On Summers and Sewers
“What’s in a name? That which we call a sewer,
By any other word would smell as awful.”
Things catch your eye that you want to remember. Things catch your eye that you want to point out to others because they are beautiful/funny/stupid/horrible/laughable/shocking/etc. You can capture and preserve those things with a camera, and the memories will remain with you for a lifetime.
Technology is not yet to the point where we can capture smells. Soon there may smell-o-vision, photosmell, and other such things, but not yet.
The other day, I was standing on one of the busiest corners in Pusan in front of one of the busiest department stores in town waiting for my appointment to show up. It was the hottest day of the year thus far.
Excuse me while I digress a bit for the benefit of those who are not in the know. Many places (most places?) are not connected to any waste-treatment facilities by any completely contained method. Thus you will see covered gutters along the streets with large holes between the cover slats. These gutters often carry raw sewage. They are routinely cleaned by city workers who lift the slats and scoop out all of the filthy, reeking, black sludge that collects in the gutters over time. Sometimes big green trucks with hoses (referred to by me as either “Suck Trucks” or “Floyds”) will come and suck out the gutters and drains.
As I was standing on the corner I was hit with this heavy wave hot wind bearing one of the sickeningly strong smells of overheated human excrement, garbage, compost, and other filth. It hung in the stifling air of this busy corner of the second largest city in the Hub of Asia (a.k.a. “Korea”). I had to move away from the corner to get away from the choking odor around the gutters.
My first thought was “This is totally unacceptable. If this were Midieval Europe, perhaps I could understand, but his is 2005 Korea! This will do nothing to help Korea’s image for the group of foreign business men holding their noses as they walk by.”
My second thought was, “I wish I could capture this smell and post it on my blog so other people could smell how truly and utterly offensive it is”