Baggage

Handbags are amazing.

In my pre Hong Kong existence, I had never noticed them. Well, I recognised that women carried bags, but I never realised the importance & significance of such things.

My girlfriend, being Hong Kong Chinese, has introduced me to a world, I previously never knew of and in hindsight, wish I never knew existed. Basically, every woman in Hong Kong is expectant of such a luxury item from every boyfriend they date in their lives.

And to make it worse, the Hong Kong Chinese men I know have no problems with such demands, as their girlfriends deserve & need these items, as they can't possibly be expected to carry their Prada purses in a Sainsbury's shopping bag.

On a 'shopping' day out with my girlfriend, we once attempted to count the amount of Louis Vuitton & Gucci handbags we could see women carrying, as we walked down a street in one of Hong Kong's main shopping districts. Twenty-eight paces into our walk, LV was leading 19-16. Then, we came upon a cross roads & were greeted with a world of light & dark brown squares. We gave up counting at that point & declared Louis Vuitton the winner.

There are a number of problems I have with these bags.

Firstly - the price. It's just absolutely ridiculous. I was recently in Venezuela, talking to some chaps that live on a beach. I informed them of the price of your average Louis Vuitton bag. They nobly informed me that they would be able to survive for a year on that amount of money.

Secondly is the style. I just cannot understand why on earth you would spend over £500 on a bag that everybody else in town has? Not only being pretty awful in design (who really wants cherries or smiley faces on their essential fashion item), but if you were spending that sort of money on a bag ' surely you could get one hand made for that amount & have a bag that is oh so very you. I mean, whatever happened to individuality?

I've actually queued for 20 minutes to get into an LV shop before. This is without a sale or any kind of price reduction.

Thirdly & most importantly is the quality. I have studied both the originals & the fakes on offer out there & there honestly does not seem too much (if any) difference between the two.

I mean, can anyone really tell the difference between a fake bought in a Mongkok market or a real one bought in the 'upmarket' Landmark Shopping Centre? I can't & fortunately, neither can my mother.

I have had to play the game sometimes though, as I have a couple of nieces that have just reached the age of conforming to the marketing strategies of these corporations. But I prefer going to the Triad market traders, than dealing with your bigger criminals in the shopping centres. After telling the boys exactly what you require, you are taken up a lift to the 9th floor of some dilapidated building, walk down the stairs to the 6th floor, past a couple of rooms frequented by ladies of the night, through a couple of heavily padlocked doors & into a room full of bags, purses & belts.

Personally, I find the range here far more comprehensive than the actual shops.

On one journey to such an establishment with a work colleague, the Triad chap proudly pointed me in the direction of an LV bag where only 25 were released in Japan.

'Only 25 originals released? How many fakes are there?' I enquired.

The man laughed, but did not answer. I started picturing some woman in Japan spending 100 million yen on some bag because of its exclusivity, only to wake up one day to see everyone else has the same bag, but bought theirs for 9 yen 99.

Not only is the range of bags wide, but you can also choose from a range of qualities. You can pay next to nothing for a Louis Wuitton, it then creeps up to around fifteen quid for a correctly spelt version, or you could go the whole hog & buy a fake made of exactly the same materials as the original for about £50, (ie. the original, but made in the factory next door to the factory that makes the Louis Vuitton bags in China).

My work colleague bought an LV sports holder. On his way back to England, he was perusing through items at the Gucci shop in Hong Kong airport. The strap of his newly acquired LV bag snapped off, causing the bag to swing into a sales person & then onto the floor.