Bags with brains

The plastic lunch container aboard this Chinese train takes cues from bento (though, like so many things, the original bento were made in China). The packaging on my disposable chopsticks wishes me "Peace" - in your context, consider whether there are standardized messages that inanimate objects tend to wish upon/for users/consumers. The smiling face of "Have a nice day" comes to mind in an American context. What if instead of a generic message, the abundance of disposable objects and containers given to consumers by various service providers could share more useful/relevant information?

Taken a step further, consider the implications of the near future when supercheap sensors have made their way into (what were once considered, in more resource-rich contexts, "disposable") containers and bags, enabling a thick new mass of data - from an aural/visual confirmation upon opening your disposable chopsticks that they are in fact sanitized, to your bento updating you as to the progress towards daily dietary intakes you have satisfied as you actively consume (or choose not to consume) its contents. As certain contexts have come around to charging for limited-use plastic grocery bags now (or, in some cases, stopping giving them out entirely), perhaps this will herald a redefinition of value. As more food for thought, ponder what you would feel comfortable with your grocery bag "knowing" and/or publicly sharing about you. Perhaps the broadcasting of your relative share of junk food/fruits and vegetables (by mass or value - its choice) compared to other shoppers being checked out at the same time (the stuff of a Bloombergian nudge-fantasy), to continuously updating you as you load it regarding how near it is to its recommended weight limit. 

Of course, there's always the myriad of "non-designed uses" to consider as well. This 7-11 bag, complete with its own (perhaps unintentionally cheeky and vapid) statement of "Always open!", is a member of the colorful variety of sizes and materials of containers in a Taibei pedestrian underpass (an informal shelter for the city's homeless). For each distinct culture, context, and user, the spectrum of what passes for vital, useful, useless, and harmful information varies widely.

Tea + rebar

Follow enough construction vehicles around as part of your research in China and one eventually arrives at the built (and ever-expanding) edges. In observing small urban China up close in Heqing last week, the journeys between interviews/neighborhoods are often as engaging as the interactions between those journeys. A hitched ride on the back of a tractor was the ideal pace to experience the transition from Heqing's mud-walled central alleyways out to its open frontiers of concrete and rebar. Motorcycle too fast, car too enclosed. After thanking my ride and some directed wandering, I encounter a driver parked at a construction site engaged in unloading rebar but nonetheless eager to talk - the usual half-scripted, half-exploratory/contextually specific question flow follows.

 

In a beautiful bit of serendipity, the manager arrives back on the job site as we're wrapping up. To switch things up a bit, I decided to wear my big-lens SLR plainly in sight on this particular day (instead of tucked away in a pouch, as is my usual preference). He insists that I accompany him up on to the roof (as in, the beginning of the tallest floor they've built so far) so that I can photograph the view. We ascend, off on an impromptu tour through thickets of rebar, log-scaffolding, and PVC piping - the exposed sinews, nerves, and bones of this structure-to-be. Although what served as "stairs" were a still a work in progress, and getting on to the roof required a bit of scrambling, agility, and luck, the ensuing vista and conversations with workers there and on the way up justified it. One woman and seven men work under the cloudy afternoon sky.

After a few minutes of improv chats and offered cigarettes, my presence becomes unremarkable and I can just watch. For an observer, being no longer an object of interest often makes for the best observing. In the rush of the moment and the usual time constraints, it is easy to forget that letting your context (and its network of personalities, processes, and systems) grow comfortable with your presence is just as important as you growing comfortable being in that context. After driving hard at the primary research goals for an extended period, it proves therapeutic to veer off of your subject's "straight and narrow" and widen the ol' aperture of inquiry. A few themes that jumped out at me from this context (and that I enjoy returning to when the proper time and place beckon): 

Where/why/how things are placed: 
The hot water container and boiler are placed on a busy thoroughfare on the second-from-top floor, making them accessible to all but away from most of the dustiest activities and out of direct sunlight. Are the (conspicuously high end) cigarettes alongside the hot water area also public? Or just meant to highlight the status of their owner to all who come for hot water? The space containing tea, boiled water, and water boiling equipment as this context's "water cooler" - coffee may fuel your context, but this isn't Kansas anymore.

When not in use, lengths of string used for measuring/demarcation is wrapped around a nail. Placement is at eye-level, or at least not-at-ground level, for visibility. 

Where/how things are held/carried:
Tea: Tea is drunk all around, with everyone repurposing the same glass food container except for the supervisor/boss (who has his own decorated, purpose-made glass container). What kind of food container, though? Can't quite tell, but it's brought to you courtesy of Chong Xing Co. The containers tend to gravitate towards the section of the building where its owner spends most of his or her time. Though it may be a status nod to the boss, I imagine that in a rough and tumble context such as this, heavy things being carried, etc., the lifespan of a glass (or even plastic) tea container would be quite short anyways, meaning best not to invest in one at all. As the boss man doesn't lift much, his tea-carrying behavior proves the exception to the rule. If rebar holds the building together, consider the extent tea holds the team constructing said building together. What powers your team? 

Pencils: While the "behind-ear tuck" is expected, having it sticking out from under the front of one's cap (think "narwhal style") is somewhat less so. Why? "It will never fall out that way," he replies. Upon offering him a cigarette, it goes behind the ear, though, as he's already smoking one. Different spaces and places, depending upon time and context.

The processes behind things being built/made, and the improvised tools and constraints that influence those processes:
Around these parts, the support du jour is wood (instead of bamboo). Not all pieces are of the proper length, however, so some modification is needed in some places (again, using available resources creatively - more images of this in a subsequent post). It wouldn't be a Chinese construction site without some bamboo though, and I find one stalk mated with a bent length of rebar to function as an improvised hook.

When trying to find out what makes a square inch of context tick, simply being there to hear/watch it tick is vital to the exercise, and also happens to be why I live for this sorta thing.

Object-based advertising

"This cart is at your service
Contact person: [#]
Your satisfaction guaranteed"

The promise of service yet to be delivered. Consider the ways in which this is more effective than were a person standing next to it (or standing alone without a cart). Compared to someone standing and vocally advertising a comparable service, how is this superior? Inferior?

Considering the placement of the cart in the path visual/physical path of pedestrians, and the likelihood that one will glance at it in recognition of having to take measures to avoid it, the odds they will read its service message is high - a mild inconvenience/obstacle for most, an ideally placed service proposition for a few.

Discarded to carted

The value of a material and resource varies greatly across contexts. What is saved around you, and through what means? Pushed/pulled carts do a lot of the heavy lifting in metropolitan Chongqing for most materials except plastic beverage bottles, which most often fall within the domain of a person carrying a bag. Consider how this cart of to-be-repurposed/recycled material influences the perspectives of those around it and what they consider "valuable" - waste as just something in the incorrect place/hands.

Somewhat related, as a test I recently left a plastic bottle resting on top of a garbage can to see how long it would sit there before being plucked by a passerby. Before I could sit down at a bench no more than 15 feet away to observe, it had vanished. Nice to bear witness to such a smoothly functioning yet informal process.

The Carry: Recyclables, Yangon + Mandalay

 

This 61 year old man collects plastic packaging cord from various stores near his home outside of downtown Yangon during the week. After having filled several bags, he rides a Hilux truck-ferry ("linecar") into downtown to walk around the largest market (Thein Gyi Market), selling the packaging cord to various merchants. He charges ten kyat per length of cord (850 kyat equal one US $). He says he used to make the trip more often, but that since he has gotten older, work has become more challenging and he has had to rely more upon his grown children to support him.


This employee of a recycling collection shop has gathered together enough material to justify the trip on the commuter train out to the suburbs, where a large recycling facility will pay him handsomely for his cargo.

Finally, I didn't have the chance to speak with this man at length as he was busy loading cargo on to the train upon which I was a passenger. Bound for Mandalay, this was taken in an upcountry town several hours' from the city. Besides cardboard, other Mandalay-bound cargo included coal, straw baskets, bamboo, garlic, and even some sewing machines.

Cylinder by cycle

Depending on the size, cylindrical objects have their own ways of being transported around Bangkok by motorcycle; whether by repurposed plastic storage bins (secured with bungee cords), or interwoven bungee cords. The interwoven cord solution reminds me of this betel stand goods display method - also reliant upon tension created by twists in a thread to suspend an object.

Bamboo on Rails

The metal doors on the sides of these railcars were once robust enough to hold the heavy cargo of rocks contained within. As the doors have gradually degraded, however, they have been replaced by sturdy mats of woven bamboo, some of which are held in place either by what remains behind of the old metal doors or by wooden stakes driven into hinges and holding bracing logs in place.

Saving the date

The practice of writing the date of either purchase or creation down upon the object. In the dresser's case, the family who purchased it wrote the date on it once they had moved it into their home. When I asked the matriarch of the family, the one who had written the date upon the dresser, she asserted that she simply "didn't know" why she had written the purchase date upon it - merely that she had seen other families do so and was mimicking them. As for the family that owned the bucket, they didn't have any particular reason as to why they chose to purchase a bucket with "2010" embedded into it.


Quantity decisions

This vendor's turf consists of the markets dotting downtown where household purchasers still visit for daily necessities. The combined product/service he sells bridges the gap between wholesalers and retailers. With his tools, he wanders markets offering to cut more manageably sized rolls of plastic wrap off of his large "industrial-sized" roll. He sells these smaller rolls to vendors who use the wrap to repackage wholesale-purchased goods for resale to household consumers. His carry consists of: 

1) one industrial-sized spool of plastic wrap (what Americans might call "Saran wrap")
2) one spool upon which to mount the industrial-sized plastic wrap spool
3) one spool with a spike in the middle, around which may be wrapped unfurled plastic wrap
4) one scale
5) several dozen rubber bands
6) a rice bag (now repurposed as his seating) in which to carry it all

For his work method, he places the large spool on his left side, mounts the industrial-sized spool of plastic wrap on to it, "threads" the plastic wrap around the central spike of the other spool, and then spins/kicks the smaller spool continually, causing it to spin quickly and create smaller rolls of plastic wrap out of the industrial-sized wrap. He also sometimes switches from fancy footwork to his hands, spinning his spools almost as one could imagine a DJ "scratching" records on turntables. These smaller wraps of plastic are then tied off with rubber bands, weighed, paid for by the vendors, and eventually used to repackage bulk-purchased/wholesale-bought goods into more consumer-appropriate servings/quantities (such as the bars of yellow soap pictured here). I'm interested in the process of how a retail vendor decides what a fair price is for a given amount of a good - as in, why three bars of soap? What sort of research went into deciding not to package by two or four?