Looking at our City and our House

Fact! About our property and public

I’ve heard someone said that "Usually Thai people don't care about anything outside their own fences because they think it is not their own." This might because they think it is not interesting to keep watching and take care whatever not their own, if they want to throw something away, they just throw it outside their area -- because they think it is not their responsibility.

I think this is true when I see public area such as footpaths, pathways, sidewalks, littered on, or destroyed. There are departments that have responsibility of taking care of these areas, but this is not enough. We use these public areas, so it is also important that we improve and take care of these places as well. In fact, it is more important that we do our part to ensure they are always useful, since we are the ones who use them.

Let's think about this. When you have to walk or you have to use a pathway, I believe you will think it will be difficult to trek in the wild. Why? Because you have to sidestep the several shops which are scattered beside the pathway. And you must always be careful to avoid traps such as gutters and holes. Then there are the cracks in the pathways which you must also train yourself to avoid, and if it's raining you must also beware of holes in the awnings overhead. Merely thinking about using the pathways makes me tired. Then there is the heat, in sharp contrast to the cold air conditioning in the department stores. Like I said, walking on the pathway is an adventure.

Perhaps this is the definition of the term "Concrete Jungle"?

The question is why we can't have great pathways like other cities. Why we don't have pathways that we can proudly say we really own?

If we focus on Chiang Mai City, we will see the pathway around the moat. This is a good pathway that we want to around, quite unlike the busy pathway at the Night Bazaar. Also, Walking Street is a good place to walk. It gives pedestrians a good opportunity to enjoy walking along a wider pathway, and it's a very good place to walk in the evening during the cold winter weather in th North of Thailand (however this summer this Walking Street still continued open and attractive for all Thais and foreigners). But the point is that when we talk about these public pathways, we must always ask this question: in our culture, what do we use the pathways and the public areas for?

In the past, waterways and thoroughfares were quite similar. In the country, pathways built around paddy fields to contain water were especially luxurious, and were the best way to connect field and field to house. But nowadays, in the big cities, the number of people living in them have made difficult. They need more signals. The designer must consider the needs of disabled people, motorcyclists, and even pets.

There are many pathways and public areas in other countries, because foreigners usually like the sunlight. This makes the design of public areas or pathways necessary. But since Thai people don't like the sunlight, designing public areas and pathways is not so important. Walking outdoors simply to enjoy being in the sun isn't popular here. Thus, any pathway built here must serve purposes. It may be for walking in the daytime but becomes a place for papaya salad shops or milk stores in the evening, a bustling shopping center in the nighttime, and cluttered with rice soup shops in the early morning. This is to say that, for an Asian road or pathway to be attractive to the public, it must serve several functions.

But how can we improve our pathways to be cool, beautiful, and appropriate? In this article, I just want to introduce this point for my first time greeting. I want to introduce this point for my first time greeting. In the next issue, I'll take you to visit the lovely public areas and show you that the grounds of these areas are attractive to our eyes, and that even though they are outside our fences, they can make us proud when we take care of them as if they were our areas as well. In fact, they are, and we should be proud of our country's great public areas and grate public pathways.