Unsightly / curious
Reflections while staying in Chiang Mai, Thailand for a month in Feb-Mar, 2024.
When I wanted to see only one thing, but saw only something else, and then I couldn’t see anything, until…
Outside
I always seem to gravitate towards beauty — maybe even searching for it — in nature, architecture, streetscapes, and landscapes. But this was different. I was in a place that didn’t feel beautiful at all. At least that’s what I felt after being in Chiang Mai, Thailand, for a week, where I had chosen to be for a month.
It’s not that I was terribly surprised. How many other cities at home or in other parts of the world had I been in that were likewise dirty, edgy, or unsightly in some way, at least to me, on the surface of things. New York, Vientiane, Kolkata, and Yangon all had that, and I don’t remember it bothering me that much then. Maybe it bothers me here, though.
The daytime heat is oppressive (98-101F), with very little relief, save for inside temples or museums, cafes or this co-working space, and my Airbnb condo. It’s also the dry season, with the sun withering untended plants and roadside trees. I started hearing about the burning season, when the air quality in Chiang Mai becomes awful for a couple months (like now), caused by agricultural burning, forest fires, tourists, the dry season, and vehicle emissions.
This easygoing city is not easy going. All the tourists, me among them, walk outside sluggishly to wherever we are going to next. We’re also navigating a streetscape obstacle course between narrow or nonexistent sidewalks, weaving between signs and poles, wires and pipes, motorbikes, and each other.
Did I make a mistake being here? Why did I come here, anyway? For many reasons, and maybe seeing beauty in my environment was not one of them. I hadn’t considered it.
I tried one day to see the beauty in distressed things, or the wabi-sabi of places and things on my walk from the Airbnb to the co-working space, 15 minutes on two major streets. I couldn’t find anything. It was all unsightly to me. My usual eye for noticing those close-up details — the subtle play of textures, relationships, and compositions — was absent.
And that’s what bothered me. Not that I couldn’t find beauty in the city. Or that it was generally unsightly. It bothered me that I couldn’t really see anything. Nothing was catching my attention in the way that it had always been when traveling.
But what if I switched that. What if I didn’t rely on my usual way of photographing and instead leaned into the ugly and the unsightly and saw what happened. What if I got curious about the things I don’t like to see because I always want to see beauty instead.
The next day, I went out and the city already looked and felt different. I was curious about the environment. I tried to notice all the places and things that were unsightly, not in a judgy way, just in a different way.
I was on my way to a jewelry-making class, a longer distance, and a different route, when I noticed something alarmingly unsightly. It was a terrific apparatus — a contortion of electrical wires and transformers and whatchamacallits — intruding on the traditional facade of a Buddhist temple.
And then another sight, a flashing red sign with words written in all caps, “TOURIST,” as if pointing out the obvious blight on the city. We are the unsightly thing.
The day after that, I walked from my Airbnb to the co-working space and saw something else — mangled barbed wire surrounding a home shrine and, in the distance, the rooftops of a nearby temple.
In my attempt to take several photos, I nearly caught my shirt on the barbed wire. Turning, I faced a small street as if being prodded along. The street looked cute.
Inside
What I discovered walking down that street was beauty. Well-loved homes, more traditional in style, with gardens behind the entrance gates and flowering vines overhanging privacy fences. The street was even cobbled. Inside one of the gates, I glimpsed an older Thai woman watering her plants and a Thai man sitting on a chair smoking a cigarette inside another. There was a small guesthouse tucked away on another side street. The mood was quiet, and the sun felt less hot.
I can infer only so much about a place and people from the outside, with limited views and access to the privacy of inside. I remember when I first arrived in Uzbekistan as a Peace Corps volunteer — the outside was similarly jarring but different. Streets were lined with imposing cinderblock walls and recurrent wooden gates that seemed to signal keep the outside away. As I soon discovered, though, behind the walls and on the inside were beautifully tended homes, with fruit trees and verdant gardens and lively families. Inside were the spaces for resting, cooking, tending, celebrating, and playing.
Here in Chiang Mai, I’m on the outside, of course. I’m in spaces where other travelers and tourists find our designated inside spaces, too — inside temples and museums, cafes and restaurants, shops and spas, hotels and hostels. This co-working space gives temporary relief from the unsightly outside. In the front garden, three towering old trees provide a canopy of shade and air, and cafe tables are interspersed among hanging ferns and potted plants. I suppose this is our inside space, a communal space for working, hanging out, and connecting.
My usual eye for noticing the subtle play of textures, relationships, and compositions returned in the following days. Accepting the unsightly led me to be curious again. And if I’m curious, I can see everything.
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Curiously here...
LouLou
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