I'd like to purchase some nice Chinese furniture either antique or replicas. Will be visiting Beijing and Xi'an for 2 weeks.<BR><BR>Does anyone have any experiece or tips to share? Any recommendations or tips on places, prices, expectations, etc. will be much appreciated. I'm planning on shipping them back to New York if I see something I really like.<BR><BR>Many thanks in advance!<BR><BR>

There are five possibilities:<BR>1. To buy genuine antiques<BR>2. To buy furniture of modern construction using ancient wood<BR>3. To buy fakes of 1 or 2 above<BR>4. To buy modern furniture which admits to merely being in a an ancient style<BR>5. To have furniture made to your specifications.<BR><BR>To the south of Beijing and around the Zhuhai area (and undoubtedly elsewhere) there are whole areas dedicated to the process of manufacturing fake furniture, so considerable caution is necessary. Casual shopping is mostly likely to result in outcome 3 above.<BR><BR>The following article will give you some background on furniture types, woods, history, and prices, and recommends some places to shop. It isn't the whole story by far, but it's a good start.<BR><BR>http://www.imperialtours.net/furniture.htm<BR><BR>Oh, and if you want the walking tours, as requested under another heading, you have to post your email address!<BR><BR>Peter N-H<BR>http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

Thanks Peter!<BR><BR>Would love to get the walking tours sent to me at [email protected]<BR><BR>Many thank again!<BR><BR>

Hi Peter,

Can you please also send me the walking tours? My email address is: [email protected]

My husband and I are going to Beijing in mid-September, and we're planning to purchase some furniture. Thanks in advance for the info!

-Christie

Just so that this thread doesn't get turned into a Hutong request thread, please post requests for the Hutong tour under the &quot;Hutong Tour&quot; thread, which I've topped for you!