Batgung

If you’ve lived in Hong Kong for any length of time, and gotten to know a few local people well enough to visit their homes, you’ve likely seen it: the black leather sofa.

It’s not too big – there’s not enough space in the flat for that – nor does it encourage slouching, lounging, or the general slightly hung-over semiconscious sports viewing I associate immediately with my favorite sofa. Ah, that would be ‘Grandma’, a sofa my college roommates and I procured via dumpster diving, and installed in pride of place in our dorm room. It’s an interesting story, how we named her as we did: not only was she soft and comforting – [Editorial alert! Editorial alert! Tangents of this sort are not only irritating, but embarrassing in the extreme. Cease and desist immediately.]

Anyway! Back when I came to live in Hong Kong, now almost two full decades ago, the Black Leather Sofa was ubiquitous. I’d guess that a majority of the local households I visited had it in more or less the form pictured.

Why, you ask? Then oh, let me sing of the Black Leather Sofa’s virtue!

It’s cool. There’s nothing better (well, except perhaps for an icy mini-keg of Sapporo beer) on a hot Hong Kong summer day than having a seat on the smooth, slightly chilled surface of a leather sofa in an air-conditioned room. And black even looks cool.

It’s durable. Leather wears well, is easy to clean – just a good wipe with a damp cloth does wonders – and it hides dirt if you’re too lazy to accomplish even that.

It matches everything. When you’ve got a tiny flat, as most of us do, and you’ve got to squash in a sofa and a TV and a table and some shelves and maybe one or two other things (like sometimes a fridge!) into your living room, there is no latitude available for ‘conversation groups’ that can have their own ‘themes’. Everything in your living room is right there in your face, so it’d better look good together.

It’s unpretentious. Okay, well, once upon a time a sort of minimalist black leather sofa might have been associated with hip Italian interior design, but even by the time I reached Hong Kong, that day was way back in time’s rear view mirror. Whatever cachet the Black Leather Sofa might have once held had been ruthlessly eliminated by the local furniture shops selling knock-offs slapped together in the mainland that often turned out to be even more coarse and basic than the model you chose in the shop (I speak from experience here).

This is in fine contrast to the kind of furniture that White expats would be expected to buy. They’ve got to worry about the quirkiness and authenticity of their furnishings, and as this (I assume intentionally) hilarious article from Salon magazine shows, these are not easy standards to reach:

From the Brazilian handcrafted cowhide rug for $720 (Serena & Lily) to the 19th century Salerno Streetlight Pendant for $2,695 (Restoration Hardware) to the Bewick Cabinet hand-papered with detailed images of birds for $3,998 (Anthropologie), these things are expensive because they're just so real. They look like heirlooms handed down from generation to generation, from ancestors who milked cows on rambling farms in Tuscany or handcrafted wood furniture in Brazil or wove deliriously lovely fabrics in Indonesia. These things trumpet their own authenticity and hint at a connection to the earth and an appreciation for craftsmanship and artistry and the untold charms of the world's foreign peoples -- you know, the ones who squat in mud puddles, sewing embroidered birds onto 350-thread-count Egyptian cotton crib bumpers so that Serena & Lily can include them in their Crib Set Collection (Heirloom quality, $969 each).

If you felt a little tingle of personal recognition upon reading that last paragraph, I do have help to offer. There are plenty of stores in Hong Kong that can help you sate your authenticity urges – you won’t ever need to resort to a black leather sofa. I suggest you start here -- or, even better, here --  but I’m of course open to suggestions on this topic!