Landowner takes charge and closes off graffiti park

The saying goes that "this is why we can't have nice things" but as far as Da Nang is concerned I think I will modify that statement to say "this is why we can't have things."

The unofficial street art center that was seat up on a vacant plot of land was a nice touch to the neighborhood and it was attracting some pretty decent talent and even a small cafe that would sell drinks so that people could sit and watch people make their art. This was serving multiple purposes in that it was something to do and it gave the artists a place to hone their craft. They were no longer breaking the law by doing their work and as a wonderful side-effect, the amount of hastily made garbage vandalism that plagues certain parts of this area was dropping off. People no longer needed to spray random houses because they could go to this park and do it without fear of getting in trouble. I thought it was really nice and as a fan of street art, I really enjoyed witnessing how it is done.

But then the trash brigade came by and seized this plot of land and started dumping their shit on it. Overnight this place that was a wonderful place to get together and chat with artists while you had an iced coffee or a beer in the shade got turned into a dump just like almost any other plot of land in Vietnam.

Most of this is clearly construction debris and not just your run of the mill trash so it is quite obvious that the nearby construction projects are to blame and not just the average joe lazily tossing out their garbage.

I was walking past there the other day so I could get an update on how much garbage had accumulated and was at first excited because all the garbage was gone, but then my initial glee got turned upside down when I saw what else had been done.

Those cement filled holes in the ground with a metal pole coming out of them will certainly be used to put a fence in to make the land completely inaccessible to anyone trying to dump any trash there, but unfortunately it will also mean that the street-art park is done for as well.

It's been a while since I was all that excited about anything that happens in this city because it is so noisy and filled with garbage everywhere. The shitty graffiti that gets put up all over the place doesn't do much to improve my mood. We finally had a place where something GOOD could happen and it only took a few weeks before the selfish and lazy attitude of a lot of the people in this country completely ruined it. Now our street-art park will be no more.

The owner of the land probably had no other choice so I understand why they would do this. I do not fault them for this decision. They had no choice. It's just a shame that people can be so uncaring about others that they would ruin something that everyone in the area liked and it was starting to become an attraction that was popular with tourists as well as locals. This selfish "out of sight, out of mind" attitude of this country in regards to littering is maddening and I can understand why the rest of the world considers Vietnam, rightfully, to be one of the biggest polluters in the world.

Is it really so hard to just be a decent person?