not keen on revealing how much they spend, and certainly it would be much less than in a majority-Christian country like the US, where a super-regional mall operator can easily spend more than US$250,000 hyping up the season. Still, casual observation indicates that Christmas spending by malls in countries like the Philippines and Thailand is significant. And that doesn’t include what the retailers themselves spend decking out their stores. What kind of return do they get on the investment? It is difficult to quantify but broadly speaking the answer is: it’s well worth it. Go to any big mall in the Philippines – there are a lot of them because Filipinos are mall-crazy – and you will not be at all surprised by the amount of Christmas decorations and festivities there because the Philippines is a deeply religious country where almost 90 per cent of the population is Christian, mostly Roman Catholic. Indeed, the Philippines is so squarely at the intersection of mall culture and Christianity that it is widely credited with having the longest Christmas shopping season in the world, with seasonal decorations, lights, music and other festivities appearing in the malls as early as the first week of September. Thailand: the power of creating seasonal events Go to any big mall in Buddhist Thailand, however, and bizarrely you will see the same as you see in the Philippines, albeit later in the year (by the beginning of November it’s all go). The question is why, given that Thailand’s Christian population is only about 1 million, or a meagre 1.2 per cent of the country’s population? One might be tempted to think that this Christmas cheer is primarily targeting expats and tourists. If you speak to a lot of expats who live in Southeast Asia, they will tell you it’s infuriating and they have a kind of stoic ‘wake-me-when-it’s-over’ mindset. On the other hand, tourists from Western Christian countries do make a useful market in tourist-heavy locations like Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket, but again they are not the principal target throughout most of this vast country.  The really juicy targets are Thais themselves, but not because many of them exchange Christmas gifts. Rather, the festiveness provides a reason for Thais to come out, dine with their families and friends, take photos of the displays and make grinning social media posts. Coincidentally, they might buy something, too. There is clearly a return on the malls’ investment in Christmas paraphernalia and special events, and it is material. Indeed, the hyperventilating Christmas festivities at Thai malls could well be one of the most clever commercial hijackings of the Christmas spirit anywhere on the globe.  Christmas in Cambodia  Not all Southeast Asian countries do as much Christmas hyping as the Philippines and Thailand. In Buddhist Cambodia, the situation is more sedate and Cambodians generally are just not into it so much, partly of course because of less spending power than their neighbours in Thailand. Chip Mong 271 is a massive, modern mall about 5 kilometers south of the Phnom Penh city centre, boasting a host of international brands. It is only two years old and one of the flashiest malls in a city that now boasts a lot of excellent retail. Its Christmas decorations are astonishing for their chintziness, consisting most conspicuously of two features: one, a cluster of gigantic, crudely synthetic-looking trees suspended from the atrium; the second an unhappy-looking installation on the ground level consisting of a wooden house, a bunch of outsized gift boxes stacked on one another and a slightly more natural-looking tree than the ones dangling from the ceiling, the lot covered in ersatz snow. A few kilometres further south, at Aeon Mean Chey – another modern mall opened around the same time as Chip Mong 271 – the decorations are a little more subtle and conspicuous, reflecting a relatively business-as-usual approach to the Christmas season.  Do consumer surveys shed any light? Unfortunately, there is very little in the way of good data on what consumers in Southeast Asia spend on Christmas gifts. Consumer surveys are notable for their failure to predict actual spending behaviour, although that doesn’t prevent such predictions from being churned out before every major occasion, usually along the lines of: “Consumers plan to spend [insert whatever number you want] on [Christmas, Valentine’s Day or whatever other occasion you want] this year.” The reason groups sponsoring these surveys and the survey companies themselves get away with it is because, unlike in a US election, the survey questions and outcomes are vague and no one bothers to check up on them after the fact. Everyone has moved on to the next big thing. Exactly a year ago, Milieu, a company that bills itself as a global market research and data analytics company, published the results of a survey of 1500 adults in the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore. This resulted in the claim that 54 per cent of Filipinos and 46 per cent of Thais interviewed between 28 November and December 1 expressed “readiness to start their gift shopping”. Only 30 per cent of Singaporeans were in the same frame of mind. Several things about these findings are bizarre, even putting aside the fact that ‘expressing readiness’ to do something is a vague assertion that in no way assures that any gift shopping will get done at all. (Since it is unmeasurable, it is immune to verification and the surveying entity can pretty much make up any number it wants.) Also, there seems to be a disconnect from reality: Thailand is overwhelmingly Buddhist, with Christians making up little more than 1 per cent of the population, Singapore is a shade under 20 per cent, while the Philippines is a deeply religious country with about 90 per cent Christian, mostly Roman Catholic. How do we square these facts with the idea that Thais are only a little bit less gung-ho about Christmas shopping than Filipinos? Or that only just over half of the Filipinos are ready to buy gifts despite the ‘season’ beginning two months earlier? Or that Singaporeans are much more ambivalent about the whole thing than the Thais are? It certainly is a strange one, but whether you believe this kind of stuff or not, there is one thing we can be sure of: Christmas festivities work in non-Christian Asian countries, and mall budgets for decorations, seasonal events and all the other trappings are likely to go up rather than down.