PROFILE
Climbing trees and playing in the river as a child are the inspiration for Escape, Malaysia’s new, sustainable theme park, which aims to coax children away from their computers and tvs
SIM CHOO KHENG
JENNIFER HARBOTTLE • JOURNALIST T 22
here’s something heart-warming about interviewing Sim Choo Kheng. As the CEO and creative talent behind the recently opened
Escape theme park in Penang, Malaysia, Sim is driven as much by making people happy as he is by money – and his park is testament to that. Forget rollercoasters, the latest 4D
technology and hamburger joints, at Escape the emphasis is on re-discov- ering your inner child by experiencing play in its rawest form; such as climbing trees, swinging from ropes and not being told off for getting your clothes dirty. Served up with a healthy dose of
eco awareness, the inspiration behind Escape is Sim’s own childhood and he’s out to prove that despite today’s chil- dren’s fascination with ipads, Nerf guns and Barbie dvds, there really is no sub- stitute for good old-fashioned play.
THE SIM-PLE LIFE As a boy, Sim grew up as a peasant in a tiny kampong – a basic traditional Malaysian village – in the middle of Penang Island. Gauging how tough things were fi nancially for him and his family is hard, because Sim doesn’t want to sound like he’s selling a sob story, but he says his farmer parents had little in the way of money and Sim and his sib- lings shared a very frugal upbringing, in a small wooden house on in the edge of the rainforest, literally living off the land. Far from bemoaning his lot, Sim waxes
lyrical about his “free range childhood.” He shares captivating stories of his typi- cal days, spent larking around with the other village children, playing with the animals, farming the land and climbing trees, as well as swimming in the local lake and making his own toys from bits of wood. It’s the growing chasm between
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his self-professed “idyllic” childhood and the upbringing kids have today that inspired him to create Escape. “I feel sorry for our children,” he laments. “They’re very institutional- ised, and as parents we’ve become way too over-protective. Children don’t play in the traditional sense any more, they just watch tv or sit in front of comput- ers, which means they have few physical skills and they’re rarely connected to nature, in the way that we were.” Combining his experience as a parent,
20 years as a theme park industry con- sultant and the fact he’s “still a big kid,” Sim’s hoping Escape will achieve both his personal goal to motivate kids to play outdoors, as well as his professional goal to redefi ne theme parks, by proving that going back to basics does have appeal with consumers and can work as a legiti- mate business.
AM 1 2013 ©cybertrek 2013
Sim hopes to recreate his idyllic, ‘free-range’ childhood with Escape
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