I thought that I would never report about shopping in Macau especially with my second time in this “specially administrative region of China.” Hong Kong maybe, but not Macau. On one sunny, but chilly day in February exploring the streets of Macau, I found a noteworthy street vendor amongst the uninteresting, cheap, and knock-offish public markets set against the backdrop of  St. Peter’s ruins. In a crowded alleyway of overly pushy street vendors vying for your business, this “shop” with its quietly skilled and creative driving force caught my attention.

With my embarrassing knowledge of phrases in Mandarin, a major dialect Cantonese speakers must learn as Cantonese is secondary to mainland Mandarin, he understood that I was a “Korean person” and that I did not understand most of what he was saying so he made relatable gestures of hand-sewing the beads and crystals into his designs of purses and even shoes, and pointed out that he was famous from a Macau guidebook. The purses displayed in his humbly protected glass-casing were beyond a second take. They were more like Judith Leiber’s renowned crystal-encrusted clutches, but a bit more down-to-earth and more attainable.

This is the vintage-esque purse I purchased from him. I could almost say that it was from my grandmother, or from a prestigious auction!