Siam Paragon shopping mall was crowded with many people

Inside Siam Paragon — Atrium of Siam Paragon

In the heart of Bangkok, around BTS Siam Station, shopping malls grow so thickly you’d think the city had planted them in rows. To a visitor, they blur together into one continuous, air-conditioned labyrinth. Locals, however, navigate them with the precision of botanists: this one has that store, the other lacks this café, and so on. I, meanwhile, can only register them as enormous refrigerated boxes.

The most famous of the cluster is Siam Paragon, a glossy citadel that rises directly in front of the station. Inside, it seems to contain everything that modern urban life could possibly desire: designer boutiques, a cinema complex, an aquarium lurking somewhere in its depths. The air-conditioning is turned up to an almost ceremonial level, the floors shine like polished shells, and the ceilings stretch upward as if competing with the sky outside. Everyone walking through looks impeccably assembled, and for a moment you could swear you’d wandered into Tokyo’s Omotesandō—only with more humidity waiting just beyond the doors.

Then again, perhaps that sense of déjà vu isn’t an illusion at all. Thailand’s economy has surged, incomes have risen, and the much-advertised gap between rich and poor has slowly narrowed. The smiles once marketed abroad as the charm of the “Land of Smiles” now sit atop formidable purchasing power. While Japan has been busy lamenting its so-called “lost decades,” the economic map of Asia has been quietly redrawn, mall by mall, escalator by escalator, right here in Bangkok.

Siam Paragon on Google Map

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