Big Treble in Little China

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Mongkol Sanla (far left) shares a laugh with his customers at 23 Bar & Gallery.

neighborhood

Big Treble in

Little China

Community-minded art galleries, restaurants and bars are turning up the volume in Bangkok’s Chinatown.

By Ron Gluckman. photographed by cedric arnold >> t r a v e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a . c o m / m a y 2 0 1 6

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/ beyond /n e i g h b o r h o o d “Chinatown is always changing,” says Victor Hierro, who runs Spanish tapas bar El Chiringuito with his Thai wife, Sudaporn Sae-ia. The formerly shuttered old shophouses near Hua Lamphong Station have begun reopening as some of the city’s coolest art galleries, pubs and shops, giving the Nana neighborhood new cachet.

Not to be confused with the nefarious Nana red-light area off lower Sukhumvit, this Nana is the latest blossoming rose of Bangkok’s Chinatown, a collection of architecturally intriguing buildings that feature a blend of Chinese gabled roofs with striking colonialtropical deco lines. While the majority of residents are ThaiChinese who were born and raised here, the new multicultural buzz is

bundled in three shorts blocks, bookended by an old Chinese Baptist church and cheap-eats diner Lad-na Heng Yod Pak. Many establishments are run by collectives, which eschew the term “business,” and avoid websites, regular hours or other trappings of the conformist norm, reflecting the artistic inclinations of Nana’s “other-preneurs.”

The result is a charmingly progressive district with loads of

local character. Hierro is something of a senior statesman here. A longtime trader in Thai goods, he recently launched a guesthouse in a shophouse he remodeled. He was also involved with Cho Why, the seminal gallery that opened two years ago, a passion project founded by fellow Spaniard David Fernandez, and eight other friends with eclectic backgrounds typical of Nana’s newer residents. Fernandez was working for an arts magazine and organizing cultural activities for the embassy, and now he uses those skills to run the gallery and throw avant-garde events for the neighborhood. “We just do things we like, that are interesting,” says Fernandez. “That’s how Nana works.”

Will it last? So many districts regentrifying get derailed by factors that include rising rents, disparate development and, ironically, success: the hype brings tourist traffic and commerce but can alter the very components that make hip ’hoods so charming. Architect Pornpas

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