Do other countries have the chinese stores (if you have to ask what it is then you don’t) or is it just us in hungary
Traits of your friendly hometown liminal space kínai áruház:
-sometines, but not always, owned by someone from china
-clothes that will either last half an eternity or come with the seams already ripped
-clothes that you don’t know who would put on and are scared to ask so you just slide it back. You can feel that it’s been there for ages.
-knockoff toys that look like they came from an alternate universe
-on the cash register: cosmetics called things like “vaealine,” novelty lighters, slime, stim toys, nail polish that will either chip off in a day or smell like car paint and not budge not even with acetone
-if there is food being sold: chocolate with indredient labels in only arabic. You don’t know how it got there but it fascinates you.
YEAH there’s a store in Eger owned by a chinese dude, it mostly sells imported asian snacks and ingredients (from buldak noodles to star anise) but it’s decidedly not one of these things. It’s missing that certain liminal quality
If you live in hungary you’ve been to both of these places
where would i buy my knockoff but thanks to kínai áruház totally widespread ‘tornacipő’ (marketed as 'workout shoes’ specially for children in school for sports class but are designed totally as converse sneakers. like i am hungarian and thought for a long time that converse is a knockoff brand)(i only buy the black ones from the chinese - it’s like 1/10th price of an original - and all different colours in a real converse shop)
When i first saw converse shoes i was so weirded out like why is it so expensive it looks like the shoes you’d get at the kínai.
Isn’t this a thing in basically the entirety of the Balkans?
