Wind and window

The window of my room faces the cemetery next to my accommodation building. 

I'm satisfied with the scene through my window, since it shows green grass not gray bricks of another building. 

But even if scenes through windows were boring or miserable, it wouldn't matter. 

Because I still like the wind blowing in through windows.

In some sense, the thing I really like is not a window itself but the air coming through a window. 

When I was in Seoul, people did not understand me who always liked opening windows regardless of the season and of the weather. 

People would always try to close windows, saying that it is too cold, it is too windy, it is too hot, it is too humid, it is too dusty ... and so on. 

Even though there were hills with lots of trees behind my school building, students wouldn't open the windows of classrooms. 

They loved the artificial wind from air-conditioners during Summer or the warm sealed room air during Winter. 

The only time that I could freely open windows was just a few weeks in a year. 

When I drove my car, I always drove with the windows open. 

But people did not like opening the car windows as well, so when I drove other people in my car, I had to close the windows and turn on the heater or air conditioner for them. 

In Edinburgh, I walk about two hours every day. 

I did not buy a bicycle. 

I hardly take a bus. 

Commuting by foot consumes quite a long time. 

But I feel grateful that I could enjoy fresh air while walking every morning and night. 

I even walk in a light rainstorm.

There is a big park called Holyrood which I walk across. 

I like walking through a forest or in a mountain, but I'm satisfied with walking across the park, which has many hills and trees. 

There are some sections that have no street lamp in the park, so while walking in those sections at night, I can fully enjoy watching starry nights and the moon light. 

At night, after all the tourists and hikers are gone, the hills and the lake of the park become quiet. 

And after the sunlight disappears, the park regains its own colours. 

In such quietness and darkness, the air in the park becomes fresher and more colorful, and I become more alive while walking in it.  

  

Perhaps it was no coincidence that my research subjects have been related to hygiene. 

Fresh air was one of the essential elements in personal hygiene.

Such hygiene principles were also applied to the designs of sanatoriums built throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Britain. 

The two protagonists of my thesis, Lane and Allinson, who published their books with the word 'hygienic medicine' in their titles, shared many things with each other, but among them, what both of the doctors emphasised most was the importance of fresh air. 

I really wonder how people in the twenty first century world have come to forget such things completely. 

Although this may be relevant to my research questions, apart from my thesis, I am really curious .. 

Why should I feel myself alien in liking the wind and opening windows?

... 

Looking back while climbing up a hill. 

Looking down from a hill in the Holyrood Park. 

Walking along the lake. 

 

Walking on the grass of the park. 

The sun shining behind a hill called Arthur's seat.