|
Beijing shopping
|
|---|
| | | | | | | | This Must visit antique market is known under many names: weekend market, Sunday market, antique market, flea market and some call it the 'dirt market'. The Chinese name is Panjiayuan market and it is not only on Sundays, even not only on weekends
Covering an area of 48,500 square meters, Panjiayuan Collection Market is the most popular flea market in Beijing. It has a traditional Chinese style facade with grey walls, red window frames, a pair of red lanterns hanging from the roof.
A black plaque with seven big golden Chinese characters announces your entrance into the Panjiayuan Collection Market.All the shops are open seven days a week, and the roadside stands open up every weekend. On Saturdays and Sundays the market can receive up to seventy thousand customers, of which about a seventh are foreigner.
Dignitaries like Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, the Thailand Princess, have visited this market. Climbing the Great Wall, tasting roast duck, visiting the Imperial Palace, and strolling in the Panjiayuan market have become “must-do” for international visitors.
| | |
Panjiayuan offers the most complete collection of antique goods in China: classic Chinese furniture, the four treasures of study (ink brushes, ink sticks, ink slabs, and paper), old books and magazines, Chinese calligraphy works and paintings, agate and jade objects, pottery and porcelain, Chinese and foreign coins, shadow play puppets made from donkey hide, facial makeup used in traditional Chinese operas, Buddhist religious items, costumes of Chinese ethnic groups, as well as relics of the Great Cultural Revolution (1966~1976), etc.
This market is also a platform of Chinese folk handicrafts: Hengshui snuff bottles, Yangliuqing spring festival pictures, Jiangsu embroidery, Dongyang wood carvings, Quyang stone engravings and sculptures, Shandong shadow play, Jiangxi porcelain and crystal ornaments, Yixing boccaro wares, Shanxi bronze wares, Yunnan costumes, artifacts of Tibetan Buddhism, Xinjiang white jade, and so on.
There is one feature of Panjiayuan: vendors in large hall in the center of the market are keen to trade with foreign visitors, sometimes to the point of getting a bit pushy. If you are a trained antique collector, you might find out some genuine antiques at inexpensive prices amongst genuine fakes. Don't hesitate to haggle with vendors.
Generally speaking, the shop owners or assistants have a better command of English than the flea market vendors. It is open from 8:30 am to 6:00 pm. | |
No comments:
Post a Comment