Panjiayuan offers treasure trove for antique lovers

"Veteran patrons now make their purchases in cheap hotels around the neighbourhood rather than in the open-air market," Song said. "Sellers arrive in Beijing on Wednesday or Thursday, stay in these hotels costing 20 to 30 yuan (US$2.40-3.60) a night and call their old, regular clients to come."

"Walk into one of the rooms and you will find antiques piled on the bed and on the ground. You have a big chance of getting an authentic antique at a great price if that vendor is a farmer selling items collected from villages around his home.

"But to be included on the farmer's calling list, you have to be introduced to the farmer by one of his trusted clients," he said.

With more than 10,000 people selling frequently and a much larger number of those buying on a regular basis, a small "inner society" with a hierarchy has come into being at Panjiayuan.

At the top of the hierarchy are mainly those who have been involved in the curio market since its humble beginnings in a hutong on the southeastern bank of Houhai Lake beside the Forbidden City, Song said.

Beijingers in need of money in the 1980s were the first to take artworks from their family collections there to sell at the weekend.

Such trading among individuals was forbidden at the time, and both buyers and sellers had to run fast every time the police arrived.

The black market for these artworks developed fast. By 1990, the 200-metre hutong had become so crowded on weekends that people began to move their businesses into a small patch of woods beside the Panjiayuan Bridge.

Hiding in the woods, hawkers spread antiques often in the shadows of boulders. Many of them were farmers from suburban Beijing or nearby provinces who sold items collected in their villages.

"Local authorities wanted to put an end to this business in the woods but failed," Song said. "They then had the idea of building a market and letting the hawkers pay rent."

The Panjiayuan Curio Market was established in 1995 as the first legal antiques market in Beijing. A stall in its semi-covered area costs the vendor 100 yuan (US$12) a day; a space in the open air costs 50 yuan (US$6) a day.

Many areas of art trading including both transactions and auctions were legalized in 1994. Since then art markets have been appearing with lightning speed. Today, more than 30 of them sell goods in and around Beijing.

But Panjiayuan is indisputably the most prosperous. It has more than 3,000 stalls and open-air spaces leased every day at the weekend.

Second is the Baoguosi Curio Market, located in the backyard of the Baoguosi Temple, which was first built in the Liao Dynasty (916-1125) in the southern part of downtown Beijing.

Actually a stall at Panjiayuan can be so hot that a number of early arrivals make big profits by renting stalls from market administrators for a long-term period and leasing them out to hawkers on a daily basis at a price much higher than 100 yuan a day, Song said.

And since the market opened, stalls in its semi-covered area, which has a big wooden roof supported by pillars but no walls, have been divided into four zones according to their items they have for sale.

The zones are not marked but easily distinguishable.

The southeastern portion is called Zone One by Panjiayuan's veteran patrons. There are rows of Chinese paintings, calligraphic works on sale as well as beads and small jade articles.

A visitor needs to realize that the paintings and calligraphic works are generally handmade but mass-produced and should not be more expensive than 500 yuan (US$60), according to Wang, an expert on Chinese paintings at the Rongbao Auction Co Ltd who frequents Panjiayuan.

But the cheap beads, especially those made of colourful glass, can be a gold mine for Song, who travels into the mountains of China's underdeveloped western provinces for research on primitive tribes which he has been doing for more than three decades.

"I get dozens of glass bead necklaces here every time I go to Guizhou or Yunnan because people who live so far from civilization get so excited when I send them a shining necklace that they often invite me to dinner in their homes," he said.

Besides the beads, antiques of all kinds - old books and files, bronze vessels, ceramic vases and small wooden furniture - are on sale in Zone Two, the north-eastern portion.

Since farmers, who are often more honest than full-time antiques dealers, like to gather in the area, it is the part of Panjiayuan where buyers have the best chance of getting a genuine antique at a bargain price, Song said.

One can also find in this part documents and souvenirs of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) at a reasonable price.

Cheaper versions of the same kind can be found among the piles of second-hand books in the open air.

The southwestern part of the semi-covered area, known as Zone Three, has antiques of Chinese ethnic minorities on sale, many of which are from the Tibet Autonomous Region.

"One can see a more complete an array of Tibetan cultural relics in Panjiayuan than in a Tibetan village," remarked Chen Yu, a researcher of Tibetan studies at the National Museum of China.

A bang on the man-sized Tibetan drum, with ox skins as its membranes, could easily give a start to everyone in the market. A small, strange-looking silver article reputed to be a musical instrument used in a Buddhist mass was a point of some controversy when rumours began circulating about the skin used for its membranes. Could it have been human?

Chinese ceramics fill the ground in Zone Four, the northwestern section, but most of them are newly made, and a larger part of the so-called antique ones are actually fakes, Song said.

"Those who make fakes are constantly improving their skills, and a buyer has to be especially cautious," he said.

These people soak newly made bronzes into acid to make them rusty, and bury poor-quality jade in the ground with dead poultry to give them that antique look, he added.

Those who have no expertise to tell the genuine articles from the fakes here will find no place to complain and also little sympathy.

"Caveat emptor," or "let the buyer beware" the rule of the ancient Roman markets also applies to Panjiayuan.

Some tips for determining the authenticity of Chinese antiques can be invaluable:

An established antique furniture dealer in Beijing says the easiest way to tell the authenticity of an antique furniture is to lift it; an authentic old piece, generally made of hard wood, should be much heavier than a contemporary one.

If you knock on the panels, the sounds are different. The wood of the fake furniture is generally thinner and emits a clearer and harsh sound.

Table surfaces and wardrobe doors, if truly antique, have a finer texture than most replicas, which do not contain such artistic spirit.

To those who are not that confident of their own expertise, Song and Chen offer this advice:

Always bargain hard and remember that the final price should be no more than one-third of the vendor's original asking price.

Source: China Daily