Instead of doing homework, I’ve decided to write another blog. Yep, that’s right, Hong Kong Carr doesn’t doooo homework. (Well, I really should because there is a final in two weeks and I need to pass it and I have no idea what I am doing…. Oh, wait that was Chicago Carr talking. Hold on…. SMACK…. I took care of her).
Today’s Topics is shopping one of the things Hong Kong is known for.
Malls & Malls & Malls & Malls
There are Malls everywhere here. In fact I am capitalizing the word “Mall” because I feel like here Malls are really proper nouns. And they are EVERYWHERE! Not just little Malls, I’m talking big ass Malls that you would find in the suburbs of America squeezed into every space imaginable. There are mini-Malls in every subway station. There are gigantic Malls on top of subway stations. What do they put in these Malls? Everything! Hundreds of stores sell everything. Not American everything. I’m talking Hong Kong everything, which literally means every major brand, label, style, gadget, whatever, on earth is available in some Mall. And the Mall, is probably right around the corner from where you are standing. For my PhD friends, an interesting study would be to determine how far away a person is from a Mall at any given moment in Hong Kong. My guess… well, actually Hong Kong is probably just one big outdoor Mall.
There is a Mall for everyone in Hong Kong, but many of the Malls and stores here are for the uber rich (read: not poor starving MBA students. Do MBA students starve…. ? Well, this one does). Most Malls are filled with every designer brand you can imagine and brands that I’m not wealthy enough to recognize. And I guess people buy this stuff, because they have tons of high-end stores. Hong Kong has the highest concentration of Luis Vuitton stores in the world. Some brands even have outlets within walking distance of each other. Using your wealth to be able to wear one’s exclusivity is incredibly “in” here (?!?). But the one thing that is not in here… is American sizes.
The land of Big & Tall meets the world of extra-small
Have you ever wondered what they do with all of the extra-small sizes that no one buys in the US? They don’t just send them to the Salvation Army. They ship them all over to Hong Kong. Clothing is very cool here, but you can be sure, the more that I salivate over some fun new item, the more I am certain that the hundreds stacked before me will only have XS’s. WHY??? Is it because I am fat? Well, apparently that is what the sales people think….but not in a mean way.
My lovely roommate, here to forth known as Roomie, and I spontaneously found ourselves on the hunt for jackets in Causeway Bay—the land of neon lights and malls malls malls. I have been trying to find a light jacket since I arrived in Hong Kong two months ago. I desperately want to stop wearing the only jacket that I have: my stupid red raincoat. It is ruining all of my touristy pictures! There is me in Macau with my stupid red rain coat; there is me on a harbor ferry in my stupid red rain coat; there is me celebrating Chinese new year in my stupid red rain coat. It’s driving me crazy, but I am a perfectionist and I still haven’t found the perfect jacket yet.
On this occasion in question, I roped Roomie into making a quick random stop to stores that displayed potential jackets purchases. We first made one stop to buy jeans. (I needed those too). And I was blown away by the fact that I fit my round little self into some very narrow jeans. “I am not fat! I fit Asian clothing. What are all these people complaining about!,” were the thoughts that puffed my chest out with pride. I almost bought the jeans, until I looked down and decided that unlike my other pants these new Asian jeans did not cover my ankles. So I put them back. Defeat number one.
Roomie was nice enough to indulge me on my shopping quest and we meandered our way through the billions of people flooding the streets, until we came upon another store with lots of perfect jacket potential. Roomie got really into the expedition and started trying on jackets too. It should be noted that Roomie is tall, blond and beautiful (and smart)*, and I hold none of this against her. She is the bestest roomie ever. But you can imagine the pair of us, tall blond, and short frizzy brunett, trying on jackets in the middle of the store, chatting about the merits of this one, the price of that one. Roomie and I debated the prospect of a jacket she admired, concluding that since it could be worn two very different ways and it was on sale, then she must get it.
My jacket search was looking hopeful. I stumbled on something that had a lot of perfect potential. Granted it wasn’t my size, but it almost worked. And sometimes when something is on sale, “almost working” equals good enough. The sales woman was very attentive and saw me fidgeting with the jacket. She came over and styled me properly in the mirror. She wrapped the belt around my waist and adjusted the big bold collars. “This way. Hmmm, you see. Here. It makes you look…. Fat. But if we do it this way,” she loosens the belt and ties it behind me. “This way is better.” Did she just call me fat? In public? In the most vulnerable of places for a woman? That being in front of a mirror under horrible florescent lighting in the middle of a clothing store… while I am standing next to, for all intents and purposes, Roomie, the image of a perfect Barbie Doll? WHAT did she just say? AGHHHHHH!!! Somebody hold me back. HOLD ME BAAAAAAAaaaaaack…
But I didn’t actually say that. Instead, I coolly and calmly held it in, both literally and figuratively. I can roll with this, I thought. I know there was just a lack of vocabulary for this sales woman. She wasn’t trying to be mean. I’m not fat. There was just a cultural difference here. Apparently the Chinese are very straight forward. They tell it like it is. I’m down with that. I’m a straight talker. That’s fine. NO PROBLEM.
Suffice it to say. I didn’t buy the jacket.
Defeated… again!
*Roomie, I hope you take no offense to this superficial characterization of you. It’s in the name of literature!
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