The Good Old Days
by Taka
I recently visited Da Nang to catch up with a friend. Da Nang, a coastal city in central Vietnam, is renowned for its sandy beaches and rich history. It has become a popular tourist destination for people from the Far East. The city is approximately 850 km from Bangkok, making it less than a two-hour flight away.
Despite being in Southeast Asia, Bangkok and Da Nang boast distinct city environments. In Da Nang, people tend to honk their horns more frequently and unnecessarily as a way of signaling their presence. On a positive note, bike taxi drivers in Da Nang prioritize safety by requiring passengers to wear helmets, a practice that is rare in Bangkok.
Both my friend and I are in our 40s, and we've known each other for 15 years. Our catch-up conversations always cover the same topics: family, work, health, sports, and so on. At a bustling seafood restaurant, we found ourselves talking about movies. Honestly, I'm not an avid moviegoer, and these days, watching a movie feels far removed from my routine. I've unsubscribed from Netflix, and I can't even bring myself to watch a film on the plane when I fly back to Japan every year.
Some people say that the movies you watched when you were young are always the best. Is it a sign of aging that current movies don't inspire or excite us as they used to? In my humble opinion, great movies are timeless and resonate across generations.
Beyond movies, I want to highlight a great old design that is often overlooked in our modern digital age. Air conditioners from the 1980s and 1990s had rectangular operational panels on the wall. Users set temperatures by moving a knob vertically along the panel to the desired setting. The temperature range of 26-28°C was highlighted in blue, while the remaining temperatures were displayed in black. This simple design subtly encouraged users to set temperatures within the highlighted range. My parents and teachers never explicitly told me about the ideal A/C temperatures; I learned it intuitively from this design. Modern air conditioning systems, with their digital screens, often lead people to make adjustments without careful consideration.
Given that raising the A/C temperature by just 1°C results in over 10% energy savings, our campaign, "Stay Cool, Save Energy", recommends setting the A/C between 25-28°C. This initiative is timely, as air conditioners have only recently become commonplace in Thai households. Consequently, many people haven't seen the A/C rectangular operational panels from the past.
