Check your porcelain purchases in Jingdezhen

By TONE HANSEN ( travelchinaguide.com )

Updated: 2011-12-26

I went to Jingdezhen two years ago with a friend. We came there to have a look around at the age old porcelain industry, and to purchase some porcelain to take home with us.

We went to the rows of shops and found porcelain at very reasonable prices, and I agreed to buy a tea set and set of bowls in a shop. The shop owner wanted to sell me pre-packaged sets in plane cardboard boxes, but I had fallen for the bright red diaplay cases. When I insisted on buying the ones I had been looking at I had to pay an extra 10 yuan to get the boxes. My friend on the other hand found that the pre-packaged dinner service was most convenient, as we had to bring it back on the train.

However, when we arrived home in Nanchang where we were living at the time, she opened the box and found that only a few of the pieces: the pieces that they had unpacked and shown her, were the high quality porcelain, the rest were a rather shoddy quality stoneware. -A pure scam in other words.

So I had been lucky when insisting on the display box: so my tip is: do the same, or make them unpack and show you the quality of each piece if you buy a pre-packed set.

Walking the streets of Jingdezhen you will also be offered China from street vendors: avoid these: they offer shoddy quality items at prices 10-20 times higher than the items are worth.