Reality Escapism Revisited: the Shopping Mall as a Social Institution

The streets down below are steamy with fumes, all sorts of fumes.  One can almost smell all that as one gets off the crowded platform of the nearby train station.  It is, as many other places of humanity are, a chaotic symphony of sensory overload of any and every nature.  The smell is a combination of toxic exhaust fumes belched from inefficient jeepney engines, the heavily salted batter of fried chicken, fried fish, and fried God-knows-what-else.

The sights are endless number of people robbing shoulders, each, whether be your nameless economic migrant from the provinces, stylishly dressed white collar workers, or hordes of “service-industry personnel” distinguished by their colorful company uniforms, indifferently tolerating the constant violation of personal space.  And the sounds, above all, add the most distinctive, or better yet, pungent, sprinkle to this mixture: honking of cars, shouting of peddlers, and sounds of millions all trying to get somewhere ASAP…

Occasionally, certain sights and sounds come to the forefront of all these mixtures, that, unfortunately as one may say, makes the whole scene even more miserable and intolerable than it already is, cleanly brushing the situation over that “That’s it!” tipping point.  It could be that elderly beggar, carrying a severely deformed kid, suffering in the midst of the rushing crowds, or it could be a bunch of dirty homeless kids, chasing after you for multiple street blocks screaming “Merry Christmas!  Give me coins!”

Then, as one watches where one is going, concentrating on whether one’s wallet and cell-phone are still where they are supposed to be, one comes across some simple but also amazing.  It is a puff of cool, non-tropical air, not mixed in with fumes or grease, and it smells clean, with slight tinge of perfume or even fresh-baked bread.  One, like many other on the crowded street, is inevitably drawn toward it, not because it is on the way to one’s destination, but simply because one just wants to get away, at least for a while.

When one walks through the automated glass doors, one seems to have entered another world.  Colorful little stores with neat racks of produce and smiling young attendants awaits on both sides of the broad clean aisle.  Suddenly, the noise of honking and shouting are replaced by music, sometimes slow and smooth, sometimes edgy and pumping.  One no longer has to look out for trash and dirty paddles.  The floor is shined constantly to reflect the bright lights above, even though tens of thousands walk on them.

This is just one shopping mall out of hundreds in Manila, an entity that seems to exist and thrive in the busiest intersection of every neighborhood, no matter how rich or poor, and no matter in which part of the metropolis.  It is, as any pedestrian would find out after any quick walk through the city, a little oasis of modernity and comfort, a little bubble of peace and order that, despite their exclusive and highly gentrified appearance, are still open to everyone and anyone, but still manage to block out the unpleasantness of outside.

Precisely because of all their modern symbolism, combined with widespread accessibility, the concept of “shopping mall” here in Manila has transcend its original functionality of a congregation of shops where things are bought and sold.  Malls have, as the title suggests, became a social institution for escaping the sometimes dreadful reality outside their windowless walls.  It became a place of temporary protection from poverty, chaos, and little homeless street children.

Furthermore, it has become a place where the dreams of upward social mobility come true, no matter how fleetingly, for everyone.  Even those at the lowest end of social hierarchy can pretend to be someone when shopping at a mall.  They can enter the same shops, look at the same products, and walk the same streets as the richest and the most powerful of the society.  For a moment, they feel that they are not vulnerable, an active member of a modern consumerist society, and transformed from “have-not” to “have.”

That wishful thinking of egalitarianism, of wealth, and of modernity drives the continued increase in traffic, number, and scale of the shopping malls in a country whose economic numbers simply do not justify the presence of so many high-end shopping places in such high density.  But to help the people feel powerful even when they are not, the malls have a social duty to be more luxurious, more modern, and more extravagant.  If the people cannot live it up, at least make them feel like they can.