Thoughts from Bangkok

Bangkok is a place which intrigues me.

I love the street food, the colourful feel of the place. You see people from all over the world trying to converse with the locals using limited thai and lots of gestures. You think how amazing it is that humans all over the world can still communicate through our common language, our facial expressions. You see simplicity alongside complexity. The wealth disparity is evident everywhere. It is a place where you can find the old right beside the new. You can find little street stalls that were commonplace in Singapore decades ago but are slowly diminishing today. Turn a corner or walk a few paces and you can find hip shopping malls that boast of the impressive architecture, innovative interior designs and wide arrays of merchandises which put our local shopping malls to shame.

I was nineteen when I first stepped into Bangkok on a study trip. I remember the newly opened Seacon Square which was the largest shopping mall in Asia then. We were properly impressed with the gigantic structure and excitedly went around the complex scouting for ideas for our final year project. The focus of the project was to compare the shopping scenes in Singapore with Bangkok. We were supposed to bring back fresh ideas we saw on the trip and integrated them into a tourism and retail project that will attract foreign shoppers to Singapore and boast the tourism industry. Amazingly, our group was awarded the top project prize despite our incessant fights.

That was more than 10 years back. Even then, we were following in the trail of the Bangkok retail scene. Today, we are still lacking behind in Bangkok in this area, despite the numerous shopping complexes that we have and more to come. It really makes one wonder if we really need more shopping complexes with the same shops repeated. Or will it be a better idea to use more creativity and save our limited space for more constructive uses or reserve more open space for better city planning? If more is really better, maybe, more parks and spaces will be better appreciated in an already congested city?

After all, we are only an island state. It only takes us an hour to go from one end of the island to the other end. Most of us are quite willing to travel. I mean, just look at the crowd rushing to Vivio City! Do we really need to have another Charles & Keith or G2000 shop within 10 mins of each other?

While Singapore is planning more retail malls with the same retail mix and increasing GST, I am sure there are many more Singaporeans like myself who are planning to conserve more of our money for overseas spending.