a junior high school student, caught up quickly. He told me that both his parents owned a souvenir stall down the road, and he and his brother both had to help out. Therefore, I should buy things off from him so he could pay for his tuition. Witty boy. He was weighing down my heart (and why should I feel this?).

I started to like him, but I was adamant not to buy anything from him. So I sat next to him and we chatted. He noticed that I and my colleagues wore similar silver warthog pins that we got from our visit to a jewelry workshop. He started asking questions about the pins and where we got them. He told me that the pin was really nice, and noted that although it was suppose to look like a warthog, it looked more like a bull (which was true). I told him that he was a good observer, and I asked him questions about the future and what he wanted to be. A guide, he said with twinkle in his eyes. My heart sank.

I realize that Bali is a tourist-driven island, and most jobs relate to tourist-driven industries. But does this boy want to be a guide because he really wants to, or because he has no exposure to other jobs he could do? Does one’s dream of possibilities and opportunities open up as one’s own knowledge and experiences widen?

So I told him about the jewelry workshop. I told him about various things people do there, hoping that it would open up his horizon. But unfortunately we had to leave. What I realized after the car moved away from the site on towards our next destination was that I should have given him my pin. It would have meant a lot more to him than to me. This post is my dedication to him instead, although he had no way of knowing or accessing this information.

Remains of the Earthquake

I recently visited Yogyakarta. I didn’t expect the remains of the earthquake could still be seen throughout the city. Here are some photographs from Institut Seni Indonesia, the Research Institute building – or what’s left of it. They could surely research the structural failure of the building from its remains now.

Eviction is the ‘Solution’

An article in Kompas January 23, 2007 entitled “Mimpi Buruk Setelah 28 Tahun” (Nightmare after 28 Years), featured an eviction of 136 houses and 200 kiosks in Pedongkelan, Kelapa Gading area by some 1500 government officials. The area was illegally turned into vendors’ market some 28 years ago, and now with the plan to turn it into a flyover, the buildings were bulldozed over, leaving many inhabitants lose not only a place to live, but a place to earn a living.

Another article in Kompas January 26, 2007 reported another eviction of 432 families (around 2000 people) living under the highway in Penjaringan.

...

With the persistence of eviction by the government of Jakarta, it seems indeed that eviction has become the one ‘solution’ to overcome the bigger problem of rights for living and working in a city that should be made possible for all. Yet, is eviction a ‘solution’?

Read full posting here.

Between Bangkok and Jakarta

As I walked through Khao San Road in Bangkok for the first time, I was mesmerized by the hustle bustle, lively ambience of the street: highly energetic yet relaxed, radiantly foreign yet subliminally familiar. As part of a half-day trip organized by the International Association for the Studies of Traditional Environment (IASTE) conference, I only had a little more than an hour to savor in this exuberance of urbanity. This vivacity, however, occurred only at the street level. Hovering above is the eerily empty old shop houses with dilapidated woods, peeled off paint mixed with layers of dust, one brightly colored billboard sign after another, merging inns, internets, cafes, tours and travels, English and Thai characters, and all the colors and ages of the people walking and sitting idly beneath them.

Granted, this brief observation through a tourist lenses could very well be loaded with urban problems in its day-to-day reality. Nevertheless, a quite thought emerged: architectural design did not seem to matter in urban spaces such as Khao San – or did it? Could this organically, informally created spaces be replicated formally through architectural design, or would such an attempt be labeled as yet another hyper-reality so overly discussed during the IASTE conference?

The day after, I presented my paper about Jakarta: the epitome of a privatized metropolis where long term planning of public amenities are neglected and sacrificed on behalf of short term, high-profit generating projects. In contrast with my short-lived experience in Khao San, my reading of Jakarta presented a grim image of the city divided by socio-economical classes and ethnic groups, disjointed areas and experiences that represented a demarcated society – neglectfully constructed out of casual everyday journeys around the city.

The government-planned public transportation system, focusing more on monumental constructions as means of creating an “imagined community” (Anderson, 1990), could not keep up with the demand of vast urban sprawl and population growth of the city. Instead, the patchy networks of privatized public transportations and the organically developed informal ones took over. For the privileged, the use of private vehicles became the choice, contributing to unnecessary exertion of human energy, economically inefficient traffic congestion and environmentally degrading pollution. The privatized public transportations also catered to more commercially viable areas – neglecting poorer, left over areas of Jakarta.

The informal communities, being abandoned by the formal and privatized systems, had constructed their own networks that to date had not been adequately addressed in planning and design of Indonesian cities and public places. This informal public transportation system, and to certain extent the privatized ones, created a haphazard network with a logic of their own – one that, if only partially and tentatively, resembled a rhizome, or nomadic logic, described by Deleuze and Guattari. They stood in opposition to the state, or striated logic, of the planned and formal public transportation system (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987).

How can informal community, system, and network be incorporated in formality of planned and privatized cities when they seem mutually incompatible? What makes one informality, as in the case of Khao San, different from the informality as in the case of Jakarta? What are the contributing factors to successes and failures of informalities? And in what ways do communal values affect the making of spaces and conversely, how could spaces affect the making of communities?

This is the first in a series of posts on my comparative study between Bangkok and Jakarta, initiated by Institute for Ecosoc Rights and funded by UNDP Partnership. See here for Sri Palupi's view of the same topic.

The Peculiar Thai Way

On New Year’s Day, despite the bomb that blasted in parts of Bangkok and killed three people, the streets were still swamped by tourists and locals paying homage to the many temples of Bangkok. Not much difference with previous days, except that on New Year’s Day, there were many more people wearing yellow t-shirts walking around – making an interesting landscape of yellow subjects moving at different tangents in different speed across the urban landscape.

The Thais love their king so much that every Monday, the day that the king was born, they would put on something yellow (the Thai royal color) to express their love for the king. Pictures of the king in different occasions can be found the moment you step your feet on Thai’s ground, and in about every other house and public places you go. Most were of his pictures in royal suits waving from a balcony. Others were his trips to the countryside, sitting on the floor discussing matters with local officials, and even of him touching a homeless person.

This past New Year’s Day coincided with Monday, and the cityscape is especially swarmed with yellows. The picture below is taken in front of the Grand Palace on January 1, 2007.



Still related with the sense of paying homage to the royal family as well as to the kingdom, at precisely 8 o’clock every morning, most public places like the sky train and train stations would turn on the national anthem on loudspeakers. And instantly, all activities were put on hold and everyone would stand on pause until the end of the song when suddenly, as if someone has pressed the play button again, people resume their activities. The picture below is taken at the Hua Lamphong Train Station on December 20, 2006.



An interesting pause in everyday life of the city, often colored by shades of yellows, but especially more so on Mondays.

Taking Down [Hi-]Story & Making [Hi]Story

On December 30, 2006, as Saddam Husein was executed at Iraq’s dawn, a small community was woken up abruptly at Bangkok’s dawn by the sound of hammers knocking down doors, windows, and walls. The dawn is not the only aspect on how the stories relate.

Wang Lee community has been living in Chareon Krong 52 Lane by the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok. Renting out shop houses on a land that belongs to Wat Yannava for the past 80 to more than 100 years, they are currently under threat of eviction from this temple landlord.

Two years ago, the temple decided not to extend their leases, and instead offered the land out to gain much better profit from a developer. 40,000 Baht (US$1,100) was offered as compensation for a family and approximately half of the community accepted the offer and moved out. But the rest want to stay, for the reasons that they have no where else to go, and they have formed an interlinked of families that make up a living history of Bangkok.

Most of Wang Lee community members are descendants of Chinese immigrants in Bangkok, some still have three and few even four generations living under the same roof. Their shop houses are living proofs of historical trading between China and Thailand. Although the buildings do not fall under historical conservation of Bangkok, they are nevertheless constructed ingeniously for the local climate. The shop houses are designed to be naturally ventilated, crossing the opening on the first-floor of the shop front to a double- or a triple- floor height ceiling with manually-operable roofs for ventilation.

Nevertheless, these facts do not seem to matter for the temple landlord. For the past two years, the chief monk at the temple has not agreed to meet directly with the people, making them start a series of negotiations with various government agencies, and a social activism supported and facilitated by NGOs and university lecturers. The community has lost in a court battle against the temple, and although the community has applied to appeal the case, the temple landlord has set up a January 4, 2007 deadline for all tenants to move out.

Hoping that the appeal to the court will delay the deadline, the community did not expect some twenty construction workers to come early in the morning, on the long New Year Day weekend, before the deadline is actually due.

As I arrived at the area, some fourteen empty shop-houses were already partially demolished.

Anxious citizens, shouting, talking, standing, staring
Fingers typing and phones ringing, informing, repeating, urging
East to West pacing, policemen standing, sitting, idling

Displaced doors and windows, knocking, banging, moving
Wooden stacks and piles on concrete pavements, waiting
Knocked-down walls of hundred years, grieving

After knocking down security measures and making signifying holes in the shop houses, the construction workers abruptly left the premises. The act of terrorizing has been achieved. Nevertheless, the community has not given up their hopes in keeping their living history, thanks to political, governmental, social, civil, and academic supports they have received. Click here for Bangkok Post's version of the story.

As Saddam’s execution made the day’s world [hi-]story (history and/or hi-story), what to make of the living [hi]story (history and/or story) of Iraqis people? How much would his death really matter in the making of current and future suffering and/or happiness of most Iraqis people and others affected by Saddam’s life? As parts of Wang Lee’s shop houses became history, what to make of the living [hi]story of this historical community in Bangkok? They may or may not succeed in keeping their homes, yet what has been gained, or lost, during the process of taking down parts of the history?

What if the hi-story of major relevance to few (media and political, or private enterprise in this case) is replaced by the [hi]story of everyday people? Perhaps only then could everyone look forward to the New Year.

Have a Happy Holiday (Brought to You by ...)

Apologies for the long absence from blogging. I'm currently in Bangkok, conducting research on Bangkok's urban poor. More to report later when I have access to internet on a more regular basis. But for now, here's some pictures of Christmas in Bangkok, in which Christmas is not even a public holiday, but where Christmas is nevertheless celebrated - however commercially. The stars above the trees are of the sponsoring banks.

On a more sincere end: Wishing all of you a Happy Holiday and a Happy New Year.