Panjiayuan Flea Market!

After our impromptu journey to Tiantan Park, we headed back to the bus station and grabbed a bus back to Panjiayuan Flea Market. The gates were actually open to us this time, so we sauntered in and prepared to deal with the incredible clutter of random nonsense for sale. As almost any Beijing guidebook will tell you, most of the stuff here is fake. Fake antiques, fake jade, fake "original" artwork, etc. But it's a great place to buy random trinkets if you're into that sort of thing. To give you an idea of the magnitude of this place, here are some pictures of one section of the market:

umm... lucky tassel things?

artwork lane

trinkets!

and more trinkets...

...and here are some more trinkets...

...and the people buying the trinkets!

"jade" bracelets in any shade you want

As you can see, Panjiayuan is absolutely full of stuff you will never, ever need in your life, but might want to buy just for fun. There is a necessary level of haggling skill you should have before coming here, though. Bargaining with these vendors is not for the faint of heart. I did make one purchase that I'm absolutely in love with, and that will definitely have a place of honor in whatever room I end up with back at Yale. But I'll get to that in a second.

First, here was a very Chinese sight that I saw when resting with Nicole on one of the picnic tables (remember we still hadn't slept yet!). The Chinese place a lot of stock in boiled water. It's really their version of a microwave. You want a hot drink? Boiled water + tea leaves. Need some hot food? Boiled water + instant noodles. That's what all those canteens are for. My roommate even has one in her room. Boiled water also has a big connection to the Chinese concept of health and medicine, but that's for another post.

And for another very Chinese sight, here is none other than Mao Zedong's Little Red Book. Some versions, obviously, are not that little. Interestingly enough, vendors sell the book in many languages, from Russian to French to Japanese. Of course, there are also English versions, but I have yet to buy one and find out what exactly influenced China's youth to go out and raze half of their own country. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, I strongly suggest doing some reading on the Red Guard (if interested).

Now, for my painting:

It's so pretty!!!