Panjiayuan Flea Market, or Panjiayuan Market, or Panjiayuan Antique Market, or whatever names you use, is a must for those who like something really Chinese. Panjiayuan for me, it is also a place for nostalgia, finding some things reminding me of the time during 1960s.

People often say the difference between the old and the young is that the old have the past before and the young have the future ahead. Maybe I'm really geting older now. Panjiayuan is one of my favorite places to digg into the past. Every year I will go there to fill my working heart with some sentiment. People need to feel, not just work and work!

Panjiayuan Market is located No.18, Huaweili Road, just 100 meters east of Panjiayuan Bridge on the east third ring road. It is its main gate - the north gate. If you take the bus or taxi here, you'd better enter the north gate. If you drive to Panjiayuan Market, you should go through the west gate. The west gate has a huge park lot while there is no parking place at the north gate. To get to the west gate, you just drive past the north gate westward and turn left at the first traffic light, for about 100 meters on your left side, you will find the west gate.

From Monday to Thursday, it is open from 8:30am to 6:00pm. On weekend, it is open from 4:30am to 6:00pm. I suggest you go to Panjiayuan on weekends. Only on weekends, you will find some vendor coming from all parts of China to show their personal stuff or artifacts they collect and sell on the ground in a designatedted area in the market. They just put a piece of blanket on the floor and put what they have on it. If you come here on other week days, you won't see these free vendors. It is actually a huge market place for selling and collecting Chinese folk handcrafts, maybe the largest in Asia! What you will see are jewelry, ceramics,calligraphy, teapots, ethnic clothing, Buddha statues, paper lanterns, Cultural Revolution memorabilia, PLA belts, Ming- and Qing-style furniture, old pipes, opium scales, and painted human skulls and many many more!