Ok, I'm taking a break from dolls. Recently, I've been helping my mom move and as it so happens, you have to pass by Chinatown to get there from the house I grew up in. And ten years ago, a little before Little Craft Place and well before Daiso's explosion in the area, the only place in a reasonable radious you could go to for cute stationery goods and homewear was a little shop called Fit.
Houston's Chinatown is a pretty sizeable district. There are actually many “ethnic neighborhoods” in the urban sprawl, so the presence of local Asian businesses is not unique (which I think tends to be a surprise to visitors), but the density sure is! Despite being called Chinatown, the street signs are written in Chinese and Vietnamese, and I think it might be home to the oldest Hmart in Texas. I have no way of verifying that but trust me it's very old.
Fit was on the second floor toward the very back of Dun Huang Plaza, so it was really easy to miss if you didn't know to look for it. I learned about it from one of my best friends in high school. Her mom had a bit of a following on Instagram posting her stationery collection, so my friend was always ahead of trends and knew all the cool spots to go and look and experience.
A bit of a tangent, but back then I spent all of my allowance on coolpencilcase.com (RIP)
So once she told me about Fit, of course I begged my mom to take me there too. The only problem is that we lived quite far and due to traffic it was easily a two-hour journey. But my request was granted a handful of times, and my friend accompanied me most of those times. It would usually be an all-day hangout, so my mom didn't mind dropping us off if she had something to do nearby. Naturally it was easiest to go during winter break which is what makes this a holiday memory!
But it's difficult to describe the allure of Fit. I mean, it was basically a knockoff Daiso, which is already hard to justify going this far out of your way for. They basically just resold Daiso products (anyone could buy them wholesale online at the time), and other cheap kawaii goods of dubious origins. The lighting was dingy, the employees would follow you around so you wouldn't shoplift, the selection was actually really small. But because it was literally your only option, you kind of just accepted the way it presented itself.
Unfortunately only the signage is preserved by G**gle Street View. This is from 2015 which is definitely a year I visited. You can spot the sign on the bottom right!
It occupied some of the space that is now the dancing school and/or the music school.
They had a website too! This is how it looked in 2013, and as far as I remember, every year before and after as well.
It had some fun quirks too. When you entered, the employees would greet you with a loud “Irasshaimase!” and then, for some reason, all of the other greasy weebs in the store would echo with their own “irasshaimase!” in unison. And if the store was particularly busy, and shoppers were cycling quickly, you'd get to hear a continuous “irassaimase!” rally, never once wavering in genuine enthusiasm. It might even very annoyingly last the whole 15 minutes you'd typically spend there. I do not think the store was Japanese-owned or managed. This was purely a stylistic choice.
Aside from typical stationery, I would buy origami paper here to make wish stars, which still never fail to impress anyone who wasn't on DeviantArt circa 2008. My favorite product was a collapsible polyester strawberry bin, which came in pink and red. When my cat was a kitten he enjoyed napping in it. I also had a completely legitimate and licensed Rilakkuma mug, which I recently had to toss (which inspired this writing) because the chips I collected on it over the years were starting to become hazardous.
Image enhanced for clarity, the print was basically gone.
I'm not entirely sure when Fit closed (maybe 2019?) but it hasn't been around for some years. I stopped going once I went away to college, and cute/cheap has only become increasingly accessible over the years. So there was no real reason to return. If I remember correctly, they opened a branch in Austin at some point, but I never looked for it while I was there. But I think I miss the experience more than the store itself. It's very easy to find a true Daiso experience these days, but it's just a little too clean. It lacks the noisy unaware weebs making do with what we got. I will never again hear the cacophony of too many irasshaimases.
Chinatown is still very much alive though. There are a few more corporate chains than I remember, but I can't complain because I came to really enjoy some of them in my time in California. And luckily, they have't displaced some other favorites that I was very happy to see are still around! For anyone who might find themselves in the area, I recommend NU Cafe and Kamalan bakery, which are both in the same plaza, and were stops we always tried to make while visiting Fit.
Anyway, I'm hoping to catch up and increase my advent effort before the sprint to the end. My plans are planned but they are just plans.