Which touristic landmark in the whole wide world are we most likely to visit this year?
Will it be the pyramids in Egypt? Time Square in New York? The Coliseum in Rome? The Great Wall of China? San Siro stadium in Milan or the Theatre of Dreams in Manchester?
No. If data is anything to go by – and numbers never lie – the place you and I are most likely to visit is a shopping mall. In Dubai.
The statistics, published in The Sunday Times of London, speak for themselves: 80 million people visited the Dubai Mall last year, making it the most visited place on earth. For comparisons’ sake, only half that number – 42 million – went to Time Square, the second most visited location.
But maybe, I murmured to myself, maybe it’s more than just a mall? Maybe it’s a feat of artistic grandeur? I googled it.
It’s just a mall.
Of extraordinary proportions.
It’s 10 times longer than Oxford Street and about 10 times the size of Selfridges in London. In a couple of years’ time, it will be 15 times that, because extensions are being added. There’s 1,200 shops, 200 restaurants and cafes and a hotel.
Uhuh. My kind of nightmare. I hate shopping, and most especially I hate shopping malls. I detest what I become in a shopping mall: I feel as if I’m suddenly programmed to buy, buy, buy and get extremely frustrated if I don’t. In short, I become like Louis Suarez: by the end of the expedition I want to bite the sales assistants.
Even my sister, shopaholic par excellence, however, was with me on this. I asked her if she’d want to go to the 1,200 shops in Dubai and her answer was “Whaaat?!” But it was a horrified sort of ‘whaaat’ not an I’d-be-in-heaven one.
I think it is so sad that the landmark of the world is a shopping mall that I haven’t stopped thinking about it all week.
It’s even worse when you look at the behind-the-scenes of it all: in one day the Dubai Mall makes a turnover of more than €10 million. But it was built by a workforce of 20,000 quasi-slaves, working in heatwave conditions and earning about €100 a month.
One of the workers told The Times (of London) journalist: “I wish the rich people who shop here would realise who is building these shops. I wish they would see how sad this life is.”
Next time someone tells me they’re going to Dubai, I’ll shred their ticket
Where once we had Man the Hunter, then we had Man the Gatherer, now we have Man the Shopper. I am not sure if this is the world I want. It gives me an empty, sinking feeling, verging on the claustrophobic.
I want people to go to places which tell a story, which create and evoke memories, which stir emotions. I want people to be soppy and romantic and visit the Eifel Tower. I want people to be adventurous and go to the Petra temple in Jordan like Indiana Jones.
I want people to be cliché and visit the Statue of Liberty or go on a gondola in Venice. I’d be happy even if everybody went to see the Manneken Pis in Brussels. Anything, except a silly, pompous, overblown shopping mall.
And now I’m worried about another thing. Should the National Office of Statistics ever wake up from its slumber and carry out proper, exciting polls as to which would be the landmark most visited in Malta?
I very much fear that it would be Tigné Point. Followed closely by Bay Street. And that other shopping arcade which opened up in Paceville in what used to be Axis (now you know my age).
They are ugly, all of them – most particularly Tigné Point, because it ruins the view from the most beautiful city in Europe, Valletta.
Now to add salt to the wound, the Prime Minister has said he wants Malta to turn Malta into the next Singapore or Dubai. Singapore can be ruled out immediately: Maltese people love their chewing gum way too much and wardens would be exhausted from giving out €400 fines for gum spat on the street.
So that leaves us with Dubai aspirations. Will Malta become a Smart City extension? Full of fake laguna walks? It looks like it, and first on the line is the White Rocks project (version 7.8), which will include more luxury hotels and apartments and shops, and for good measure, a dancing fountain sprouting from the ground.
Look, can we just pull everything down and leave wide open spaces for simple recreation? This country, like the rest of the world, needs some lungs, some space. We don’t need boxed buildings full of shops.
We need to go out, and sit and stroll and meet other people and chat. In a shopping mall you don’t chat. In a shopping mall you bark: “I still have to get that.” “I can’t find blue spotted shoes” “Does my tummy look big in this?”
So I’m starting a campaign. Next time someone tells me to join them at Tigné Point, I’m taking them to Ħaġar Qim or Barrakka instead.
Next time someone tells me they’re going to Dubai, I’ll shred their ticket. Are you in?
krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @Krischetcuti