Where quality is not naturally

Hello out there, this year I celebrated Eastern in Egypt – I was there for two weeks, it was a wonderful vacation. The first week, we went on a Nile cruise and visited some temples and the Valley of the Kings. And of course we saw the Egyptian culture in these days. I took a lot of photos, but for the moment it would take too much time to present you all the good ones. So I’ve picked my own favorites for you. Feel free to use them for whatever you want, but please link my blog in return.

 But the point which is actually interesting in conjunction with this blog is the fact, that already on my first day a domestic worker in the hotel asked me if I would give him my shorts – in return for money or something out of his store.
 

I was really, really surprised. I mean, it’s a good looking Bermuda in my opinion, white, with capillary red and anthracite stitchings. Remarkable, but not obtrusive. But nothing you don’t get in Egypt I thought. And additionally, it was not even a brand. OK, no real brand, it was a short from 98-86, a casual low-price label I first considered as a private brand. But in Egypt, where everybody wears Prada, Gucci and Versace – even if they are only ugly plagiarisms – nobody would notice something like 98-86.

 But the man told me that in Egypt, they were very keen on European clothing, they would appreciate the good quality you wouldn’t get there. Except in Cairo you could get something like that, but from Hurghada, our vacation spot, Cairo is a five-hour-drive away. It was confusing: Just in one of the countries in which the fashion for our market is produced (one of my Calvin Klein jeans are made in Egypt) the people there apparently have no quality wear. Even if they had the money, they couldn’t buy it because everything is exported.

And down there even the poorest people have barely a T-shirt without the all-over print of a high-class designer; for many European people a paradise because in the rich countries, where quality is omnipresent and nothing special, everybody just aims to be somebody special. And following the European mentality, you are somebody special if you have much money and have goods which cost much money.

So in my holidays in Egypt I gained the experience that there are still places where quality is not naturally and where quality clothing is more important than the fact that any logo is printed on my T-shirt. That’s some kind of thinking we have lost in the rich countries. We just want to impress the others. Maybe we should sometimes be Egyptians.