Playground (mod version)
From Mod Mania
Tim Kwok/S3155294
Playground is such a wonderful place for kids and adults to share their moment and interact in there. See-saw, slide, chin-up bars, monkey bars, mazes and trapeze ring which are the magic for children and become big part of the greatest memory from all our childhood. Do you still remember the excitement of sliding from the slide. Do you still remember the smiling faces from your friends and parent? Do you still remember the sunset of the playground? Do you still remember the sadness of leaving the playground? The image of the playground is satisfactory, at least, I can say playground is feels like a simplehearted place for all of us.
But is that the true? Actually, I wouldn’t think so.
All of our wonderful memories from playground are happened when the sun hanging on the sky. Sun is only reflecting the positive side of the playground. How about when the sun goes down and darkness comes, will children and their parents still use playground to play with friend? No is the answer (if they are normal children). So who use the playground after sun goes down?
There are few types of people who will use the playground after sun goes down: homeless peoples, homeless teenagers which do not wish to go back home as some reason, couples, drunks, drug users and dealers and criminals. Of course, as the open hour of some another facilities such as tennis field, basketball field and baseball sometime open until night, there are still some normal adults or teenager users, however, as some part of playground got no user after night, for example children playground, those peoples are mainly hanging there. And I will talk about how and why they use the playground at night.
First of all, homeless peoples are mostly independent. On the daytime, they will walk around and looking for food, when the night comes, playground becomes their home. The seats become their bed, newspapers become their blanket and water taps become their water source. Basically, they are taking a good use on the facility of the playground. Besides, less people are hanging in the playground is means less disturbance they will get, this become another reason why they are staying there.
Secondly, homeless teenagers is dissimilar with homeless peoples, they act with group of people and normally have a home which they do not want to go back. They will use playground as a place to stay and spend their moment with their friends. However, they are different from the normal teenager user that they get more madness and stress from their family, school and society. Therefore, they more tend to destroy something that is mean pure and good to explore their madness and rebel to the society rather than just sit and talk. They will use spray to make graffiti on the ground or slide, use knife to scratch out some vulgar language on the seat and slide, use their body to break and even use fire to burn all the facilities. Playground turns into a place for them to vent. Actually, all of those actions are crime, so homeless teenagers only got the courage to do it at night when playground becomes a unbridled place, as this reason, they feel more safe and excited to stay in the playground at night.
Couples are one of the biggest users at night in the playground. Essentially, they love to quietly sit down on the chair and enjoy their moment with each other. Rarely, some couples would like to have sex in there to feel the excitement and fulfil their special need of sexual desire. Overall playground becomes a quiet place that have less interrupter for couple to hang out with, on the other hands, darkness is also obstructing our vision and gives couples more freedom to do something they like, this is why there are so many couples love to stay there at night.
Drunks are basically view playground as hotel where they only spend a night in it. Seats become their bed. As they are losing their sense to go back to their home, they just simply find a spot at playground where they can have less interrupter to sleep.
The other types of user in playground at night are the drug users and drug dealers. They view playground as a concealment of their drug crime. Drug dealers use the large area and darkness of playground to avoid catch by the police. Sometime they also take the chance to sell drug to kids or teenagers at the playground. Drug users use the facility in the children playground to conceal taking drug because no one will realize there are peoples in there at night. The playground, is an unbridled area that, it then turns into the powerful shield for their drug crime, where they can enjoy doing something against the law and reduce chance of catching by the police.
The last playground users at night are criminals. They view playground as their working office where they can “earn” their incomes or fulfil their purpose. There are few types of criminal, robber, rapist and killer. Criminal use the silence part of the playground and wait for their target to show off, sometime they use the facility as their shield. This increase their chance of success, besides, the large area of playground also gives them way to escape when they are exposed. Darkness , less disturbance and facility become a shield for the crime to happen, finally playground become a hideous place.
In conclusion, human is both benevolence and sinister, just like the playground at the daytime and night time. In the daytime, what we can see on a person is everything good and nice, when the sun goes down and darkness comes, we can actually see the true real, which they try to hide from us, of a person. To be honest, essentially playground is not mean to be a simplehearted place or hideous place, however, it is depend on the user: how we use it. Playground can reflect our humanity in some way, therefore we have to understand everything in both side of views in stead of just having to know something that is looking “good”, this is what I understand from this task.
