Bangkok’s Malls

07May07

Bangkok’s malls are an experience in themselves, dazzling, mesmerizing, sometimes perplexing and regularly disorienting. When you step of the BTS Skytrain at Siam squares station you have a multitude of maze like walkways conveniently leading you in to one of the many malls available – the Siam Center/Siam Discovery Center, MBK Center and Siam Paragon. I decided to explore one of the more modern ones – the Siam Paragon. The bottom floor consists of an Aquarium, actually it’s the biggest aquarium in south-east Asia and on the same floor there is also a concert hall. The next floor consists of a food court which is a place constantly bustling with people in and around the restaurants, cafes and food markets. I have never seen such a mix of fast food corporations, Thai, local and other Asian restaurants blend together with such symbiosis. In Ireland McDonald’s and Burger King usually attract a certain ‘crowd’ and end up with a bad image. Thai’s seem equally content with being in any kind of establishment and never have this kind of problem. Anyway the next 5 floors cover every type of store available, with amazing specialty in some items that are usually grouped together or just sold in department stores. Sony had 4 shops – One just for it’s Bravia TV’s, one for it’s mp3’s, one for the Viao notebooks and one that sold everything else. Designer labels were abound, everything you can imagine. One entire floor was dedicated to car showrooms, I’m not kidding – Lotus, Ferrari, Maserati, BMW and a few of the other top sports car makers. On the second floor i stepped into the biggest bookstore of my life, they had Thai and English books with a selection probably larger then Easons on O’Connoll street. I went into the ubiquitous Starbucks to really see what the fuss is all about, and concluded a hypothesis rather quickly. The American coffee chain seems to be about 80% image and 20% coffee, absurdly overpriced the beverages cost about 6-10 times the price of an equivalent drink somewhere else in Bangkok. And the taste? Good.. very nice indeed, but not any nicer then any good coffee shop in Thailand. Although as a budding designer, i must respect Starbucks captivating and very intelligent graphics – their image is very modern. Their business model was explained to me by a conspiracy theorist, he explained they extrude an almost ruthless Borg-like behavior – They see a well established, popular coffee shop in a good location, and simply buy them out. Marvelous! OK.. i should continue..

Watching the shoppers buzzing around this gigantic edifice i think i really saw the pantheon of Thai society. The cool hip teenagers with slicked spiky hair and trendy shirts – usually sporting an intelligent phrase or the face of a revolutionary. The young Thai women – at risk of sounding hypocritical for slandering the sex ferang, they are as amazingly beautiful as everyone says and it’s hard not to look and go “God damn!”. The men stroll around with sleek threads, sunglasses propped on their heads pacing after their girlfriends and chatting on their cellphones. There is a style and class here i had never seen before, certainly not in Ireland anyway.

Right, I’m now finished writing.. I’m hungry. So basically if you like shopping, go to Bangkok!

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