Who Wants to Be WOMAN SHOPS GLOBE?

Me! Me! Me!

As a former step-grandma once asked, while riding an escalator in a huge shopping mall, "why do we have to want?"

I suppose it keeps us humans moving forward.

Right now I'm moving forward through my zip code's Comcast cable listings to find the Sundance Channel. I'm up to channel 500 and ain't found nuthin' yet! I want to watch MAN SHOPS GLOBE.

... here, it's channel 505. Which is easy to remember because one HBO channel here is 550. I miss having under 100 channels. Things were easier to find.

So back to Grandma Louise's question. Why would I want to be WOMAN SHOPS GLOBE? Isn't there enough available here? Actually right now I am tentatively planning a whirlwind 24-48 hour trip before December 31 to rack up miles to maintain elite flying status, and the trip would include some fabric shopping in a very grand bazaar. A place I've wanted to visit for so long.

Why do I have to want to go there?

While we're wanting, actually, we can overlook what we have. I have already been a WOMAN SHOPS GLOBE several times and am grateful for the amazing experiences that I never expected to have ... the aisles of the treasure-filled Chatuchak Market in Bangkok ... gorgeous vegetables, some I didn't recognize but sure tasted good, at the Saturday market in Greve-in-Chianti in Tuscany ... all the stimulating colors and fabric textures in Nalli sari shop in Chennai, India ...

Yeah, I am lucky and blessed and have lived a bit of being a woman shopping the globe. But still, I always want more. Always want more. It's not about the stuff. I actually don't buy much. It's about the sights, sounds, smells, walking in the midst of foreign languages, the challenge of figuring how to communicate and act where things are so different. I am more alive in these places.

When I buy, I buy to remember. I look about me now and see the fabrics that remind of these adventures ... the snippet of fabric covering a journal with writings about stories a driver in Cambodia told us about the Khmer Rouge, the silk throw from a nice shopkeeper in Kerala who discussed spices with us, the curtains made with fabric from ... um, actually, Arlington Heights, Illinois. But sometimes traveling 10 miles down a road around here is an adventure too!

It's important to open eyes to all adventures around us. And even if I never had the opportunity to get another stamp in my passport again, it's important to realize that sometimes, we really may have been that which we still seek.

How Ideas and Obsessions Get Started

So a blog that I regularly read, Gorgeous Things, posted about a blog named Counterfeit Chic, a name which intrigued me due to my penchant for knock-offs, thus I visited the blog with some, um, questions in mind. A little bit of surfing and clicking later, I come across a flickr post of the photo below:



... which as Counterfeit Chic elaborated, shows computer code instead of the (perhaps) fake logo it's supposed to show. These jeans were found in Chatuchak Market in Bangkok, Thailand, and having been there, I could completely believe these are fake. I mean, isn't the fantastic array of fakes a major draw to travel to Thailand? Just ask my "sitting man" that looks very much like an antique Sukothai Buddha unearthed during an archeological dig, along with the (not really) antique Burmese rain drum we bought at Chatuchak Market. If I can't afford to pay $10,000 at Golden Triangle in Chicago, why wouldn't I pay $400 at Chatuchak for the "new old" Burmese rain drum as a unique side table? I realize this is not a perfect comparison -- there are no LV logo or Burberry brand names on these pieces. But, consider this, how many "antiques" sold at real antique prices really are the true thing? How many travelers have had their wallets taken for a ride by men who just last week were rubbing dirt on their "antique" purchase? Beware, folks, and know what you're getting for your money. And perhaps we shouldn't be taking the real antiques halfway across the world anyway. I buy the replications with the full knowledge that that's what they are. It's not an investment, it's just something I want to live with and remind me of stories from Chatuchak Market and other places far away.

Now on to those "oops" jeans from Chatuchak ... what a great idea!!! Sewists (or sewers whatever you prefer) who are also blog nerds, why not put a piece of your blog's HTML code on a label? I have plenty of incorrect SAS code from grad school days to play with too. Computer chic!! Let the ideas run ...

Oh So Giddy About Style For A Good Deal

So I surfed around Antiques by Zaar for a bit after referring to them below. Someday I will be overcome with my Chinese furniture obsession and will purchase from them. That is inevitable! For now, this table caught my eye:

I love it, and I already have two under our living room windows. It's a perfect spot for plants, and of course for cats. But I wouldn't pay well over $1,000 for a real vintage or antique table and then expose it to cat claws. With the tables being under windows, cats are on them every day. Just the other day, I saw our newest little guy, Chaai, hanging by his claws on our Chinese writing table because he tried to jump on it and missed a bit. But I wasn't fazed. Why? Because we got our Chinese writing tables for $100 each! We took pictures of Chinese writing tables on our most recent trip to Thailand a few years ago, and we made a special side trip to Baan Tawai, just south of Chiang Mai. Years ago on our first trip to Thailand, we tread carefully through one of those very expensive shopping centers by The Oriental. We loved what we saw, but could not afford it. It's the kind of place where you watch your elbows and you look behind you before you back up. Can't afford to pay for anything inadvertently broken! A woman in one of the shops told us to go to Baan Tawai, where everything is "cheap cheap cheap." That year we spent much time in Chiang Mai (why we were there so long is another story, and a long one, for another time, let's just say it involved visiting the U.S. Embassy many times, and sitting under John Ashcroft's picture made me shudder) and we did a little shopping in Baan Tawai. Her words "cheap cheap cheap" were correct and we've never forgotten them.

So a few years ago we were in Chiang Mai again, and we were prepared with plans and pictures of furniture we wanted to make. I read the book The Treasures and Pleasures of Thailand -- I recommend this book for anyone shopping in Thailand. While the authors are higher-end shoppers, the tips and strategies they share are right-on and appropriate for shopping in any environment there. For example, during our first visit in Chiang Mai, our hotel arranged a minivan and shopping guide to take us to Baan Tawai. They kept speeding past places we wanted to visit, and stopping at crappy shops. We didn't understand at first. But after our last stop of the day when something overcame us and somehow we walked out of a shop with over $150 worth of gifty things we really didn't want (and that was a lot of Baht in 2001), and we saw the guide settling with the shop owner, we finally got it. The next day, we asked the tuk tuk driver who hung around outside our hotel to take us to Baan Celadon for our big dinnerware purchase. He played chess outside with his daughter while we loaded up on celadon plates and bowls, and I think all our boxes weighed more than the tuk tuk and the four people in it! It was a precarious ride back to the hotel.

The Treasures and Pleasures of Thailand book recommends you do your research, be prepared, and travel on your own. So in 2005 we decided to not be dependent on others and we rented a car. We had plans to make and purchase quite a bit, and ultimately the car rental saved us money because we could negotiate better. We had many things made for us, including reproduction Chinese writing desks just like the photo above. Each was $100, made of teak and finished with a very dark espresso stain. They have the slimmest drawers. We didn't bargain the business owner down much, instead we emphasized that we wanted old wood, well-seasoned wood, and we were willing to pay for quality. The shop did an excellent job. We took measurements and pictures with us, and they made the tables to the exact measurements we wanted. They included all the details in the photos. The tables have cracked just a little over the past few years in the adjustment from Thailand's humidity to our dryer Illinois air, especially in winter. But it just makes them look older, and that's OK.

Another great Thailand shopping resource are Nancy Chandler maps for Bangkok and Chiang Mai.

Here is our gorgeous girl Seesa, a bluepoint Siamese Snowshoe, lounging on one of the tables.