Happy Belly on Shop: Conquering my Fear of Shopping Centers

Being the good adopted citizen that I am, I decided to play my part in helping Bangkok return to normalcy after the violence that wracked the city. So I went shopping.


Charred remains of my favourite old-school cinema

Last Saturday was the first weekend that shopping centres in the protest area were reopened after being shut for more than a month. It was also the first weekend that Bangkokians could come out to play after being cooped up for a week at home, held ransom by gunshots and explosions.


Crowds are returning to Siam Paragon

The government turned a road in the financial district into a walking street to help traders whose shop space was torched during the riots while shopping centres offered steep discounts to woo shoppers back.

Come out and shop, said the Finance Minister. That’s the most patriotic thing you can do for your country now.

And the city-dwellers responded and spilled out onto the streets in search of a good bargain. I ventured onto the walking street but was cowed by the heaving sweating crowds. So I decided to brave Siam Paragon instead, despite an innate phobia of glitzy malls here.

For some strange reason, I get really atrocious service at shopping centres in Bangkok. The sales staff either ignore me or are downright rude. In fact, I get so stressed that I try to avoid the malls altogether.

Why do I get such lousy service, I’d wailed to my Thai friend. Maybe because of the way you dress, she hazarded a guess. I looked down at my tatty shorts and fake pink Crocs. She has a point.



Service staff here seem to divide everyone into two categories – Speak No Thai and Speak Thai. The former always trumps the latter. The Speak Thai are further split into two categories – the Obviously Foreign and the Possibly Thai. The Obviously Foreign, especially the white-skinned variants, will always be up there with the Speak No Thai.

Now, the Possibly Thai are more complex with its own unspoken hierarchy. The Bangkok elites with their diamonds and coiffed hair are at the top of the pyramid. Provincial Thais and migrants from the poorer neighbouring countries are many rungs lower, with those from the hill tribes close behind. And the sales staff very quickly suss out your social standing from your accent and dressing.

So where do I stand in this food chain?

After almost six years in Bangkok, my Thai’s pretty decent. I speak it, read it, write it, heck, I even dream in it. Everyone just assumes I’m Thai. But, apparently, my accent can go either way – a hill tribe nomad or a rich brat who studied overseas. With my penchant for really casual wear and a complexion that’s a healthy brown instead of porcelain white, my fate is sealed.

While the solution to my shopping woes seems quite easy – just dress up when going out – I’ve probably gone too native to bother.

I came to Bangkok in July 2004 to work with slum kids as a volunteer, so I’ve never got into the whole expat scene. I studiously stayed away from other Singaporeans and mixed mainly with the Thais (except for my British flatmate and some other internationals whom I'd met during my M.A. in Thai Studies course).

I learnt to buy clothes at the local markets and from the roadside stalls to lessen the gap between the slum dwellers and me. Kitten heels got stuck in slum mud, so flip flops became de rigueur. No point wearing your best D&G shirt (not that I have one to begin with) to the slum, only to have the kids’ mucus or other body fluids smeared on it.

Although I’ve had paid employment for the last year now, I still tend to dress down over the weekends. Which probably explains why I’ve been mistaken for my flatmate’s Burmese maid when we were shopping for a water filter or a drinks seller when I was buying a blender.

Yet it was high time that I confronted my inordinate fears of shopping centres and a post-riot trip to Siam Paragon seemed the perfect antidote. Dressed in what was more beach wear than city chic, I was waiting for the fashion police to pounce as I stepped into the hallowed halls of consumerism.


Patriotic music played by a university symphony orchestra

I don't know if it was because of the patriotic music that has replaced the shopping centre muzak or that the sales staff were just thankful to have a job again but a new purse and a new pair of badminton shoes later, the whole shopping experience was not as bad as I had dreaded.

But of course by now, I’ve also figured out the perfect solution to get some semblance of service – just Speak No Thai. Maybe for my next outing to the malls, I could even pretend to Speak No English and just go on and on in Mandarin or Cantonese. Now that would be fun!