Antique Market

When I was in Beijing I got my hands on a Lonely Planet for China. I'm an idiot for not buying one before I came here For those who don't know, these books are perfect for budget travelers young and old. It tells you what to expect from certain restaurants, hotels, hostels, night life, and markets.

I looked up Tianjin. I was tired of hearing that there really was nothing to see in my city of 9 million. There had to be something. The usual popped up... but then something caught my eye. An antique market only open Sunday morning for a few hours. The story was that of the goods seized in the Cultural Revolution [disturbing history on what happened to teachers during the Cultural Revolution here]. For some reason, instead of destroying the artifacts they're moved from warehouses and sold to vendors who are more than happy to sell them as antiques. There are also quite a few old Cultural Revolution posts there and I wanted to get my hands some old propaganda.

I overslept last week so I was determined to make it this week. I'll be lucky to have two more weekends in Tianjin. Instead of going to bed at a reasonable hours I just stayed awake all night. I have 6:30pm classes every other day now so my circadian cycle is more out of whack than usual.

I waited patiently for the sun to rise. It came and I left. I was there by 6:30am. The cabbie was trying to tell me something, but the only word I could pick up was "hundred" (bai). Time here is 24 hour so 6am becomes 0600 or Zero Six Hundred. He was trying to tell me it wasn't open yet.

I walked around for an hour and a half trying to break my shyness of snapping photos in China [link goes to an Ask Metafilter question I posted]. It's odd how things happen in China... in the course of like 15 minutes everyone came to the streets. Thriving fruit markets sprang out from streets deserted not twenty minutes earlier.

I waited till 7:30, the time I was told it was best to get there. It would be closed by noon, I was told. But there was no one there. A long row of locked stalls with blue and white sheets overhead providing shade. One vendor sat at a street corner selling cheap jewelry and a couple omelet [Chinese style, of course] stands were open... but that was it. The street was dead.

Sleep deprivation was hitting me so I went back home. I was able to snap a few shots before I left.



Vendor selling peaches



An omelette-maker starting the fire in her stand


Tags: Treyopia China Tianjin Photography