DOUGLAS Young is one of the two people behind GOD, the Asian home interiors shop based in an Ap Lei Chau warehouse. The company has just quietly opened a second branch in Tsuen Wan but Young said it was still 'half-empty', and so we met among the laden shelves of the original. At the main check-out counter, a student and an older woman were waiting to serve customers. When I mentioned an appointment with Young, the student detached himself from a roll of wrapping paper and stepped forward with a smile.
We went and sat at one of the little tables where GOD supplies its customers with free tea and coffee; I felt I needed something to get over a genuine sense of surprise.
The first thing that needed to be cleared up, of course, was the name. GOD sounds like the words 'better living' - pronounced 'jodie' - in Cantonese. This is quite a good reason to name an interiors company after the letters, but an even better one is that it conveys, shall we say, a certain divine authority. Was it done to shock? 'Yes, slightly,' replied Young. 'I had to really convince my partner, Benjamin Lau. I don't think it's blasphemy, I'm not saying anything bad about God. Gweilos say 'God' and we have to correct them - 'gee-oohh-dee'. It was done pre-1997, and we thought the basic wish of everyone was to live better.' The other name to sort out was Young's, which is not a usual Chinese spelling, but he said that, for as far back as he knew, the family had written it that way. His father is an engineer who paints watercolours in his spare time, his mother plays mahjong, and Young, 32, is their only child. When he was little, he told his parents that he was going to be an artist. 'They said I'd starve to death. I think a lot of Hong Kong children go through that. Traditionally, people used to buy Hong Kong things only because they were cheap, not because they were well-designed.
Now, with Korea and Thailand and cheaper manufacturing places, the only way we can compete is through good aesthetics. It's the most, most, most valuable resource we have. And it's lacking because generations of Hong Kong parents have told their kids there's no money in art.' He became an architect: trained in London, bored by Hong Kong. When I asked him to specify the moment it seemed a great idea to start an interiors shop, he replied, 'In the middle of drawing up some fire escapes. In Hong Kong, being an architect made me feel like a lawyer or an accountant - you're chasing people, screaming at people, signing things off. You probably get to choose the colour of mosaic tiles.' He still does some design work but, a little later, he remarked, 'My design clients never pat me on the back and say, 'You've done a good job.' They say, 'Douglas, my roof's leaking.' My customers are buying, I'm collecting their money - that's appreciation.' Which makes him sound mercenary, and he isn't. He struck me as an unusually committed individual, someone with a definite mission (so perhaps GOD isn't such an inappropriate name after all) who's honest to the point of guilelessness.
Several times he described himself as 'hands-on' - he can be found most weekends at the back of the store, stapling things together and working on sewing machines - and he continuously chopped the air neatly with those hands as he spoke. Later on, when I asked him if he worried about the business, he spread his fingers in front of him and replied, 'I've got a rash on my hands. My doctor says it's stress. I can't sleep at night because they're so itchy ...' Maybe he should try yoga. 'Or religion,' he said and laughed.
Technically, he found GOD in October 1996, although he and Benjamin Lau, who is also an architect, had already spent months travelling and looking at other interiors shops for inspiration. He is a particular fan of Sir Terence Conran who managed to change the home (and eating) habits of at least one, if not two, British generations. Habitat, Sir Terence's baby, is an obvious touchstone for GOD's own style and its mission to provide clean, uncluttered, Asian-made design for the mass market.