Hotel Paradis

Manila is large, loud, smelly and hot. There’s just so much life packed and crammed into this place, you feel like its fermenting, constantly brewing futures, fortunes and fate. Its population is young, hence active and constantly communicating, be it in terms of career, pastime or survival. There is so much life here, that it does not let itself be digitally managed as, say, in London, Frankfurt or Paris. Urban management here seems mostly manual – I watched a traffic police officer yesterday who was physically struggling with the waves and waves of cars, jeepneys, tricycles and people breaking into a crossing – despite working traffic lights. I recently spend a lot of time on public transport and I cannot stop looking at people. I try to imagine their lives, or at least something about them. What a snag that I don’t speak tagalog! On the other hand this allows me to listen to conversations and contextualise, like I’m dubbing brief sketches I make up of people.
If you take the MRT from Cubao to Manila, you can change train lines between Recto and D. Jose stations. These two stations are connected by a totally fenced in skyway through an urban slum area. It feels like a zoo, like a catwalk, like a prison and I had a strange feeling of segregation, like one gets by looking through fortified glass barriers at international airports – you can see the flights to Atlanta, Tokio or Sydney, but you cannot take them.
This was when I saw that sign – “Hotel Paradis – Sound proof wall!!”. Obviously one urban slum dweller had picked it up from somewhere and was now making a point to all those hurriedly passing upon business or pleasure through the skyway. Or at least so I'd like to think. Maybe he is just getting paid by the said hotel...