Growing up in San Francisco, and having (collectively) traveled to Thailand, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Sudan, etc. my best friend, Alvilda, and I have both seen a LOT of ethnic stuff. So, normally, seeing a shop displaying more of the same doesn’t excite us in the least. However, we’d been walking all day, and it thus being later in the evening, in the neighborhood below Avenue Louise, all the shops were closed.

Except A La Boule Magique (28 Place de Chatelain, 1050 Ixelles, Brussels), which we noticed because of the vermeil trimmed rock-crystal necklace in the window (which was 650 Euros, so, like, nevermind). The store was open and the shopkeep, a dark-haired young Parisian named Tristan, happily invited us in to the charming little shop. He was probably closing up, but he let us bop around to music while trying on every ring and necklace in the store. The typical ethnic things are here carefully edited with a good eye, and the amalgamation of things somehow forms a more interesting gestalt than expected. There are 3 Euros waxed string bracelets as well as things un peu plus chere, but they all co-exist well and are in a way all equally lovely.

As in all of our other shopping adventures thus far, the best thing was chatting with the knowledgeable storemanager, who knew quite a lot about everything in the store. Alvilda found a little statue of Monkey among the more typical Buddhas, Quan Yins, and Ganeshas. She wouldn’t put him down, so we knew he was a keeper. Tristan immediately started telling me about “Haruman.”

“Monkey,” I said. “Of course I know him, I’m Chinese.” As usual, this statement could not rest as such, so out the explanation trotted, “and Greek.” I told him my name, at which he said I was a “jolie cocktail!”–which is my favorite way by far someone has told me I am a “good mix.”

~Wei Ming Dariotis