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Dongtai lu Antique Market

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Dongtai Lu Antique Market, located in Dongtai Road in the Luwan District of Dongtai, a suburb of Shanghai , is a renowned outdoor market where one can find many "antiques" (most are said to be fake!), yet one is inclined to forgive the vendors at this very special old flea market for any fakery, because Dongtai Lu is the only remaining flea market in the Shanghai area that is still devoted to selling antiques, however genuine they may or may not be.

Dongtai Lu Antique Market has character; here, amidst the trinkets and possible ersatz antiques, you will run across old-timers loudly playing cards, or slapping Mahjong tiles on tabletops to the accompaniment of shouts (Mahjong is a game of tiles for four players, though apparently based on a card game, where one typically plays so-called suits, as one does with mahjong, which has prompted some to suggest that the game is in fact based on a certain card game called Ma Diao). Many, if not most, of the flea market's stalls are run by women, who seem constantly to yak among themselves and with prospective customers, a further detail that adds flavor to Dongtai Lu Antique Market.

In all there are 125 stalls here selling everything from curios and trinkets to furniture items and various other props that are peddled as genuine, ancient stuff from Shanghai's many old theatres, whether this be true or not (in Greece's small Aegian islands, local guides are said to be extremely "lucky" in being able to point out to visiting scuba divers exactly where the shards from Greece's ancient past lie on the bottom of the sea, and in the US state of Arkansas it is said that in certain areas there is a vibrant cottage industry devoted to the instant manufacture of "ancient" flint arrowheads, which the locals claim are original arrowheads made by native Indians, having lay buried for generations under topsoil... who knows - or even cares?).

Even if most of the "antiques" at Dongtai Lu Antique Market are fakes, some are without doubt genuine, and who would want to miss the chance to pick up something really genuine from China's past, compared to the boatloads of stuff that arrive at the world's shores from China today?! The vendors at Dongtai Lu Antique Market still sell birds, in spite of the bird flu scare of recent times. Also they add charm to the shopping experience. Don't forget to try and haggle over the price, if you see something that catches your fancy. The mid-afternoon heat, when things grow quiet and vendors begin to show signs of fatigue, is said to be the best time to strike a bargain.

Edition HistoryEditLocation:

Edition HistoryEditTicket Price:

There is of course no admission charge to visit the flea market.

Edition HistoryEdit Opening Time:

Like many flea markets in certain exotic corners of the world, the vendors at Dongtai Lu Antique Market close when the fancy strikes them!

Edition HistoryEdit How to get there:

You can take bus nos. 17 and 864. The driver will not find it amusing if you try and haggle over the price!

Edition HistoryEdit Tips:

Since flea marketeers tend to haggle over the price, flea market vendors adjust accordingly. As a famous humorist once said about exaggerating the size of the fish he caught, since everyone was sure to discount his claims by at least 20%, he felt obliged to inflate the size accordingly when recounting his fishing escapades. When economists first discovered the Philips Curve phenomenon, whereby high inflation was inversely linked to unemployment (the higher the inflation the lower the unemployment), politicians sought to exploit this by generating inflation, but they forgot that workers had already figured that one out and had discounted accordingly... the result was that society  got stagflation!)