Background Info About the Ghost Market - Panjiayuan

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Beijing Panjiayuan Flea Market is located at the southwest of Panjiayuan bridge, South road of East third ring road, Chaoyang District, Beijing. Covering an area of 48,500㎡, it is divided into six sections: Roadside stands, Ancient Architecture, Classical Furniture, Modern collection, Sculpture and Stone Engraving, and the Catering section. Trading mostly in antiques, handicrafts, ornaments, and other collectibles, Panjiayuan has an annual revenue of several hundred million yuan. Having more than four thousand shop owners, this market has nearly ten thousand shop assistants in which sixty percent are from the other twenty-eight provinces and municipalities except Beijing. People here come from a variety of backgrounds, there are more than ten minorities of Hui, Man, Miao, Dong, Uigur, Mongolian, Korean, and other ethnic groups of China. Founded in 1992, this market has developed along with the success in business in folk antiques and handicrafts. Diffusing Chinese culture, it has become a large, quaintly classical market of antiques and handicrafts.
The Beijing Panjiayuan Flea Market is the most popular antique market in China. All the shops are open 365 days of the year with roadside stands open every weekend. Every Saturday and Sunday the number of customers could reach sixty to seventy thousand. About ten thousand of those customers are international guests from diverse backgrounds. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former First Lady of the United States, Dennis Hastert, the former Speaker of the house of representatives of the U.S., Konstandinos Simitis, the premier of Greece, Adrian Nastase, the premier of Romania, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, the Sri Lanka President, and Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, the Thailand Princess, all have visited and purchased things in the Panjiayuan market.Climbing the Great Wall, tasting the roast duck, visiting the Imperial Palace, and strolling in the Panjiayuan market have become key Beijing tourist sites for international visitiors. This market has the most complete collection of antique goods in China. The market has classical furniture, traditional writing tools such as ink brushes, ink sticks, ink slabs, and paper. There are also new and old books and magazines, calligraphy and paintings, agate and jade, pottery and porcelain, Chinese and foreign coins, eloquent carvings of bamboo, wood, and bone, shadow play with puppets made from donkey hide, facial makeup in traditional Chinese operas, items of Buddhism, costumes and garments of Chinese ethnic groups, and relics of The Great Cultural Revolution, just to name a few. This market is a display, an exchange platform, and a paradise for collectors. It is also the largest collecting and distributing center of folk handicraft in China. One could find a Hengshui snuff bottle, Yang Liuqing Spring Festival picture, Jiangsu embroidery, Dongyang wood carving, Quyang stone engraving and sculpture, Shandong shadow play, Jiangxi porcelain and crystal ornament, Yixing boccaro ware, Shanxi bronze ware, Yunnan costume, article of Tibetan Buddhism, Sinkiang white jade, Taiwan cross toe poetry, and infinitely many other things.These diverse folk handicrafts come from every part of China and are gathered in the Panjiayuan market, where they are traded to other provinces and to the rest of the world.

In 2004, on the First China Antique Ranking List of the Year Award Ceremony, through public opinion, Beijing Panjiayuan Flea Market was rated as one of the top ten antique markets in China. Panjiayuan has become a carrier of the regional civilization, a symbol of the characteristic culture, an appellation of sentiments of native soil, and is an intangible asset to the Chinese cultural identity.