Digging out ancient treasures

By Xie Fang (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-08 09:22

Antique furniture has a major advantage over other antique items like porcelain and painting: It can be used in everyday life and isn't just for appreciation.

What's more, no matter how trendily your home is decorated, a few pieces of antique furniture will inject it with unexpected radiance.

I have fallen in love with antique furniture but with my limited budget, I never knew where I could buy it for a reasonable price.

Panjiayuan, Beijing's most renowned antique market, is always swarming with tourists and is definitely not the right place to go.

My furniture expert friends have suggested several must-go places to me but none of them is downtown, so now, with city map in hand, I cannot wait to embark on a treasure-seeking trip.

Gaobeidian Antique Furniture Street

Located in Gaobeidian, on the outskirts of Chaoyang district, this street has been home to antique furniture businesses for more than two decades. It is now lined with more than 150 furniture shops and workshops.

Despite having narrow fronts, many shops are attached to warehouses, where antique furniture is available in many forms, from jewelry cases, chairs and couches, to beds, altar tables and niches for Buddhist statues.

The only pity is that some pieces are smothered in dust and are not displayed in an orderly way.

Many of shop owners come from the south, including Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces, so they sell southern-style furniture featuring delicate woodcarving and elegant shapes.

One shop owner, Chen from Jiangxi, has run a business there for years. Like other businessmen in the street, the three-story building is not only his shop but also his home, in which the family lives on the top floor and the rest is used for business.

"We open the shop everyday and stay late if customers come around at night," he explains.

According to Chen, his best sellers are second-class items costing around 1,000 yuan ($140), or small items for 200 yuan ($28). They are mainly made in ordinary wood, for example China fir and camphorwood.

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