subject: Bangkok Past and Present [print this page] I was lucky enough to see Bangkok before it became cosmopolitan. Sure, women still tried to wear nice clothes and look pretty, men liked to go to nice sumptuous restaurants, but for the most part when I first was in Bangkok (1986), it still, and overwhelming I'd say, felt like a great urban village. Where else does 90% of the urban population wear thongs and ride to work on river buses? And despite the vices that large cities breed (and thanks to the Vietnam War Bangkok has become notorious for), people were much more friendly and relaxed than they are now. The vices though seem worse than ever.
I love the old Bangkok, and actually by the time I got there it was already ruined! Too much noise, too much pollution, not enough medical care, some (not overwhelming though) hungry people, street children, the famous canal culture concreted over in favor of big avenues and skyscrapers; the whole modern urban blight was already insidiously creeping in when I was there for the first time. I can't imagine what the city must have been like in the 30's or 50's. Except for the brief occupation by Japanese forces in World War II, I think had I gone there at that time I never would have been able to come back. Even so, up until the 80's (when commercialism really started creeping in) I could have been perfectly happy to make this once dazzling city my home. What was not to love (even the noisy tuk tuk's have their charm- my wife and I in younger days even took one to the famous Oriental Hotel!)?
Unfortunately now the surface of Bangkok is relentlessly becoming just another generic Asian city- huge TV screens, contemporary corporate architecture, modern transit, unfriendly and distant city dwellers. The lower classes in Bangkok still exist, in large numbers in fact, but nobody is friendly anymore and everything is jaded. I'm no longer a visitor when I go to Bangkok- I'm a tourist and it seems no one is interested in me as a person; they just want my money (well, not everyone of course but it is annoying). Everything has become expensive too. These are the trade offs we make for development. I have to find a new Shrinaga La.
