An antique or not an antique? That is the question!

For the past few months we have been on the look out for a large Chinese vase to use as an umbrella holder.  We have seen some that were pretty good but have never found exactly what we were looking for.  Therefore, at the weekend we decided to pay a visit to the Dong Tai Lu Antiques Market.  We had driven past a few times and were keen to go as it is a good example of an Asian street market in one of the few traditional lanes left in Shanghai.

As we arrived we were on our guard as we had been warned that this was the place for getting lots of hassle off the vendors.  However, we were pleasantly surprised.  They did call out but there was nothing like the scale of hassle that you get somewhere like Mumbai.  It was fairly busy but the initial crush thinned out.

 

It became clear quite quickly that the the term 'antique' was to be taken with a pinch of salt!  There are over 100 'antique' stalls spread over two roads which make up the market.  As we walked along it became clear that a lot of the goods were mass produced Chairman Mao memorbillia!  This was the place to come if you needed a statue of Mao and they were available in a variety of sizes! 

There were also copious copies of the 'Little Red Book' which is full of quotations from Mao explaining the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party to the people of China.  We gave that a miss!  You could also get crickets in cages just in case you wanted to join a local cricket fight but we decided against that too!

William and Oliver were fascinated by every stall and the bric a brac it contained.

Oliver quite liked a pair of old binoculars he found and William seems to have developed an intrest in 'art'!

Although both boys seemed keen on photographic art at one stall and I breathed a sigh of relief when they reached for the picture of the pandas...

Eventually we came to a stall which also was part of a shop and that we had been recommended.  We found a lovely vase and proceeded to haggle.  Our opening gambit is always that we live here and if we get a good price we'll come back and will bring our family. The owner's opening gambit was that we were looking at a unique piece of Ming Dynasty pottery!  We negotiated for a bit and finally settled on a good price after agreeing that we would bring our visitors and that they would pay tourist prices!!  

If it does, by some fluke, turn out to be an antique we'll be selling it and snapping up a mass produced replacement!

Oliver and William were on good form but bric a brac and antique shopping can tire everyone in the end.  Although we weren't sure if they wanted a rest or fancied themselves as sellers as this was about as active as most stall holders got in the heat!