Afghanistan’s only escalator leads to shopping heaven
`It looks like a spaceship that has landed on the wrong planet. It is Afghanistan’s very first shopping mall, gleaming with shops while on the dusty road outside people pump water and grim soldiers drive by in armoured vehicles.
The mall, which opened here this month, offers a lesson in contrast. It also boasts another first for Afghanistan, an escalator, which customers can use to reach upper floors – if they dare.
“People are afraid of the escalator. They are amazed to see something moving by itself,” says Anwar Hussein, manager of the hotel that shares a nine-storey building with the shopping centre. [..]
“That is real development. I wish Afghanistan were full of shopping malls,” said customer Abdul Fatah, who had just purchased a silver wristwatch.’
April 15th, 2009 at 10:51 am
It is amazing to see that people would be so concerned about Afghans being amazed at something moving by itself. With any new invention, the early onset is received with amazement, be it in Afghanistan or elsewhere. We have been used to the inventions here and the ooing and awing has thus been eliminated.