Oraya Sutabutr, a 40-year-old lecturer in English literature at Thammasat University, has become better known of late as a leading advocate against noise pollution in Bangkok. She’s written a spate of articles that have been published in both Thai and English-language newspapers and which list 10 noisiest and quietest places in Bangkok. These have attracted a fair amount of attention, prompting readers to e-mail their thanks her for the information. One fan, she said, even asked for the permission to have an article translated into French.
The US-educated Oraya is particularly sensitive to noise pollution although never in her wildest dreams did she expect to be campaigning against her pet bugbear.
"I don't like noise ever when I was a child," Oraya, a leading member of Quiet Bangkok Club told The Nation, adding that sound of water dripping in the sink at night is enough to wake her up, though such familiar sounds are not worry her.
She is more frustrated by the operators of Bangkok’s BTS Skytrain who persist in treating in the captive audience too loud advertisements both on platforms and inside the carriages. She also has a problem with shopping malls who compete not just in slashing prices but noisy promotions, and with concert organisers who test the limit of audio equipment.
Man’s threshold for noise seems to be at breaking point. Surely permanent hearing loss is inevitable.
Only when people come to recognise these noisy pollutants as health and mental hazards, said Oraya can a way out be found to the problem, and this is where she is concentrating her efforts.
These days, some of her students have volunteered there services and she’s now thinking of approaching the mega mall owners with a request to measure the decibel level and allow scientific data to be the judge.
She also hopes to convince the Five Star Hotels to instruct their traffic controllers to refrain from unnecessarily whistle blowing, but is concerned that those who blow whistles all day have already developed some level of hearing impairment.
Paris, said Oraya, is a model city one we would do well to look up to, as it has a noise pollution map as well as strict regulations and penalties against those who violate the decibel limits.
A self-taught expert on noise pollution, Oraya said exposing yourself to more than 70 decibels for a substantial period of time is dangerous. "It may affect hearing ability," she said, adding that damage is often irreversible. Hazards include movie theatres blaring out soundtracks at an average of 88 to 95 decibel, discotheque and video arcades at 120 to 140dB, noise from most events that promote goods and, ironically, those campaigning against other forms of pollution, who come in at around 85dB.
And if many Bangkokians seem unperturbed at the city’s noise, Oraya reckons that could well be because they are already suffering from some level of hearing impairment.
"Noise pollution is about basic democracy, about respecting other people's rights to not being disturbed and to protection from hearing loss," she said, in defence of her campaign. “Some have commented: ‘Are these peoplewho complain hi-so or just pedantic’ I reply that we are a small but growing number of people who simply become aware of the problem first.”
She laments that some simply "run away" from noise pollution problems by relocating to quieter neighborhoods.
Oraya is hoping that more people will join in helping to eliminate noise pollution and that business owners will start paying attention to the issue.
The media are helpful, though Matichon newspapers, which ran a recent article or her, failed to mention the names of companies Oraya says are the worst noise offenders.
A member of Quite Bangkok Club told The Nation that he wished Oraya would take an even more adversarial stance in the fight against noise polluters.
It's unclear where the lecturer will head next, as she admits to being shy, but her fans will be hoping that she keeps writing.
Source
<p>Published in The Nation, June 14, 2009 (Print Edition)</p>
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