Thursday, January 3, 2008: Land of a Thousand Malls	Return to Journal TOC >>
The city of Manila is crazy for malls. I have no idea how they all stay in business. In three weeks here, we end up going to the Mall of Asia, the Robinson’s Place, Megamall, Greenhills Shopping Center, Serendra, High Point, and Market Market. All of them are enormous, new, shiny, and crowded. We drive by the older Harrison Plaza. We miss Eastwood City, the new mall in Divisoria, the malls in Alabang, and probably a dozen others. With the exception of Greenhills and Market Market, they all carry goods at very similar prices to malls in the U.S., in a country where income is much lower. Yet the malls are all packed. (Many of the stores are pretty quiet, but the malls themselves are booming.) And there are more malls under construction. The Mall of Asia claims to be the third largest mall in the world, larger than the Mall of the Americas. It has multiple buildings, an Imax theater, a giant skating rink (crowded every time we’re near it with yellow-helmeted skaters and onlookers), and a merry-go-round. Robinson’s Place has five levels and multiple wings, with movie theaters spread on several floors, a full-scale department store, and a supermarket. Greenhills has a full sized luxury mall attached to the biggest flea market you’ve ever seen, with wings of Muslim pearl and gem dealers, clothing sellers, crafts and antiques sellers, and a separate floor devoted to pirated DVDs and software. Market Market has a four-story mall with flea markets spiraling out from each floor, giant motorized stuffed animals that kids can ride in the basement, and extensive topiaries outside. Serendia is a giant outdoor mall devoted entirely to upscale restuarants, with a more traditional mall across the street. Somehow, despite its poverty and shantytowns and high land costs, Manila supports an astonishing variety of major malls, none of which would be conceivable within the actual metropolitan area of most major U.S. cities because of land scarcity. (Many of the malls, such as the Mall of Asia, are built on land reclaimed from the sea, while others are part of major condo developments. Since non-Filipino citizens can’t own land other than condos they are very popular for expats and retirees.) The mall guards have shotguns at the Mall of Asia, and search people and their bags as they enter. (People expect to be patted down and show their bags to enter a mall or restaurant in the Philippines, in the way we would for a concert in the U.S.) As an American, I’m checked much more cursorily or waved through - though whether because I don’t fit the profile or because they don’t want to risk discouraging a presumably wealthy foreigner I’m not sure. Guards patrol within the mall as well, but not at every storefront as they do outside. The mall is still playing Christmas music two days into the new year; I’m told the holiday season here lasts until the weekend after New Year’s. We have lunch at Max’s (“The House that Fried Chicken Built”), which is sort of the Filipino chain equivalent to a Chili’s, if Chili’s had armed guards. Ro orders a tableful of food, which includes fried chicken; lechon kawali (deep fried pork with skin); bangus (fried milkfish, which you dip in vinegar and eat); kare-kare (a sort of creamy stew in peanut sauce with ox tail and tripe, served over rice); shrimp sinigang (a sour shrimp and vegetable soup, with eyes and legs still attached to the shrimp); and pandan (a tapioca and young coonut dessert concoction). People in the Philippines eat with a fork and spoon, rather than the fork and knife used in the U.S., and eating with hands is common, too. (There’s a particular technique to it.) There’s also a technique for cleaning and peeling shrimp one-handed using only a spoon, but I have not mastered it. I make a mess of a couple shrimp, who stare at me reproachfully until I give up and use my hands to peel them. After lunch, we take the girls clothes shopping at one of the mall’s department stores. The staff uniform is a yellow shirt and miniskirt. Ro’s high school friend Pinky meets us there, and she and Ro chatter while Ginelle and the twins try on clothes and Edwin and I... act like guys stuck at a mall department store. Pretty soon, outfits for the party have been bought, and Ro is in her glory. The rest of the mall visit is taken up with a trip to an oldstyle arcade, where Ginelle shoots baskets (the Philippines is just as basketball crazy as it is mall crazy); to several bookstores and a manga store; then back to the department store to pick up Gracielle’s newly tailored slacks. The day topped out at about 80 degrees and sunny. We get back to the pensionne after dark, and the street outside is already hopping although it’s still early. There are several music clubs, a disco, and a transvestite comedy club directly across the street, along with many restaurants and KTV clubs within a block. The Starbucks downstairs from the hotel is packed. It’s surprisingly quiet in our room at the back of the hotel, though, with just noise from the neighboring rooms and occasional dog barking in the street below.
<< Previous	Next >>