Promise of an exotic cultural experience amid the streetside hawkers of Chiang Mai's Night Bazaar always falls well short of expectations. The scene among this shopping zone differs little from dozens of other such sites across the country. For a city that relies so heavily on its unique historic identity as the main selling point, Chiang Mai's Night Bazaar leaves much to be desired.
Saeng Tawan Theatre in the old days, at the corner of Night Bazarr in Chiang Mai.
The promised intrigue of the Night Bazaar is not without historic precedent. At the street's southeast corner, a relic of Chang Klan Road's past stands obscured from view beneath a veil of visually polluting vinyl billboards. If those adverts were ever peeled back, visitors would get a peek at the Saeng Tawan Theatre, Chiang Mai's grandest ever movie theatre.
Built in 1978 — at the tail end of Thailand's mid-century movie palace construction boom — the Saeng Tawan was the fourth and final movie theatre contracted by Chao Chaisuriwongse Na Chiang Mai, a descendant of Chiang Mai's royal household who fashioned himself into the city's primary cinema benefactor. Chao Chaisuriwongse commissioned the Saeng Tawan to be the most luxurious of his quartet of cinemas, all of which were located to the east of the old city walls.
The site chosen for the Saeng Tawan was the four-way junction of Chang Klan and Sri Donchai roads, which today marks the informal southern boundary of the Night Bazaar area. Local architect Chulathat Kitibutr, now internationally known for combining the best of traditional Thai architecture with the comforts of modernism, was contracted for the design.
Chulathat faced the Saeng Tawan at a 45 degree angle to the intersection. Doing so allowed the theatre's elegant facade, featuring an intricate terracotta tile mosaic depicting Chiang Mai's history, to be seen clearly from the two bisecting streets. When it was completed, the Saeng Tawan Theatre became a figurative masthead of the upper Chang Klan Road corridor.
Like the majority of stand-alone movie theatres in Thailand, if not the world over, the latter years of the 20th century were not kind to the Saeng Tawan. A proliferation of home entertainment systems — TVs, VCRs and karaoke machines — combined with an increase in car ownership, made trips to local movie theatres that often didn't provide parking less appealing, if not altogether inconvenient.
By the late 90s, Chiang Mai had become home to two sizeable shopping malls, both of which were able to attract the city's mobile consumer base with secure parking garages. Once inside, shoppers had the added option of shopping and eating as well as seeing a movie at the seven-screen multiplex theatre.
This was to mark the death of Saeng Tawan Theatre.
When the ailing picture palace's contract expired in the early 2000s, the owners never bothered to renew it. The dormant Saeng Tawan has served several less glamorous functions over the subsequent decade-and-a-half — from restaurant to snooker hall and most recently a warehouse for a company that prints billboards.
The fall of Saeng Tawan ushered in a gradual decline of the Night Bazaar and upper Chang Klan Road in general. Lacking a genuine anchor institution, the area is facing its first real cultural deficit since gaining its exotic reputation decades before.
"Back then, Chang Klan Road was different," recalled Trasvin Jittidecharak, owner of Silkworm Books and lifelong Chiang Mai resident. "The first Night Bazaar was just an ordinary street market. It was a real tourist attraction. The three-storey Chiang Mai Night Bazaar [building] was built much later, during the tourism boom of the 80s. It was more authentic in the past."
Indeed, Chang Klan Road was well known for its eclectic cultural mix well before Saeng Tawan was ever built. The designation of the area as a night bazaar, in fact, was not without good reason. For decades, this stretch of city was home to a diverse range of ethnicities. Muslim Hor Chinese, for example, many of whom were descendants of caravan traders who forged trade routes linking China's Yunnan Province to the northern Thai principalities, made their homes along the upper Chang Klan Road. An Indo-Pakistani community grew there, as well, attracted by the city's welcoming social climate and growing commercial opportunities. The original Night Bazaar then was the market that these traders held every evening.
Within this melting-pot atmosphere, Chiang Mai's first ever permanent movie theatre — the Patthanakorn Theatre — came into existence on Chang Klan Road in 1923, one year after the State Railway of Thailand made Chiang Mai its northern terminus. Completion of the railroad made the transportation of film reels from Bangkok a rapid and regular occurrence, precipitating the rise of a movie exhibition industry.
Over time, the Patthanakorn was supplanted in popularity by other Chiang Mai movie theatres, including the much newer Saeng Tawan. But as Chiang Mai's debut picture hall, it helped to solidify the reputation of upper Chang Klan Road as an important cultural centre.
During the past decade, Chiang Mai's development has shifted to trendy Nimmanhemin Road on the west end of the city, further demoting the Night Bazaar to a second-tier attraction. Surrounding it, however, stands some of the city's most important economic and cultural resources, including a few of the city's finest hotels, like the Anantara, Shangri La and Le Meridien. Historic buildings along the Ping River front, Tha Phae Road and the nearby old city are also all within walking distance.
What the zone needs, however, is a definitive epicentre and the Saeng Tawan Theatre could well serve that role and lead to the resuscitation of the area, if it was revived for film, concerts and other artistic media. Throughout Thailand in general, the once popular pastime of moviegoing in grand stand-alone movie theatres like the Saeng Tawan is dangerously close to being completely lost. Cities around the world, however, are finding that the restoration of such movie theatres can serve as growth engines for broader economic development goals. In New York, for example, the city government is covering half the US$92 million (3 billion baht) cost for the renovation of the 84-year-old Loew's King's Theater on those exact principles. Closer to Thailand, neighbouring countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Myanmar are taking action to preserve some of their own picture palaces for use as film and concert venues.
Meanwhile, in Thailand, old movie theatres are treated like yesterday's garbage, with little attention given to adapting them for contemporary audiences.
Although it will take nothing short of a visionary developer to execute the restoration of Saeng Tawan to world-class standards, doing so would endow Chiang Mai with an exciting piece of cultural infrastructure that would go a long way towards helping the city grow sustainably. For a neighbourhood flush with history, in a city that markets itself on its well preserved past, restoring the Saeng Tawan Theatre would be the perfect compliment.
In the meantime, it's still fun to dream.
Philip Jablon is an independent photographer and researcher, affiliated with the Luang Prabang Film Festival.
He is working on a book about Thailand's stand-alone cinemas in conjunction with the Thai Film Archive. His work can be seen online at seatheater.blogspot.com.
Saeng Tawan Theatre as it stands today, covered by a large advertisement.
A digital rendering of the landscape of the street if Saeng Tawan Theatre was restored and given a facelift.
