Arts and Crafts atGongmeiMansion (10:00-12:00)
This vast, multi-story emporium is known for its good selection of jade (with certificates of authenticity), jadeite,cloisonnéé vases, carpets, as well as other Chinese arts and crafts. Jewelry (gold, silver, jade, and pearl) is on the ground floor, with glass, paintings, calligraphy and fans on the second floor. You can find woodcarvings, cloisonnéé,lacquer ware,and silk on the third floor and jade carvings on the fourth floor.
It is adjacent to the Snack Street, which is a unique experience with its food stalls and souvenir booths, with the sign outside saying Artistic Mansion. There is floor after floor of higher quality souvenirs and Jade. Because bargaining is not as aggressive as other markets, you are able to negotiate some lower prices here. They are open from 9:30-20:00 during the week.
TheAPMshopping mall, just down the street, has numerous restaurants in which you can have your lunch, and there is an ATM outside. All of this is a ten-minute walk from the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, so it's definitely worth some time exploring while in this part of Beijing.
Also in the store, you can find dough figurines, a simple folk handicraft demonstrating high artistic quality. It has a history of over 1,340 years. The vivid figurine is made by skilled craftsmen from sticky rice dough mixed with pigments, honey, and olefin. After cutting, slashing, pinching and twisting the dough, a lifelike child, beautiful girl or other creations will come out in the twinkling of an eye. You can witness the craftsmen making dough figurines along the exhibition streets in Beijing and you will be astonished by their excellent skills.
It is a kind of small sculpture that uses flour and glutinous rice flour as the main raw material, plus the components such as color, paraffin, honey etc, then undergoes control and mildew-proof processing. It is a type of folk artwork that is easy to make but has very high artistic value. The traditional folk craft boasts a history of two or three hundred years to date.
Generally, dough figures are made on streets and sold on the spot. The craftsman depends on this craft to make a living. There is no specific institution that teaches the skills for making dough figures. The craft is handed down by oral teaching and practice. In general, the craft is passed down from the ancestors of a family. There are a lot of schools of dough figure making. They differ from one another in the formula and techniques of dough kneading. Even within the same school, the formula and techniques of dough kneading can also be different with the change of seasons and works.
The pocket sized and varied dough figures are full of profound Chinese characteristics. They are fully concentrated with the historical and cultural essence of the five-thousand-year history of the Chinese nation.
Address: 200WangfujingAvenue, Chongwen District
Phone: 86-010-6514-0170
Subway Route: Take Subway Line One to Wangfujing Station
Bus Route: Take Bus No. 99 to get off at Wangfujing Stop, and then walk to the Beijing Arts & Crafts Central Store (Gongmei Mansion工美大厦)
BeijingFriendship Store: Shopping for Souvenirs (15:30-18:30)
Founded in 1964, Beijing Friendship Store is located along the famous Jianguomenwai Avenue. Adjacent to the Embassy Zone and CBD, it covers a business area of over 9,000 square meters. It mainly sells various types of Chinese traditional arts and crafts, such as diamond and jade jewelry, gold and silver ornaments, jade and stone carvings, cloisonné enamels, lacquer ware carvings, inside painting, ivory carvings, exquisite porcelains, classical furniture, four treasures of study, antiques, calligraphies and paintings, drawn-works and embroideries, silk carpets, Chinese garment, renowned Chinese teas and wines, tourist souvenirs, traditional Chinese medicine, high-grade cashmere, and silk products.
You can visit their "workshop" where they make Chinese art. There you can find Chinese costume as well. One of the interesting items you can purchase is personalized stamps. Stamps are important objects in Chinese culture, just like signatures in Western culture. If you visit Chinese museums, you can see the stamps of Chinese Emperors made of jade, precious stones, or others.
In the store, you can purchase a personalized stamp for yourself. You can choose the material to make the stamp. They have different kinds of material and they are in different sizes. If you have a Chinese name, you can write it down on a piece of paper and someone will engrave the stone or wood with your Chinese name.
It is worth visiting one of the shops in the Friendship Store as much for its historical significance as for buying anything there. In addition, it remains one of the few places to have a true Western-style deli (Jenny Lou's shops are another).
The Friendship Store accepted FECs and foreign cash only, not Chinese money, so local people hung around the entrance looking in longingly at the goodies inside, reserved for the oppressed foreigners and the poor unfortunate cadres and government officials who were forced to buy stuff here.
The Beijing store has a Starbucks, Baskin-Robbins, Délifrance, Pizza Hut, and a bookstore which stocks a wide range of English-language magazines and newspapers. It has been announced that the site is to be redeveloped, with the Friendship Store being replaced by a more modern shopping center, offices, and a Conrad Hotel.
What to buy: Souvenir, Art and craft, Chinese costume, Personalized stamp
Address: No. 17, Jianguomenwai Avenue
Phone: 86-10-6500-3311
Business Hours: 9:00-20:00
