Pasar Glodok is a shrine to all things electronic. The mall is jam-packed with all kinds of circuits, tubes, television screens, and wires—basically everything you need to fix whatever's wrong with your electronics. This makes it a very utilitarian place, the spot you need to visit whenever your TV won't turn on or you laptop's cooling fan is making a weird noise.But there's also something beautiful about the place. We live in a world where "tech" no longer means something tangible. Tech, today, is everything. It's an industry. It's the smartphone in your pocket, the food on your table, and the car you're riding in to work. Tech has definitely made our lives easier, but at the same time it's also nice to see a place where tech is still something physical.
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Wander around Pasar Glodok and it's hard not to get struck by the displays. At times they take on their own techno symmetry. Walls of camera eyes stare back at you. Television screens are stacked like flickering boxes of light. It's the kind of place that feels futuristic, and a bit dystopian at the same time—like you wandering into some hyper-techno version of the future that still feels a bit like the past.
