LAi cHi kOK happy days!

I will try to write in English this time even if I may not be very natural… Please apologize my mistakes….

Lai Chi Kok is the lovely area  where I work. As you go out of the MTR, you are received by a long, grey and dirty avenue, where cars speed as in a motorway…. 

When you cross the road once, you feel a dusty strate of pollution on your skin. And if you cross the it twice (what is usually the case…), you need to get a shower straight after because you stink.

The smell is also a unique experience: at 8 AM in the morning there are clouds of cod-fish mixed with pork intestines and dry seafood smell all over the road and if you just washed your hair you can be sure it will get dried with that smell on it. Another detail: you have to avoid the drops that fall from I don't know where all over the way: is it the air-conditioning bacterial drops or the oily chinese restaurants kitchens evacuation? Once it falls and it touches you it is too late: already absorbed by your skin and organism… in a few years, if I get a very uncommon desease you will know it is Lai Chi Kok city-jungle experience

Surrounded by huge, old and creepy industrial buildings, it used to be the industrial area of HK, nowadays all sourcing companies, and wholesalers are based here. 

Lai Chi Kok population is local (which normal being in HK), in a hurry but they walk slowly. In fact the local way of walking is slow and in a zig-zag… which makes it really difficult to overtake them…

The fashion sense of this local population is also quite particular: you often see woman wearing synthetic lace dresses juxtaposed with black long sleeves t-shirts with uggs boots. I suppose that 90% of  the consumption all synthetic fabrics in the world (polyester, acrylic, etc)  is done in Lai Chi Kok. It would not be surprising that those people do not have a skin cancer at the end of the day. Please see below an example of what I would suggest if I was a Chinese fashion blogger (the t-shirt has to be wore below the dress…). Charming combination!

Incongruous and fake would be the 2 adjectives for this small world definition. 

Therefore you have 2 possibilities: whether you start remembering those old good times in Saint Germain des Près in Paris, where the esthetic was balanced, uniform and perfect, where you used to go to charming "cafés" with your friends and you get deeply depressed, whether you look at the beauty behind the appearances of Lai Chi Kok and you try to be happy. At the end, it is the basic choice of life: whether you decide to be depressive because there is always better than what you have (sometimes it is just a little bit more obvious than others), whether you decide to be happy. I am living the second option process.  While in Paris you forgive and forget about the insults of the parisian waiters simply because it is beautiful, here it is the total opposite : you can get aggressive without any reason, just because it is SO UGLY! I am  spending my days happily in Lai Chi Kok. But as said, it is a process…

One of the positive points in Lai Chi Kok is a huge, dirty, crowded, amazing shopping mall in an Industrial building . At first you do not understand if you are going into a car parking or a shopping mall... It is very weird. You don't see it from the outside but once you cross the small door (why everything is so small here? The doors? The windows***?…), you discover a new galaxy under your eyes. People seem ants, and never in your life you will see so many clothes, shoes, hats together. 

It can be the most terrible place for lots of people but for a compulsive consumer as me it is just Alladin's cave! It is so challenging to try to find something that looks nice and has a nice hand feel. Then, once you find it, it is so challenging to negotiate for a price with a non english speaker that tries to swindle you. It is the path to happiness! Why looking for inspiration in Celine or Balenciaga stores when you have Lai Chi Kok? They are so imaginative there! They mix materials as we would never imagine!

Yesterday I had one of those Lai Chi Kok experiences: I found those nice leather red shoes, with the perfect heel (5 cm… the heels you can actually wear) with some nice colorful stones applications in the end of the shoe. I was so proud of my new investment : after 40 min of negotiation, I got the shoes for 300 HKD (30 EUR), real (Chinese) leather!

After 30 min of wearing it… 2 stones gone! As my dear Vicomte friend would say : "Lo barato sale caro" what means : "Cheap things are the most expensive" (not very well translated…). 

In a nutshell: I am in China and I live ephemeral and fake happiness : the most evanescent happiness ever but a pretty intense one…. Believe me!

PS

*** I heard 2 versions explaining the tiny windows size: 

• it is to prevent suicides
• It is to prevent people from throwing big object from their windows, such as fridges, ovens, etc

And to finish a goodbye from our Lai Chi Kok buddy! (his name is "Tony" or "Doggy" I didn't got it well...)