Indecent shopping. What is it??? Well, indecent shopping can be classified as shopping for things that you most certainly would not want your grandmother knowing about, or in my case, my Pentecostal mother-in-law. You see, the malls here aren't exactly flaunting the fact that they sell indecent "things", but they aren't exactly hiding it either. In fact, on the third floor of our "nice mall" you can purchase not only drug paraphernalia, but the outfits in black/green/red, to go with it. Of course some provisions are taken to ensure that those outside the mall do not know what is being sold inside the mall as each little shop has a "Do Not Photo" sign right out in front.
And now, without further ado, what I purchased! What will now be forever known as "The Statue" can be found only in the basement of the nice mall and hidden in the back of smaller stores in the not nice mall. "The Statue" comes in various sizes and are a black resin material. I believe that some of the smaller ones are hand carved as they appear to be real wood (can you imagine THAT being your day job!), and the big ones are very hard to miss when they are sitting on the shelf with the fine china ;-) And FYI, I only know this because they are prevalent and not because I desired to have this intimate knowledge.
Anyway, I first discovered"The Statue" when I was trying to purchase small wooden frogs for my nieces and nephews back home. As I was reaching into the basket of frogs my hand came dangerously close to touching a mini "The Statue" attached to a key chain. Thinking that I was seeing things, because who in their right mind would place mini "The Statues" next to frogs especially in "The Nice Mall", I calmly walk around the corner and realize that what I had seen was tame. Not only were there much bigger "The Statues" around the corner, there were some that were attached to people and engaged in various extracurricular activities. I was so confused and frightened that I had accidentally walked into a porn store with my three children and that the police would be there any minute to take us away. But no. No we were not. We were in a regular ol' store and here, there was nothing indecent about it. My dad still does not believe me when I tell him this story, because really and truly, it is rather unbelievable that as a culture it is so accepted here.
So, that was my first experience with indecent shopping. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would actually go back to the mall with the sole purpose of actually acquiring some of "The Statue's". However, when a friend tells you that all they could find were big "The Statue" and that they were throwing a Hen Night (bachelorette party), people like me with knowledge that cannot be unknown, come in handy. So, I volunteered to purchase smaller "The Statue" in key chain form since I would be in town.
After having a nice lunch with my friend, we take off to the "Nice Mall". She had no idea that "The Statue" was lurking in the basement and thought that we could only find them in the not nice mall. Umm no. They reside everywhere! So, we get down to the basement and I take her over to the shop where I usually buy nice wooden carvings of elephants and dragons, and direct her attention to the wicker basket hidden behind a shelf. She, being slightly embarrassed at our task, walks to the other side of the store as I go through the basket of wooden elephants, frogs, and "The Statue". When I look up to see where she had gone her face turns bright red and I soon find out why. Apparently the only person willing to bring me a bag to put these things in was a very young Thai guy with a huge embarrassed smile on his face. The lady who runs the shop and who knows me by the way (fantastic!!), was too occupied trying to hide her smile to help. It seems that two white women in the basement buying "The Statue" is quite the funny sight (especially when one of the women decides to taunt her friend by holding up the different varieties for her friend to see in an attempt to see just how red her face can get ;-). So, after we make our rather embarrassing purchase, we scramble on up to the floors where decent folks roamed with our purchase firmly in HER grasp. I bought them so she had to hold them! I hear that they were a big hit at the party by the way ;-).
Anyway, so that is the kind of shopping experience you can expect to have if you roam the various floors in the malls around here. You have Versace on one floor and "The Statue" on the next.Oh the places you can go!
Until next time!
Kristen
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