Midnight barbecue spatial dynamics

On a cold winter night's walk through Wanyuan, a small city in mountainous northeast Sichuan, one will encounter groups of tents set up in the city's narrower streets. Alleys burst into color following the de facto relaxation of rules that forbid street-based structures and enterprises as those enforcing said rules knock off work for the evening.

Tents are crafted from "snake skin" (蛇皮) canvas, the material of choice for low-cost bags, construction site dust screens, and improvised shelters shelters across China. Positioned adjacent to the establishments that manage them, the barbecue restaurants place their cooking apparatuses out front of the tents to make food delivery more convenient (and also "because the smells make people want to eat barbecue" confides one chef). Coal or electric stoves are placed in the center of each tent, warming the already-served trays of barbecued food while simultaneously generating warmth for the diners seated inside.

 Consider what happens in your local context when the “rules of the street” are relaxed, and who makes claims to a given street’s space (and using what  means/power). What would a street in its “unregulated/”natural” form resemble across the different seasons of your context, and why? How would the spatial breakdown between goods / services / recreation / “miscellaneous” appear?

Drying practices

There is a wide array of techniques and behaviors around public drying in China - from vegetables and meats, to clothing, to the inventory of a store specializing in calligraphy brushes placed upon a patch of sidewalk in front of the store. Noteworthy drying behaviors aren't limited to space-constrained urban densities, either - I've recently seen stone walls become lettuce drying racks, and odd-length branches in wood piles hung with recently-washed shoes. 

Consider the practices that surround drying of different sorts of objects in your context - indoors/private or outdoors/public (and whether that varies by season)? Machine, line or rack (or monkey bars)? What are the infrastructure (built-in or improvised) and customs that support or discourage particular drying behaviors - and to what those behaviors apply ? Consider the factors causing that to vary (population density, education, income, electricity access, and so on.

Door authorities

"There is a car inside
Do not park in front of the door"

When a claim is made on a space, how does the nature of that claim influence how it is heeded? In different contexts, a messge being "official" influences how/whether it is heeded in different ways. Here, the lack of an official "No Parking" sign (in a place where the inadequate number of traffic police are often stretched beyond their limits in terms of enforcement capabilities (or are "lazy"/underpaid)) might be perceived as carrying even more "weight" than if there were one. That this warning is handwritten (handsprayed?) implies that the person in whose interest it is that you not park there is likely a resident nearby, and that they may summon private means of "enforcement" of their rule. For your context, consider how people regard official warnings vis a vis unofficial ones.

Consider also to what extent phrasing matters. The faded message this bench once held: "[there are] vehicles entering [and] exiting"
- the message left up to interpretation of the driver. The replacement of subtle courtesy with firm visibility, the implied increase in seriousness. What surrounding environmental indicators do to bolster or undermine the implied seriousness of this "law". 

Finally, are you also attracted to the the decomposition pattern of the bench's message? 

I sure was.

Manipulating space

Combine a table, table cloth, air conditioning unit, and transparent plastic "curtains" usually meant to contain heat within a space (as opposed to cold) and you've got an improvised climate control system.

Dissasemble and place AC unit on table in corner on mild days.

The ability to create/impose boundaries upon a space using flexible/temporary/inexpensive means, and how that increases the funcionality/desirability of being in that space (a restaurant, in this case).

Pole position

This driving school consists of a series of cables strung across a yard, from which are suspended orange and white fiberglass guide poles that dictate the course the driver is supposed to follow. Though they are hung to correspond with the lines painted on the ground, their flexible design means they may also be re-hung/reconfigured to suit any challenge an instructor feels like throwing at their students.  

The course is designed with considerable "forgiveness": no damage results when a too-wide turn or careless maneuver sends a car into a hanging pole - just nervous grins, and/or averted gazes as a pole emits a "clack" off the side of one of the school's fleet of battered and venerable Volkswagen Santanas.

Room for light (not for heavy)

Sign translation: 
"Entrance fee: 100 Kyats"
"Room for peeing - do not poo"
(In Burmese, the word for urine translates as "light", while feces is translated as "heavy", thus making it a "room for light - not for heavy")

First question: Wha...? Second question: Why here? My (debatable) take is that the lack of public space in Yangon (parks are both scarce and require an entrance fee) means that places that are not otherwise designed to function as public space are pressed into service as such. In this case, this "Public Mobile Urination Room" (or PMUR, pronounced "Peemur") happens to be located next to Sule Pagoda, the temple that forms the ostensible nucleus of downtown Yangon. Visiting the temple on a date with one's lover is a common practice (as temples are, critically, free to enter (for citizens of Myanmar at least)). Also, once one has finished visiting the temple and wants to linger afterwards (assuming one is on a successful date and not just a routine visit to make merit), there is a relatively desirable slice of public space for lingering in to be found in the overpass that connects the adjacent sidewalk to the island in the middle of the traffic circle upon which Sule is constructed. Sure, it may be cramped, noisy, lack formal seating options, and expose the lingerers to a constant barrage of vehicle exhaust fumes, but remember: visibility from the street is obscured by the structure of the stairs, and one cannot beat the price. Setting up a charge-to-access toilet is perhaps an acknowledgement on the part of city planners (assuming this toilet is publicly owned and operated - otherwise a whole new set of very interesting implications to consider) of the lack of functional public spaces for people to spend prolonged time in - and the implicit approval of this informal area around the pedestrian bridge as an acceptable public space. How long before ambient sensors or "smart sidewalks" can self-detect the sites where the greatest volume of people tend to informally relieve themselves? Such data could be plugged straight into a forecasting algorithm to determine whether establishing a pay-to-access bathroom at a given point would be worth the investment.

How was 100 kyats decided as the proper amount to charge for the privilege to urinate in a designated room as opposed to the sidewalk or the bushes? Is that price point attractive enough considering the service it offers and the "free" alternative behavior that one could engage in? Is this PMUR not actually intended to be a profit-making enterprise at all, but rather shame people who would normally relieve themselves there into going somewhere else (now that they are "guilty" not only of urinating in an inappropriate place, but now are also deprived of an alibi as to why they chose to do so instead of doing so in an approved space)? Is this just a "modernity prop" meant to convince the many tourists that wander past this point of the supposed cutting-edge sanitation practices that Yangon is embracing?

Also, I'm unsure what aspect of this structure is "mobile", as attempting to move a building filled with urine sounds, well, somewhat complicated.  I was tempted to try moving it myself, but decided against it. If anyone has any other PMUR sightings, please do share.

Bus stop bassinet

A longyi/baso, bit of thick rope, and some street-level creativity turns this bus stop into a suitable hanger for a cradle. The bus shelter is particularly appropriate in this repurposed role on account of it coming with a roof and its supporting pillars being wide enough apart to allow the mother to rock the contraption back and forth, miraculously enabling the baby to fall asleep despite urban Yangon's honking, yelling, selling, and general surrounding chaos. The mother's betel shop is positioned directly in front of the bus shelter - speaking to both the additional value that is wrung out of this everyday piece of urban infrastructure, and also the subjectiveness as to the "purpose" of that same piece of urban infrastructure. Bus stops are not merely for waiting for the bus, but also for providing shelter for sidewalk/street-based businesses, in the same way that many of Yangon's sidewalks are not intended solely for walking, but as (semi-public) commercial spaces available for rent.

With training like this from such an early age, I'm no longer surprised that I'm the sole passenger unable to sleep through the all-night music video and romantic comedy movies compulsorily blasted during overnight bus rides.

Fairness vs. toughness

An intriguing marketing and price display system recycles the discarded paper arms included in these "instant tattoos". 500 kyat (roughly U$ .60) gets you a pair of tattoo-covered arms. While some consumers may see the main purpose of these wraps as showing off their tattoos, this vendor markets them for their supposed skin protecting qualities (literally, "skin covering gloves").

Whether it is more valuable to show your toughness through fierce-looking body art, or to keep your skin covered (and therefore lighter-toned and more "attractive" vis a vis local norms of beauty) depends upon the context the potential consumer comes from.

Note also the symbiotic relationship between the purse and tattoo-sleeve vendor and the adjacent fried snack vendor, with the prior using the latter's cart as a means of illuminating his goods. Potentially mutually beneficial in that the longer the time spent mulling over goods, the more tempting the smells from the barbecue stand may become to the user. The constraints and subtleties of olfactory-based marketing.

Exhaust shield

Carried out from the ticket vendor/waiting room of this bus company upon the arrival of the bus, it is set up behind the tailpipe to prevent diesel exhaust from billowing into the adjacent building and disturbing the residents.

Courtesies surrounding space, mitigation strategies for incidents when noxious/undesirable things leach out of one's space and into another's. The threshold of acceptability and perceptions of ability to limit such leaks: engine noise is tolerated, exhaust smoke is not.

Finally, sobering: the visual side effects of long-term, continuous exposure to diesel exhaust. The ability to see the harmful effects of something only once an appropriate material is "sacrificed" to visually drive the point home. If this piece of metal were alive, it would probably be in sorry shape right now. How do my own lungs compare after a day (or year) in a culture where most cars are over 20 years old?

Sidecar queue-sign

The colorful sign reading "Sidecar station : Gate 10" is attached to a board with nails for a sidecar pilot to hang their number (the word in the middle of the bulls eye reads "Stop"). All sidecars whose main territory includes downtown Sagaing have their own plastic card, and the order of the queue takes shape on the signboard itself based upon the sequence in which sidecars arrive at the stop and hang their cards. The girl shown sitting in the parked sidecar approached the stop and called out "sidecar!", whereupon the owner of the restaurant who happened to be sitting nearby called out one of the sidecar pilot's names, causing the sidecar pilot (number 36, according to his tag) to wheel over his steed.

This system has several advantages over the jumble-based queue that is the norm at sidecar stops. It eliminates the need for all queued sidecars to inhabit the same area, which, in this space-constrained alleyway off of the main boulevard, allows for smoother pedestrian traffic. Sidecar pilots may park their vehicle and themselves in whatever available space they choose that is within shouting distance of the gate. This queueing system also frees sidecar pilots from depending upon their own recollection/opinion as to the queuing order (assuming buy-in on the part of all queued pilots, and that each has an equal stake in this system functioning smoothly). I've never seen such a system in Yangon.