Reflection: Urban World — Week 10 — The Mega City and the Urban Slum
*confusion: “คลองเตย” Khlong Toey / Khlong Toei
I like to begin this week’s reflection by introducing you to “Magi -The Labyrinth of Magic.” It is a recreated anime series and comics inspired by 1001 Arabian Nights. The story itself talks about three “Magi” — great magicians — who choose their kings to rule the world. Aladdin, however, debuted out of nowhere as the fourth one. He enrolled in Magnostadt Magician Academy to secretly investigate what this magician-dominated country has hidden.
Aladdin found that all magical facilities in the country are from “Magoi” (life forces) of people living underground. Those people have permission to spend their whole life (e.g., free sex, alcohol, drug use) in exchange for being imprisoned and exhausted of life power until death.
This concept reminds me of the slum Khlong Toei in Bangkok, Thailand. Those who live in the slums spend their whole lives serving for higher socioeconomic status. They lack sufficient educational and hospital opportunities, and they live in overcrowded, informal housing with inadequate access to safety (e.g., water, sanitation, security, tenure). Ironically, the majority of these people are workers in all the buzzing business areas in Bangkok, including Sukhumvit, Sathon, Pathum Wan, Huai Khwang. The higher classes work in their office while people from the slum are their waitresses, cooks, maids, waste collectors, and daily-paid service workers (which, in essence, may assemble into an informal economy).
The scandal cannot be swept under the carpet as well as its problems. A difference is that when the truth was exposed, authorities in anime collaborated with people to find better solutions; it does not happen in Thailand. COVID-19, as an example, ruined everything like storms. The government needed to allocate vaccines to Khlong Toei as soon as possible (Bangkok Post, 2021). Companies and businesses would collapse if service workers have turned into moving virus carriers (they cannot work from home!). However, transparency and inclusiveness have been doubted. There are numerous daily criticisms about vaccine distribution, healthcare accessibility, and work/life recovery plan. It confirmed the state’s role in crisis management, which, indeed, the charity or praying could not cover. Not to mention other problems alongside is the severity of the seasonal flood and waste allocation.
Tragedy in comics seems terrible, but not as much as what happened in Khlong Toei.
The fifth district people in anime have free food and medicine, but Khlong Toei slummers seem to survive by themselves. Unlike no visitors in comics, Khlong Toei has countless NGOs, governors, and public sectors who have come to study the root causes for decades (e.g., Albright et al., 2011; Atitruangsiri et al., 2017; Denpaiboon et al., 2019; Ferrero et al., 2018; Goodwin et al., 2014). Still, it seems none of them can solve the area’s problem and enrich people’s quality of life properly. Expelling people to rebuild the region is unsuitable because it anticipates uncountable living, economic, and social consequences. Serious actions from authority with deep eyes of the public to reform and solve each problems synergy instead are the suggestion. The shadow needs to be exposed, and the voice of the people needs to be respected. That is what should have been done in a democratic country.
