Like I have said before, China does nothing in small quantities, and that goes for fabric markets, too. At the cotton market in the Muxiyuan area (it’s about 40 minutes north of Beijing) that I visited with my friends Mary and Terry, we found everything you could ever need for sewing; all kinds of fabric, silks, buttons, zippers, frogs (Chinese buttons), buckles, snaps, pelts of furs, and other sew notions I could not identify, and all in the same sprawling market. There must have been billions of buttons alone! I am still seeing rows and rows of fabric in my dreams a week later. It really was a visual overload, but they were the most beautiful silk fabrics I have ever seen.
The first store that we entered was wall to wall, floor to ceiling, bolts of silk fabric. The store could not have been more than 10’ x 10’ in size, but every inch of space was filled with this exquisite fabric. We literally just stood there trying to take it all in. No one said a word; we just stared. Now that I think about it, we must have looked silly. I just started snapping pictures because no one was going to believe this. And, there were about 50 more silk stores just like this one right after the other.
One funny side note; since we were a good distance out of town, and with this being a place that doesn’t get many westerners, we were the main attraction for the locals. Pictures were taken of us, and one Chinese man actually wanted a picture of him and me. It was apparently funny to see westerners eat, because when I ordered dumplings from a street vendor, they gathered around to watch. There was a lot of smiling and laughing going on. My friend Mary, who speaks mandarin, said they were just curious to see if I liked their food. I ordered the vegetable and NOT the meat one (you know why), and yes, they were delicious!
All in all we had a nice time and each of us came away with some beautiful silk (ya know, we just could not help it—we HAD to), and now I just need to figure out what to do with my four yards of Chinese silk fabric.
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