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.
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