…at least until I move again, I suppose.
Imagethief is pleased to report that he has found a suitable apartment all of 100 meters away from his current apartment in China Central Place. Among this apartment’s distinguishing characteristics are its simple and unadorned light fixtures, the willingness of the landlady to remove whatever furniture we didn’t need (a lot), and the relative tastefulness of the furniture that remains. And the price was decent, for what that’s worth.
As part of the move I am abandoning my old desk, a 200RMB piece of Ikea crap that has been with me for a few years and that is so flimsy that my monitor bounces when I type. This is not one of those colorful exaggerations for which I am justly renowned. It is literally true. The desk now has a pronounced sag in the middle, and I figured it was worth replacing with something more solid before it either delaminates into toxic splinters or dumps my 24″ monitor onto the floor in a shower of sparks and shattered LCD panel. Or both, I suppose.
On Sunday Mrs. Imagethief, Zachary and I went down to the Macalline Red Star Furniture Mall on the southeast fourth ring road, not too far from where we live. You may know this mall, which is coincidentally next door to the Macalline Red Star Building Materials Mall and a Decathlon, thus covering all your home furnishing, renovation and fitness needs in one fell, commercial swoop. We had never been there before, and simply thought it was worth seeing something new, rather than either retreating to Ikea or my old standby, the Classic Furniture City mall near Panjiayuan.
I have tried to foreswear Ikea for several years, but like a junkie who pawns his sister’s DVD player to buy a dime rock I keep on sliding back for a cheap furniture fix despite my earnest vows to stay clean. This leaves me feeling filthy and awash with regrets as I invariably end up hating whatever I buy, whether it’s the balsa-wood table that picks up dings when you look at it wrong, the shelves that wobble when the cat sneezes on the far side of the apartment, or the sofa that loses another support strap with a huge TWANG! every other time I sit down on it (really). So I swear off again, but a year passes and there I am checking out yet another “Knasti” bookshelf, the primary value of which is that it comes from a company that apparently provides meaningful employment as product name developers for Sweden’s dwindling population of consonant-happy illiterates. So I feel socially virtuous but poorly furnished and extremely generic.
In the last couple of years my standard dodge has been to go to the Classical Furniture City on the east third ring, near the Panjiayuan flea market and repro propaganda extravaganza. This is one of dozens of malls and neighborhoods (including the entire village of Gaobeidian) that offer reproduction Chinese antique furniture at knock-down prices, and it’s magic for bookshelves, TV cabinets and such, especially if you need small customizations like holes for hard-drive cables. On the other hand, it’s really nothing more than Ikea for Sinofied expats, and if you prowl my friends’ houses you can pretty much see that we all use the same approach and all buy the same rosewood tables and camphor chests. We’ve simply traded Scandinavia for Shenzhen in one episode of culturally semi-appropriate mass unoriginality. But at least it ain’t Ikea and by god, we feel Chinese. Just don’t let your kids lick the furniture, because who knows what’s in that lacquer.
Anyway, the point is that in an attempt to break out of this two-fold rut we went to the Macalline Red Star Furniture mall, mostly because it looked big, and anyplace that big must have something worth looking at. This is a classic example of false logic, like my old college rationalization: Beer is good, therefore more beer must be better. That bit of logic worked right up until it failed spectacularly, with a juvenile Imagethief closely scrutinizing the accumulated plaques on the inside of his dormitory bathroom’s toilet bowls. Surprisingly colorful, if you must know, but harder to see after the third round of violent retching leaves your eyes permanently crossed.
Speaking of violent retching, that’s what I felt like doing Sunday when, upon entering the mall, I realized that this is where all the landlords of all the ghastly apartments I have seen go to buy their preposterous, eye-boiling furniture. This is the place. The Mecca of repulsive, radioactive, filigreed furniture. The Source. The mother lode. As my father observed one day upon watching me sweep the cat litter off my floor for the third time in an hour, when I die and go to hell my job will be to sweep up the cat litter. What he didn’t point out, but which is almost certainly also true, is that my hell will be furnished from this mall.
Imagethief firmly believes that the best way to reduce one’s pain is to share it. Therefore I want to share with you, my faithful (and dwindling) readers, some of the most luminous examples of apalling furniture ever conceived by the mind of man. Should you decide to buy an apartment and furnish it in accordance with the Chinese nouveau-riche-低素质 school of interior design, you’ll know right where to go (you’ll also need to buy a Porsche Cayenne — more on that later). I’m sorry the pictures are a bit blurry. They were taken with a phone somewhat surreptitiously as I didn’t want to be beaten by the furniture ladies. Day after day standing around that stuff must lead to some kind of violent psychosis. And trust me: More detail would not necessarily improve the experience.
Allow Imagethief to escort you on a tour:
Louisiana Bordello Moderne
What could be a better way to put that spare square-footage to work than renting out girls by the hour? In a country with no property tax that’s like printing money. All that’s missing is some furniture appropriate for displaying your collection of emaciated meth-heads in lingerie. That’s where this collection fits in. Because nothing preserves the illusion of virginal innocence like white lacquer, gold trim and purple lace. Just remember to keep the customers off of the couch. The dry cleaning bills are murder.
Charles Taylor’s Mango Lounge
Had a hard day sawing off people’s hands? You’re going to want to put your feet up for some well deserved rest and recreation. This understated set, with its gold-tasseled crimson and zebra pillows, says, “I may decide life and death in this town, but I still know how to relax in style.” Leather arm rests and muted upholstery resist bloodstains and match the seats in your open-top Hummer limo. When you’re done reviewing the latest catalog of small arms from Vyatsky Polyany’s 2010 line (it makes a great coffee table book for that coffee table), you can have the drugged, underage concubines of your choice dumped onto the tasteful king-size bed in the background. The mangoes are wax, so they’re not good for eating, but they’re superb for hurling at the heads of cowering underlings.
You’re Not Important Enough to Suck My Toes
Want something a little more intimate than the Mango Lounge? For the psychotic despot who might fly into a vicious rage at any moment we offer this set. It includes both a throne fit enough to stroke even the most volatile and insecure delusions of godhood and lethal candlesticks for when you suddenly feel the need to beat one or more of your supplicants to death in order to cow the others into submission. This seat is recommended for the fey and serpentine living god who oozes honey but turns dangerous on a whim rather than angry, broad-shouldered Norse warrior types better suited by rough-hewn wood and leather. Also good for lonely people who think they live in Anne Rice novels.
The Chandelier of Damocles
Hosting a dinner party of the damned? You’ll set a properly infernal mood with this elegant dining set in blood-red leather, complemented by a one-of-a-kind chandelier that audaciously combines equally blood-red globes with white leopard-spot lamp shades. Is it hell or Kisangani? We’re not sure, but turn on the lights and watch pure-hearted guests and small animals recoil in terror. Then serve the roast.
Purple Rain
So you finally showed those uppity punks Morris Day and the Time who’s funkiest in Minneapolis and you’re looking for someplace to throw down with the girls from Vanity 6. This tasteful set is fit for even the purplest, if not necessarily for anyone else. Sure, it’s not technically paisley, but with lacy, black filigree and bathed in the tasteful light of a mauve chandelier, who’s going to notice? Accessorize with a marble coffee table and assorted cocaine goblets and get ready to party like it’s 1999. Rear wall mirrors not included.
And Here Is Where You’ll Live
Once you’ve picked out the furniture of your dreams you’re going to need to a crib to put it in. Imagethief recommends Beijing’s Park Royale apartments in the up and coming Shuangjing neighborhood. I have no idea what they look like inside, but with a forecourt statue of a winged goddess in a chariot being pulled by eight raging stallions, all rendered in gold, it seems like one of the few places likely to be able to withstand your taste in furniture.
Recent meditations on home furnishings:
- Hey, baby, come up and see my tiger bedspread
- The last king of Guanhu
- Journey to the planet of the electro-squids
Older:
Note: It occurs to me that these archive posts are temporarily offline due to a server failure, but will hopefully be back soon.
- Infernalture (August, 2006)
- Apartmental, a part mental (February 2007)
- The devil wears Prada and won’t rent me an apartment (March 2007)
I always find Qumei Furniture （曲美家具） a nice alternative. I am a sucker for Scandinavian style furniture and this place is a nice step up from IKEA. Plus I had the pleasure to rent a place fully furnished in Qumei stuff and was *very* grateful for style restraint shown by the landlord.
PS: They have a store at 霄云路, which should almost be on your way to the office…
No love for IKEA! Man, I have IKEA furniture I bought in 1991 that’s still going strong — no, not the couches, never buy a couch from a flat-pack manufacturer, that’s like buying a home-made sportscar from a someone who used to brick fireplaces for a living — but I have plenty of cabinetry that still does the job two decades on, and still looks new-ish.
Part of the IKEA thing is being able to put the shit together properly. Apparently that’s hard. Apparently that obligatory scene in every rom-com / family movie where someone fails at flat-pack assembly is supposed to make me go “Oh! Ha! I understand that person’s trials! I’ve been there!” wheras I simply think “Any stupider and you’d fail at breathing, how hard can it bloody be to work an Allen wrench AND TIGHTEN ONCE A WEEK LATER?!”
And simple glassware and kitchenware? You can easily pay ten times as much for something not as good. Unless you have restaurant-trade connections, I dare anyone to buy a better flat-sided 400 ml (i.e. 1 can or bottle) beer glass than the one you can get in IKEA for a dollar.
I will admit, though, that in China the lure of custom furniture at IKEA-prices-plus-20-percent (or therabaouts) is irresistable.
But, what did you get?
Have I become too Chinese that my first reaction was “Meh… I’ve seen worse”? (My second was “I can skip that”, since I’ve passed Macalline Red Star many times, and always wondered about the stuff they have… Hey, it’s big!)
Can I write an article for your blog ? You can write one mine and include a link to your site.
Thanks for asking Ean, but not really how Imagethief works.
Will, hilarious post. It’s hard to fault the landlords and homeowners in your neighborhood specifically. I can find similar examples of bad furniture taste here in the North Carolina furniture design headquarters of the world.
Your post makes me think there’s a special place for designers who combine a bare bones Chinese aesthetic with the economy of IKEA. Maybe there’s a start at this museum in Massachusetts, which moved an entire Qing dynasty merchant’s house from Anhui province to Salem, lock, stock and cistern.
http://www.pem.org/sites/yinyutang/
Looks like the Peabody Essex Museum has already addressed furniture with a contemporary Chinese aesthetic. It created this workshop, “Inspired by China,” in 2005.
http://www.pem.org/sites/ibc/
Bob Page
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Will,
O-M-Frakkin-G you brought tears to my eyes and joy to my daily existence, currently suffering from moderate summer temperatures, clear air quality, my backyard pool, Mexican food (and Chipotle), and being away from my modest migrant worker apartment in Shanghai (but sans chandelier and 140 mu of land).
I’m afraid some hardened, long-term expats in China may have the impression that the post is about the peaceful-but-tasteless rise of China’s newly enriched wealthy and the relative cultural superiority and sophistication of their Western counterparts.
While this may be true if you compare the typical owner of a Porche Cayenne in the US vs one in China, I hate to share that trips to furniture stores in the US will uncover the fact that bad taste is alive and well, even in the Blue States where there are people that are enlightened atheists, gay-marriage supporters, and yes, where an IKEA or two is well within driving distance.
Instead I think the larger cultural point is that this furniture store is the testiment to the greatly enlarged personal freedoms that Chinese have experienced in the last few decades, and that choice and self-expression includes diverse options that maybe you and I wouldn’t select.
I’ll leave the other defenders of China’s fragile cultural pride to preemptively defend against further humiliation and to thus earn their 5 mao.
Meanwhile, I’ll depart to ponder the reasons why, despite my moderate success in life, I still find myself cruising the halls of IKEA occasionally purchasing objects that I immediately regret, last far longer than I wish, and are impossible to dispose of via Craigslist.
Elliott, as tempting as it is, I would discourage either assuming an implicit comparison with Americans or a larger social point to this post. I write what I see, and what I see is bad furniture in China. I have no doubt that Americans are capable of their own crimes against taste, although personally I think we tend to concentrate ours in our automobiles, reality TV and political choices. But I leave to others to mine these no doubt rich veins of comedy.
As for your Ikea recidivism, face it, you’re just another flatpack-crack-whore, like me.
Purple Rain is very beautiful.
I like all the furniture so much, but the most Louisiana Bordello Moderne. They look very price
Yes you have captured something here. The purple couch is great. Last time I was in that place, I imagined a Chinese version of the Beverly Hillbillies…sitting on their mothership fauxtique couch that doesnt know whether its wants to be velvet or leather, drinking a cocktail of sweet Dynasty red wine and sprite, living in a house that is a mini replica of the Pantheon.
I suddenly feel compelled to create blog synergy, buy high-quality bedding, and get my building cleaned.
***
I have passed by the Macalline Red Star Furniture mall a few times, always curious what lay behind its odd exterior, which probably would make for a half-decent climbing wall. Looks like I can finally fulfill my dream of 17th century French royalty meets 20th century urban pimpdom cosplay extravaganza. Live the dream, I say.
Oh and there’s a shop very nearby that sells all of the chandeliers you’ll ever need in a space about the size of my living room. It’s fascinating watching people seriously trying to decide which one will go best over the dining room table. I also wonder how they don’t get blinded by all the meretricious (yes!) refracted light.