Dragon food

We organized a participatory design review session this afternoon. Local villagers were invited for this meeting, and approximately 20 adults and 10 children has shown up. We explained three different architectural plans as well as models to them, and then asked any inputs or thoughts that they wanted to give us. Surprisingly, many villagers (especially women) spoke up and asked so many questions. After the review session, we asked villagers to design the layout of the residents’ rooms. We prepared a white board with floor plan, models of bed with magnet attached, and markers to draw any walls, partitions, furniture, or other household items. We had a quite successful and interesting session with them.



During the layout experiment, I found a “dragon food” in Sri Lanka (I hope Cheryl George is reading this post!) Villagers placed average of 10-12 beds side by side in a room as their suggestions. Many said that “since we have a large space, we have to maximize the people who would be benefited by this place.” or “people socialize more if we have many people in a same room.” Of course, it is so hard to interpret this result with cultural aspect; however, I still thought that 10-12 people in a room would certainly create a “medical model institution” from the pre-culture change movement. Most of the participants mentioned about the TV as an entertainment, and wanted to have a TV in a large living room area. Moreover, they suggested a large dining room area for all the “inmates in this institution.” (everybody referred elders as “inmates” and place as “institution”) Although we have worked so hard to come up with “non-institutional living environment with aging in community concept,” villagers’ mindsets were still no where near the “home” concept but a typical county hospital environment. I found that the results were such a scary size of “dragon food-institutional thinking” that takes over normalcy of elders’ lives in a community.

After seeing these reactions from the participants, a partner of this project who wanted to have 20 beds in two rooms said, “look Emi, you thought you knew what was right, but you really did not know what would be right for the local people here. This is what community decided so we should accommodate as many beds as we can fit in these rooms. We are not like Japanese, they don’t need the privacy like you.” Her comment gave me vivid image of “warehousing people on the belt conveyer.” I do agree that we should take culture into consideration for the spatial planning, but it is certain that this approach will create a “total institution” in Sri Lanka. I explained that “these participants are re-creating the hospital environment that they were used to see in the past. We should go beyond that and create a community where elders are fully integrated into the surrounding community.” The reaction was “you are imposing your idea and not respecting the reactions from the local villagers. Your attitude may make me and villagers distrust you as a person.”

……….. my tears came out when I heard this comment.

Dragon food made me cry, however, it did not discourage me to focus on “doing a right thing for elders.” It made me cry once, but it will not happen again. As a Japanese woman, I have such a difficult time standing up for myself in many situations. However, I am certain that this issue is worth fighting for me. I should stand firmly and keep fighting to get rid of dragon foods one by one.

I was also told that this project should be named after the property owner’s last name, which I did not feel comfortable at all. When I said about my feeling toward naming, I was told that “the problem is more to do with you who have issue with this decision. This is what community decided, so you just have to respect the property owner.” I believe we should all focus on the “life of elders” first, and not be distracted by satisfying the owner who seeks family legacy.

The day like today, thinking about Bill Thomas, Cheryl George, Carol Ende, or Christa Monkhouse heals my soul….

Again, Dragon Food was found in the place where a half way across the world.

I guess my battle continues….

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