Beautiful Shoes

Feet. I never gave much thought to mine until they became my primary mode of transportation. When I'd been in Malaysia only a short time, I awoke in the wee hours one morning with a stabbing pain in the ball of my right foot. Because my mind does not do its finest work at 3.00am, I immediately diagnosed myself with gout. And my imagination took that ball and ran with it, knowing perfectly well that my body would never run again. Not with gout, oh no. Look what happened to Henry VIII -- he had gout, and it made him so irascible that he divorced and beheaded two more wives as a result. And what of me? I don't have servants! If I can't walk all over town to buy food, I'll starve. By 3.30am, I concluded that suicide was an appropriate response to this state of affairs, and then I fell back to sleep, my foot still burning. Before visiting a clinic the next day to confirm the end of my life as I knew it, I decided to Google gout, and I learned that, statistically speaking, I'm more likely to be killed in a water buffalo stampede than I am to suffer gout: Being a female vegetarian who drinks moderately pretty well assures that I will not turn into a modern-day Henry VIII.

I looked down at my right foot, wondering what else might give me that shooting pain and immediately saw the answer:  my new shoes. I'd bought a cheap pair of shoes from a local shop a few days before, and they were squeezing my big toes.  On that day, I realised how critically important my feet are to me, and I vowed never again to capitulate to my penny-pinching habits and buy cheap shoes. Mind you, this was not license to run over to KLCC and buy a few pairs of Jimmy Choo stilettos.  No -- I committed myself to buying decent quality shoes that would keep my feet healthy.  Flat and boring, but comfortable.

The two pairs of shoes I brought to PP with me -- a pair of Teva sandals and a pair of Skechers flats -- were already well-loved when we arrived here, and they're beginning to show some wear. I've looked all over the city for decent shoes, and although I haven't been to the City Mall yet, I've come up with nothing. A few people suggested to me that I have some shoes custom-made, and I dismissed that idea, since I associate custom-made shoes with dress shoes. Wrong.

Today I went to Beautiful Shoes on Street 143. The family has been making shoes for generations, and now their relatives' shops span the whole block. They have hundreds of pairs of shoes of every shape, style and colour, and catalogues in case you still need more design ideas. I found a pair of sandals with nice, thick soles that I liked, and another pair with an upper design that caught my eye.  I explained what I wanted to the shoemaker, and he sketched it out on his pad. Then he sat me down to measure my foot. I haven't had my feet measured since my mother took me to get my Buster Brown mary janes for school when I was a tot.  Remember this?

The Beautiful Shoes man didn't have a tool like this, but he went even further, outlining my foot on his notepad and measuring its circumference at various points with his tape measure. I just have the sense that these shoes will fit me like none I've ever had before.

They'll cost $20, and they'll be ready in two weeks.

As I walked home, I reflected on how quick I'd been to dismiss the advice to visit a Cambodian shoe-maker. And why? Yes, the shoes on display in the window were nothing I'd wear. (Orange patent leather just isn't my thing, but hey! Maybe I should give it a try.)  I thought the price would be exorbitant. Now I realise, though, that if you can describe it or show it, they can make it, and for a very reasonable charge.

Years ago, my friend Rose and I took a trip to Hanoi, and we stopped in at the city's premier silk tailor shop. A French couple had arrived with a manila folder full of photos they'd clipped from magazines and catalogues. This was an annual trip for them:  they would pick out photos of all the clothing they wanted throughout the year, and then bring them all to the tailors in Hanoi, select fabrics, double-check their measurements in case they'd changed from the year before, and then return after a week or two of sight-seeing to collect that year's wardrobe. This kind of custom craftsmanship has become an unthinkable luxury in much of the world, and I need to learn to embrace it here. Even more in Indochina than in Malaysia, the tailors and shoemakers are superbly skilled and reasonably priced. And there is nothing in the world like slipping into a garment that fits perfectly. I assume the same is true of custom-made shoes, but I'll let you know in a couple of weeks.