What I Hear

I recently decided to walk through and observe the area of Chinatown in the city. It is a place that I have come to before, but never with the objective of observing the space. I decided to walk around the streets on a Tuesday between the time of 1pm-2pm. While walking through these streets, I realized that there are many characteristics that the space possesses. To start, the the languages that I heard while observing were unique to that space. It showed me how much the space has been influenced by the culture of its residents. Another important factor is that the foot traffic of the area is higher than most parts of the city. Therefore, it was easy for me to get distracted in the many different conversations and sounds that I was hearing. However, I realized shortly that this is just another aspect of the space I am observing, at least for this specific time. The conversations and the sounds of the customers inside the stores all seemed to just be noise at the start, however by focusing on specific sounds I was able to observe different conversations and sounds. These sounds included the background noises I was hearing as well as the more prevalent sounds on the sidewalks.  The background noises were mainly of cars and ambulances that would pass by as this was a very busy street. The sounds that caught my attention however were of the cash registers, orders, and advertisements happening inside the stores. From the conversations on the streets to the registers in the stores, this experience showed me how one space can have so many different characteristics in its sound.