public/private space

While I don't regularly think about the intricacies of public and private space, it's happened on more than one occasion in the past year. The first was at Live8 when a friend and I noted the complex social codes being silently written, revised and battled over as the 800,000 attendees negotiated for space in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Blankets were laid down, chairs were set up, and in some cases, caution tape was hung to signify to others that *this* piece of land was taken. Arguments arose as latercomers tried to squeeze in and through, balancing on tiptoe on the few unclaimed corners or passing over and around backpacks, coolers and small children. An unspoken nod to courtesy led most people to remove their shoes before walking on others' blankets but it was by no means universal and we wondered what governed these rules and made them acceptable to some, but not to others.

Recently, I thought about the battle for space yet again. One Sunday, my friend and I wanted to go to the library and needed to walk through one of the major city parks to get there. The area around the library is always busy on weekends, and this week especially so because the park was the site of the Hong Kong Flower Show. Who knew it'd be such a popular attraction but there were throngs of people everywhere and walking was less like walking and more like bumping through the crowd in the general direction you wanted to go. The going was further complicated, though, by the countless people camped out around the edge of the park. Hong Kong is home to hundreds of thousands of Filipino (and other Southeast Asian) maids and nannies, most of whom live in cramped, closet-like quarters in the homes of their employ. On the weekends, however, they typically enjoy at least one day off when they can flee their closets and gather in the city streets. In a city of almost 7 million people, though, public space is a relative term. These congregations of amahs are literally in the streets, in the parks and anywhere else a small space can be claimed for a few hours of music, conversation and picnicking. In my wanderings last week, I discovered that any available space can be up for claim -- a few steps of a staircase here, the corner of a landing there, a piece of an overhead walkway -- and claim is as simple as laying down a few sheets of newspaper and marking it as your own.

Not too far afield from the blanket-layers at the PMA, eh? What are the rules, unspoken or otherwise, that govern this territorial rite that we find repeated and respected in more than one corner of the world? And what happens when your piece of public space is infringed upon or at best suffocated by admission fee-paying-flower-show-goers? Who was first? Who comes first? Who decides who the public includes?

Interestingly, the Hong Kong government is keeping tabs on (or recognizing, depending on how you look at it) who the public users of their various parks are. According to local historian Jason Wordie, signs asking people to clean up their litter in parks differ depending on location. Some signs are in Chinese, English and Tagalog, for example, while others are in Chinese, English and Thai. I haven't noticed it yet personally, but I'll keep an eye out for it. Talk about targeting your audience...