Panjiayuan Antiques Market

Panjiayuan Antiques Market Review

Every weekend the sun rises over thousands of pilgrims rummaging in search of antiques and the most curious of curios. With over 3,000 vendors crowding an area of 48,500 square meters, not every jade bracelet, oracle bone, porcelain vase, and ancient screen is authentic, but most people are here for the reproductions anyway. Behold the bounty: watercolors, scrolls, calligraphy, Buddhist statues, opera costumes, old Russian SLR cameras, curio cabinets, Tibetan jewelry, tiny satin lotus-flower shoes, rotary telephones, jade dragons, antique mirrors, infinite displays of "Maomorabilia." If you're buying jade, first observe the Chinese customers, how they hold a flashlight to the milky-green stone to test its authenticity. As with all Chinese markets, bargain with a vengence, as many vendors inflate their prices astronomically for waiguoren ("outside country people"). A strip of enclosed stores form a perimeter around the surprisingly orderly rows of open-air stalls. The friendly owner of the eponymous Li Shu Lan decorates her shop (# 24-D) with antiques from her laojia, or countryside hometown. Stop by the Bei Zhong Bao Pearl Shop (# 7-A) for medium-quality freshwater pearls cultivated by the Hu family. Also here are a sculpture zoo, book bazaar, reproduction-furniture shops, and a two-story market stashing propaganda posters and Communist literature. Show the taxi driver the Chinese characters for Panjiayuan Shichang.