Home Is Where the Boot Is

I had an adventure this weekend. I gathered my trusty map, my less-trustworthy Chinese reading skills, and my extremely trustworthy sense of direction and set out to find a little piece of home in this massive and foreign place. All I can say is this: I flew 6,000 miles away from Maine and found Maine 6 miles away. LL Bean, home sweet home.

LL Bean, Beijing, is located in a swanky "lifestyle mall" in the nicer end of town. This open-concept mall, with a lovely fountain timed to classical music in the central courtyard, is full of high-end Western brands, ranging from Espirit to dear Beans. There is a Starbucks and a Coldstone Creamery, where you can pay in excess of 50 kuai for an ice cream (comparison: I can buy a Drumstick-like ice cream on the street for 2 kuai). The atmosphere was pleasant, but I felt more out of place here than I did on the bus (where I noted, absently, that I was the only non-Chinese out of 50 or so. This is not unusual.). I felt like I'd wandered into 5th Avenue, or at the very least, the designer shops in the Old Port. So I beelined for Beans.

What to say, what to say. It is an LL Bean, in all its glory. It has canoe-paddle door handles. It has little decorative shelves of fake evergreen and snowshoes. It sells the ice-cream making kick ball. The only un-Bean-ish thing about it is that it's tiny. It's very much like the average-sized store in the Maine Mall. But, I imagine I'm spoiled by frequenting the flagship store.

What's that? What did things cost? Well, if you think things would be slightly cheaper, considering the lack of international shipping expenses and the location, think again. Perhaps you'd like their sunwashed cotton messenger bags? That's 420 kuai. Some women's rain pants? 750 kuai. Now that's just ridiculous. To answer my sister's question, no, the sizes don't appear to be smaller, but there is a predominance of smaller sizes -- my casual perusal only found one size large.

So I didn't buy anything. That wasn't the point of going, however. Just being there, surrounded by familiar decor, made me feel a little less out of place. It really is a little piece of home away from home.

One last note: there didn't seem to be any taxidermed animals about. It makes me wonder what a Beijing Cabella's would look like. Naked, I daresay.

PS. I saw the following billboard on my way to Beans. It's oddly comforting to know that China's "join up now" ads looks just like ours.