The Dirt Market is a fascinating place and quickly becoming one of my favourite places in Beijing. It is a cultural market where you can buy homewares, antiques, lamps, jewellery and lots of cultural revolution items. It really isn't a place many foreigners know about.
I went there a few weeks ago with some friends as an inservice into the art scene in Beijing. We were having a lovely day when I found this beautiful little art deco vase. Just as I was asking the stall holder how much I hear a smash and look down. To my horror, I had knocked a very ugly vase onto the floor and it was in about 50 pieces. The stall holder starts yelling at me in Chinese and all I want to do is run. Obviously I had to pay for it, but here is the tricky part. When you market shop in China everything starts at a ridiculous price and you need to bargain them down. Well my dear friend the stall holder thinks he has won the lottery as he can name any price and I have to pay. Well to cut a long story short, with the help of a friend who speaks fairly good Chinese and a visit to the mediation room I ended up paying about $22 for a piece of junk worth maybe $5.
I did get a good story out of it and I made sure I kept the bits.
