I’d never visited an IKEA before I came to China. There was one an hour’s drive from my house in the States but I never had occasion or inclination to go. My sister needed a new bed once and dragged my mom there. My mother made the place sound like a gruesome factory, a sinister collection of oversize conveyor belts and miles of shelving. To hear her tell, IKEA was like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis + Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the cruel twisted parts), with a little bit of Dachau thrown in for good measure.

A few days after I moved to Bejing to study Chinese I planned to meet up with some friends I’d met on my first trip to China in 2005. They decided the IKEA would be a reasonable meeting space.

From Metropolis

IKEA (宜家家居｜Yí jiā jiā jū) was not in my dictionary and I was still some weeks away from figuring out how to have internet installed in my dorm room. Using my little Pocket Oxford dictionary I found the words for supermarket and practiced saying ‘blue’ - I’d caught a glimpse of the store on my way in from the airport.

At the school’s gate I was immediately rebuffed by several legitimate taxis and ended up in sweaty negotiations with several greatly amused hei cab drivers. Armed for this eventuality, I pulled out my carefully selected blue and yellow pencils (complementary colors). Only after I drew a picture of the store and with the help of the dictionary spelled out ‘big blue supermarket’ were they able to figure out where I wanted to go. It took much longer for the spectacle of the big crazy haired foreigner with his colored pencil set and complete lack of a clue to stop being funny. Looking back on it I can’t really blame them. They were no doubt also amused that I agreed to pay 60 kuai for a cab ride that should have been 35 or 40.

The cab drive started with several quixotic attempts on my part to communicate with the red-faced driver and ended with a dizzying series of loops that finally terminated in the IKEA lot. I stepped out of the cab and into the giant revolving door. I already felt like a munchkin lost in giant-land as I gazed at the colossal atrium, lost for the first time in a revolving door. Somehow I got confused by the all the curving glass and flat panes and, like a fatally deceived bird, strode directly into the glass still separating me from the stunned Chinese couple on the other side. I bounced off the glass but still managed to make it into the yawning jaws of the lobby. My pride took quite a bit longer to bounce back. It may still not have rebounded to pre-IKEA levels.

 

 

Inside I finally navigated to the fourth floor cafeteria and at last met up with my friends, the only people I knew in China. Unfortunately, we had some difficult finding our way out and did several squiggly laps around the small furnishing sections before we escaped. My friends, a curator and two media artists, were gleeful about the conceptual art possibilities offered by various lamps and kitchen utensils. I was mostly in shock.

Since then I’ve returned to IKEA and spent far more money than I would’ve liked. I’ve bought sofa-beds, quite a few throw multi-colored throw rugs – at first because they were a good price and then, when they kept the price the same but made the rugs smaller, because they matched the previous ones – and had furniture delivered more than once.

It’s a tremendously useful place for foreigners in China (there are big blue stores in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Nanjing, and one planned for Dalian). Everything from potted plants to frame puppy prints to non-stick pans are all in one brightly lit, clearly labeled in English, impossible to escape form labyrinth. You can pay with foreign credit cards and they’ll deliver the big items to you the next and even assemble them.

Image by Adam Roe

As much as I hate the place, when I move and need new things it’s where I end up. I try to hydrate thoroughly beforehand (they do have vending machines with water and juice sprinkled through the store like oases) and eat a good meal. Maybe even bring snacks in case I can’t find my way out. But even with all the preparation, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. and a detailed to-do list, I still end up: with twice as much as I want; forgetting one of the things I actually needed; and freaking out. Dragging my giant blue IKEA sack out of the store, feeling the unbearable lightness of my wallet, I try to lift flagging spirits – at least this time I didn’t run into the door.

 

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