-^-for posterity-^-

cosmetic shops. i've never been keen on perusing through the lotions and powders and other odd things women put on their face and skin to make themselves 'beautiful', but today was quite a treat.

a friend of mine invited me over to his house. his family is renting out the bottom to a korean cosmetic company. the name of the shop was 'lanaige' which is french for something. the shop was glistening with plastic beauty. there were well spaced out plastic and glass bottles in every shade of every interesting color imaginable. there were large, oddly cut mirrors on the wall that one could stare into. i walked around the shop for twenty minutes not thinking where i was. it was commercialism at its finest. the well packaged, frivolous items were home to me. i was in the montgomery mall walking around with friends. i wanted to buy, buy, buy and never stop.

i didn't actually buy and foundation, lip gloss or anything else.

my friend's family doesn't run the shop. that job is left up to the korean business man. i imagine he's fat. my friend's family runs the only certified translation shop in all of long xuyen. they translate documents to and from chinese, german, english and french. i walked in and the mother asked me if i spoke french. i didn't so we spoke in vietnamese. a man walked in with a long ponytail and started speaking french with the father. he was getting married to a vietnamese girl. he was a belgian film star and fit the role. he had a metallic brief case (i thought he was selling diamonds at first), a shirt that was disturbingly unbuttoned, a thick pony tail that was graying and a large, golden nug of some sort hanging from his neck.

behind this korean cosmetic shop, there was a back room filled with languages and sounds that mixed and meshed together. the cultural mixture was wonderful.