The hyperreal experience of gingerly navigating the pitch-black rooms of Dialogue in the Dark is a little like entering the Twilight Zone. We have gone beyond sight, and instead rely on the sounds, textures, contours and the rare smell, all the while mastering how to wield a cane. Here in the dark it counts for nothing whether your eyes are open or closed — bumps make you wonder if you have turned the corner into a wide open space, the sound of running water tricks your imagination into believing a river runs at the bottom of a cliff below.
an experience beyond sight: A group of visitors to the National Science Museum’s Chamchuri Square branch prepare to begin their one-hour tour of Dialogue in the Dark, designed to help them understand blindness.
We have entered the world of the blind, and they are our guides to this unusual exhibition in the National Science Museum branch on the fourth floor of Chamchuri Square in Bangkok. One-hour tours designed to offer an insight into how blind people live are offered in both English and Thai, and the experience has proven so popular since opening in 2010 that its scheduled closure has been pushed back twice, now to 2016.
“I don’t think I’m going to make it,” my wife said just a minute into the tour, consumed with the totality of the darkness.
“I felt the same way at first,” our guide, nicknamed Chay Tawan, reassured us both.
Chay Tawan, 34, lost his eyesight five years ago. After a poor childhood in rural Maha Sarakham province, he had made his way to Bangkok and worked hard in sales teams at Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank and Manulife Insurance Company. But he fell into the habit of going to sleep while wearing daily-use contact lenses. “I was simply too tired and too lazy to take them out at night after another long, busy day.”
By the time he stopped this, the damage had been done and 70% of his vision had been lost. Unable to get around as before, he spent two years all but confined to a small home in Bangkok with relatives, slowing rebuilding his shattered confidence and tended to by his aunt.
“At the beginning it was so difficult. During the first two weeks I cried almost all of the time. But I am happy where I am now. I am happy to be who I am. I am blind, but I can see. At Dialogue in the Dark I can earn money again now, and support my family. I want to help open people’s minds, so they can understand what it is like to live in total darkness.” But there’s a significant caveat: “In here it’s only like one-thousandth of what being blind in the real world is like.”
Establishing a rapport with your guide will help make the most of the experience. Chay Tawan slows things down if reassurance was needed or asks me to feel my own way through for longer distances if he detected cockiness. Visitors may find themselves developing a latent ability to compensate for the darkness as their hearing sharpens during the one-hour adventure. A jazz song seems all the jazzier, a saxophone all the sexier, the drums keep the beat with greater precision.
For about the cost of a typical happy-hour beer, the experience alters the mind in much more intriguing ways. The subconscious seems unleashed as the texture of leaves and sounds of birdsong or rushing water become more poignant. The altered, deepening mental state comes with a greater sense of empathy for those who somehow manage to live in a world like this all the time.
If you don’t have an overactive imagination already, Dialogue in the Dark would be an ideal venue for acquiring one. That’s not to say that the experience is hallucinatory, but rather anticipatory. Familiar situations — a marketplace, city footpath, public park or cafe — take on new vibrancy and nuance; the tip of a carrot seeming pointier, a wintermelon’s smoothness all the more pronounced. There are no sharp objects or dangers, but there is still a sense of enlightenment about the perils of the world that blind people grapple with daily.
The biggest danger is letting your inner fears run rampant. On hearing the sound of rushing water, there’s no need to think you’re walking across a precarious mountain bridge without a guardrail that’s spanning a river far, far below, or jump to the conclusion that the slightest misstep may send you plummeting headlong into the abyss.
By leaving your eyes open or keeping them closed you’ll see exactly the same thing — absolutely nothing. But psychologically it’s more rewarding to keep them open to confirm the strangeness of the environment rather than cling to the false hope the normal world might magically reappear, if only you just opened them.
For the epically bad rap they get on the metaphorical level, darkness and blindness can be quite enlightening. Stumbling in the dark, being insufficiently blessed with the vision thing, being blinded by love/passion/hate or worst of all turning to the dark side are all associated with ignorance or evil. This exhibition turns those associations on their head.
“I think this was the first time I really heard what my voice sounded like,” my wife told me after noticing “its pure essence” after embracing the darkness. Having more than overcome her initial fears, after “reclaiming” eyesight at the end of the tour, she was compelled to turn back for a final taste of the powerful experience.
Emerging from the darkness makes us appreciate having our full range of senses again, as hearing and touch revert to less hypersensitive levels.
Chay Tawan says the vast majority of visitors are deeply moved — “changed,” as he puts it — by their time at Dialogue in the Dark. “In the darkness, something in your heart will arise.”
The brainchild of Germany’s Andreas Heinecke, Dialogue in the Dark was first established in 1988 and has since attracted more than seven million visitors to 150 permanent and temporary exhibitions in 30 countries. The Bangkok guide manager, who likes to be known simply as Udom, has been here since its inception four years ago. Blinded by glass shards in a car accident 11 years ago, he was forced to give up his job making furniture. Now, he finds his position as a counsellor of sorts and tour leader more rewarding.
“Many people who go through [sudden blindness] feel that they no longer want to live. My five-year-old son made these thoughts go away when he would play right near me day after day and say, ‘Don’t feel sad, Daddy. You’ll feel better soon.’ ”
Over the past four years Udom, 36, has shared many enjoyable moments with visitors. He found himself smiling when two girls, on hearing a barking dog, barked back. He also was particularly impressed with a special visitor of just three years old, who let him carry her most of the way. “She had no fear of the dark and was so happy. She was able to handle the darkness a lot better than many children, some of whom may feel a bit sick at first. Others may cry because they feel overwhelmed. It’s interesting how while some adults simply take pity on us and think we’d be better off staying at home, many children become impressed at how capable blind people are.”
Udom has also given advice to families grappling with blindness that had befallen a loved one. He is often asked if most blind people would want help when crossing the street, to which he responds that most definitely would. “We are human beings who feel good when someone approach us with kindness,” says Udom. “I don’t expect everyone to change, but we can all gain at least a fraction of understanding, and that is very helpful for society.”
Entering the darkness, we become more capable of appreciating the light.
Bangkok’s Dialogue in the Dark exhibition is located on the fourth floor of Chamchuri Square on Rama IV Road. Entry costs 90 baht for adults aged 24 and over and 50 baht for anyone 23 or younger. Call 02-577-9999 ext 18—30 or visit www.nsm.or.th for more information.
Cane and able: A group of younger visitors receive instruction on how to use canes and other protocol during their trip through Dialogue in the Dark.
