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Folk culture flea market offers cool, affordable grassroots art
By Xu Wenwen |
January 19, 2010, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
HANGZHOU'S weekly Folk Culture Flea Market on Qingchun Square has just opened, featuring 140 booths selling all kinds of goods, including many traditional items for the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year.
The Saturday market, Hangzhou's first, opened two weeks ago and it's already been popular because of its diverse offerings and reasonable prices.
It features many antiques, paintings, calligraphy, old stamps, seals, books and many collectibles and creative products.
So far all booths are rent-free, but the city plans to charge vendors after the market is well established.
Vendors include professional artwork and other collectors, folk culture fanciers, antique dealers and art and design students.
The Lunar New Year falls on February 14 and as it approaches, traditional items for the occasion are popular.
Shan Zengde, 73, carves peach stones - peaches are symbols of longevity - into pendants and rings. He strings carved peach beads together in bracelets, for talismans. In one day he sold 400 pits.
Some pits are carved into boat shapes to symbolize plain sailing, into hearts to pray for love, or wooden door knockers to pray for peace.
Since the coming lunar year is the Year of the Tiger, there are lots of tiger decorations on sale, notably the traditional baby shoes embroidered with a tiger's head to ward off evil. Young parents pack the stall run by young men wearing traditional Shaanxi Province wool waistcoats.
The vendors are a creative team of fresh graduates who manufacture and sell Chinese ethnic textile goods, such as handbags and pillow cases embroidered with cartoon Beijing Opera figures.
Their business is wholesale, but they are retailing in the new market to promote awareness of their studio and brand.
Quite a few artists do ink sketches and calligraphy.
A calligrapher, Shan Chongan, writes chunlian (Spring Festival couplets hung on each side of a doorway). They're free. He charges only 2 yuan (30 US cents).
Zhu Jiajun from the Zhejiang Veteran Calligraphers' Association draws portraits for passersby in Chinese ink; each portrait costs 50 yuan.
"The market is a platform to promote our grassroots artists and a platform to get ordinary people close to art that is affordable," says Zhu.
Many young customers are interested in creative products such as earrings, T-shirts and educational toys.
Three juniors from Zhejiang University of Technology design red stoneware items. They have exported a million to Japan.
They invented a 10-centimeter-high "Pee Doll" that "urinates." To make it pee they pour hot water on the doll, then submerge it in cold water. Because the red stoneware expands and contracts, water spurts out.
Handmade folk art on sale includes large and small kites, knit scarves, shawls, hats, earrings and bracelets.
The market opens every Saturday from 10am-4pm. Each week, three experts in three kinds of antiques will give free appraisals.
Experts are listed at www.qctzsc.com.
The Saturday market, Hangzhou's first, opened two weeks ago and it's already been popular because of its diverse offerings and reasonable prices.
It features many antiques, paintings, calligraphy, old stamps, seals, books and many collectibles and creative products.
So far all booths are rent-free, but the city plans to charge vendors after the market is well established.
Vendors include professional artwork and other collectors, folk culture fanciers, antique dealers and art and design students.
The Lunar New Year falls on February 14 and as it approaches, traditional items for the occasion are popular.
Shan Zengde, 73, carves peach stones - peaches are symbols of longevity - into pendants and rings. He strings carved peach beads together in bracelets, for talismans. In one day he sold 400 pits.
Some pits are carved into boat shapes to symbolize plain sailing, into hearts to pray for love, or wooden door knockers to pray for peace.
Since the coming lunar year is the Year of the Tiger, there are lots of tiger decorations on sale, notably the traditional baby shoes embroidered with a tiger's head to ward off evil. Young parents pack the stall run by young men wearing traditional Shaanxi Province wool waistcoats.
The vendors are a creative team of fresh graduates who manufacture and sell Chinese ethnic textile goods, such as handbags and pillow cases embroidered with cartoon Beijing Opera figures.
Their business is wholesale, but they are retailing in the new market to promote awareness of their studio and brand.
Quite a few artists do ink sketches and calligraphy.
A calligrapher, Shan Chongan, writes chunlian (Spring Festival couplets hung on each side of a doorway). They're free. He charges only 2 yuan (30 US cents).
Zhu Jiajun from the Zhejiang Veteran Calligraphers' Association draws portraits for passersby in Chinese ink; each portrait costs 50 yuan.
"The market is a platform to promote our grassroots artists and a platform to get ordinary people close to art that is affordable," says Zhu.
Many young customers are interested in creative products such as earrings, T-shirts and educational toys.
Three juniors from Zhejiang University of Technology design red stoneware items. They have exported a million to Japan.
They invented a 10-centimeter-high "Pee Doll" that "urinates." To make it pee they pour hot water on the doll, then submerge it in cold water. Because the red stoneware expands and contracts, water spurts out.
Handmade folk art on sale includes large and small kites, knit scarves, shawls, hats, earrings and bracelets.
The market opens every Saturday from 10am-4pm. Each week, three experts in three kinds of antiques will give free appraisals.
Experts are listed at www.qctzsc.com.
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