More Than What We See

John Jung

1/14/13

DCM

More Than What We See

          On a Saturday morning, my friends and I decided to walk to Woodland Mall to look around and I needed to get some lotions for my dry skin. The weather was really cold outside so walking to the mall was devastating, but as soon as we got it the weather was really warm just how Jon Pahl stated in his book, Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Spaces: Putting God into Place, how it was a "climate-controlled indoor shopping centers." Almost gave me the feeling of being at home and excitement and curiosity started to feel up inside me like entering a castle. You would never know what to expect to see or come out. I kept in mind that I had to observe around the mall, for different signs that the video Persuaders and the book talked about. 

          The first thing I see as soon as I enter the mall is a huge hallway leading to the center of the mall. On the floor there are white tiles, as if it was giving an illusion of "Stairway to Heaven," and in the middle there are huge four pillars, as if it was a sacred temple. There are also trees inside the mall and everything is really bright as if nothing can go wrong. I personally love shopping for my clothes so I would come to the mall quite frequently, but never have I ever before noticed such things in the mall. That's when I realized how I am so accustomed to this things that I don't even realize what's inside the mall.

          While I started to observer the mall more closely, I started to get sick in my stomach. I started to realize how much I was lured into different shops just by looking at the signs even though I didn't need anything in the shops. Some of the example signs said, "Ask about the 7's for EXTRA SAVINGS!" This sign especially brought me curiosity toward the shop, and another I realized was that they were using the number 7. In the book Rahl talks states that mall, "disorient us, by using natural and religious symbols and spatial patterns in an enclosed indoor setting, and then reorient us toward one or another of the purveyors of goods." This sign matched exactly what he said, and using the number seven represented the day of God's rest.   

  

      From today's experience I have a whole different perspective on things that are on the malls. As if I was blind from love, I didn't realize this signs were all disorienting us. Some things that I bought were face lotion and facial wash from Macy's, and the reason I bought them were because I needed them for my acne and dry skin from the weather, nothing special.