What to look for
China excels in handmade items, partly because of long traditions of exquisite handmade items, partly because labor is still cheap relative to other countries. Take your time, look closely at quality and ask questions (but don't take all the answers at face value!)

NOTE ON ANTIQUES: China's government passed a law in May 2007 banning the export of antiques from before 1911. It is now illegal to purchase antiques from before 1911 and take them out of China. Even antiques bought in proper auctions cannot be taken out of China.

Porcelain at Shanghai's antique marketPorcelain with a long history of porcelain making, China still makes great porcelain today. Most visitors are familiar with blue and white, but the variety of glazes is much greater, including many lovely monochrome glazes which are worth seeking out. Specialist shops near hotels and the top floors of department stores are a good place to start, though not the cheapest. The "antique" markets are also a good place to find reproductions, though it can be hard to escape from attempts to convince you that the items are genuine antiques (with prices to match). Two of the most famous centers for porcelain are Jingdezhen and Quanzhou.
Furniture in the last 15 years China has become a major source of antique furniture, mostly sourced from China's vast countryside. As the supply of old items dwindles many of the restorers are now turning to making new items. The quality of the new pieces is often excellent and some great bargains can still be had in new and old items. Furniture tends to be concentrated in large warehouses on the outskirts of town, Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu all have plenty of these. Hotels will tell you how to find them. They can also arrange shipment in most cases. Zhongshan has a huge furniture market.
Art and Fine Art the art scene in China is divided into two non-interacting parts. On the one side there are the traditional painting academies, specializing in "classical" painting (bird and flower, landscapes with rocks and water, calligraphy), with conservative attitudes and serving up painting that conforms to the traditional image of Chinese art. On the other hand there is a burgeoning modern art scene, including oil painting, photography and sculpture, bearing little relation to the former type. Both "scenes" are worth checking out and include the full range from the glorious to the dreadful. The center of the modern scene is undoubtedly Beijing, where the Da Shan Zi (sometimes called 798) warehouse district is emerging as the new frontier for galleries, reminiscent of New York's Soho in the mid-80s.
Jade There are two types of Jade in China today: one type is pale and almost colorless and is made from a variety of stones mined in China. The other type is green in color and is imported from Myanmar (Burma) - if genuine!. The first thing to be aware of when buying Jade is that you will get what you pay for (at best). Genuine Burmese jade with a good green color is extraordinarily expensive and the "cheap" green jade you will see in the markets is made either from synthetic stone or from natural stone that has been colored with a green dye. When buying jade look closely at the quality of the carving (How well finished is it? Is it refined, or crude with tool marks visible?). The quality of the stone often goes along with the quality of the carving. Take your time and compare prices before buying. If you are going to spend a fair sum of money, do it in the specialist stores, not in the fleamarkets. Khotan in Xinjiang is a famous area for jade.
Carpets China is home to a remarkable variety of carpet-making traditions. These include Mongolian, Ningxia, Tibetan and modern types. Many tourists come looking for silk carpets: these are actually a fairly recent "tradition", most of the designs being taken from middle-eastern traditions rather than reflecting Chinese designs. Be aware that though the workmanship is quite fine on these carpets they often skimp on materials, particularly dyes. These are prone to fading and color change if the carpet is displayed in a brightly lit place. Some excellent wool carpets are also made in China. Tibetan carpets are amongst the best in terms of quality and construction, but be aware that most carpets described as Tibetan are not made in Tibet, with a few notable exceptions. As with jade, best to buy from stores with a reputation to uphold.
Other arts and Crafts Other things to look for include Cloisonne (colored enamels on a metal base), laquer work, masks, kites, wood carving, scholar's rocks (decorative rocks, some natural, some less so), papercuts, and so on.

Bargaining

This is almost a national hobby, and local people tend to engage in hard bargaining behavior that foreigners may consider rude (e.g. commenting unfavorably on the quality of the merchandise). However negotiations generally remain calm - Monty Python style histrionics usually fail to make progress - but if you speak enough of the language to say things like "Do you think I'm stupid?" or "Do I look like a baby?" it may help. Once you both agree on a price, it is set in stone. This doesn't mean you must buy, just that haggling is over.

As a tourist, every vendor is going to try to make you overpay. To get a good idea of accurate pricing, pick an item that you want, and is common to many stalls. Ask the price, and when they answer, laugh loudly and reply with an absurdly low price (like 1-5% of the calling price) for it. When they say "No. Are you crazy?", look at the item a bit longer, then start to leave. They will call out progressively lower and lower prices for the item, the farther you get from them. Remember the lowest price they call out (they may even accept your "absurdly low" price). Go to the next stall, and repeat, with a price that is about 50-75% of the previous lowest. Eventually, you will find a fair price. You can obtain obscenely low prices this way, but don't abuse your bargaining power! Many people depend on making decent margins off of tourists to survive. It never hurts to pay a little more than the lowest price, and it might make all the difference to a poor merchant whose monthly rent or food costs may be little more than your purchase price.

In the west, sales are often advertised with big percentage numbers on the windows, showing you the actual discount. In China, the tell-tale sign to look for when bargain hunting is 折 (zhé), which tells you what fraction of the original price you pay. For example, a 20% discount would be displayed as 8折.

Bogus goods

China has a reputation for forging almost anything, and it is not entirely undeserved. Almost anything you buy might be bogus.

Luxury goods such as jade, expensive ceramics and other artworks, antiques or carpets are particularly risky. Unless you are an expert on whatever you want to buy, you are quite likely to get sold low quality merchandise at high prices. For such goods, is usually best to deal with a large and reputable vendor; you may not get quite the bargains an expert could find elsewhere, but you probably won't get cheated either.

Most of the "antique" furniture available are replicas. Much of the "jade" is either glass or low quality stone that has been dyed a nice green; some is even plastic. Various "stone carvings" are actually molded glass. The "samurai swords" are mostly either inferior weapons mass produced for the Japanese military and Manchurian soldiers in World War II or Chinese copies. At the right price, such goods can be a very good buy. However, none of them are worth anywhere near the price of real top-quality goods.

Most CDs (music or software) and DVDs in China are unauthorized copies. The ones that sell around a dollar US and come in cheap paper envelopes are absolutely certain to be bogus. Some of the ones at higher prices with better packaging might be legal copies, but it is hard to tell. A good quick check is to simply look at the credits on the back of the DVD case. If they don't match the movie, it is obviously fake. Fake credits even appear on very respectable looking packages in larger stores. In stores, it is usually acceptable to ask the owner to test the DVD to make sure it works and has the correct language soundtrack. Probably the best way to avoid bogus discs is to buy at one of the larger bookstores or department stores; most of these have a CD/DVD section. Prices are around US$2-5.

There are a lot of apparently silver coins in China. In the 19th century, the emperor decreed that foreigners had to pay for all silk and tea in silver, so there are hundreds of Mexican, US (the US even minted a special silver "trade dollar" just for this purpose), French Indochina, Chinese and other silver dollars about, mostly dated 1850-1920. Unfortunately, most coins on sale now are counterfeit. In tourist areas, nearly all are bogus.

Items with big worldwide brand labels sold in China may be bogus, especially expensive sporting goods like brand name running shoes or golf clubs. By no means all are bogus; major companies do market in China, but some will be unauthorized or downright bogus. There are a number of sources of these.

• The most common variant comes from a Chinese firm that gets a contract to deliver, say 100,000 shirts to BigBrand. They have to actually make a few more than that because some will fail quality control. Maybe 105,000? What the heck, make 125,000. Any extras will be easy to sell; after all they have the BigBrand label. So 25,000 shirts — a few "factory seconds" and many perfectly good shirts — arrive on the Chinese market, without BigBrand's authorization. A traveler might be happy to buy these — just check carefully to avoid the seconds and you get exactly the shirt BigBrand sells for a much better price.

• However, it doesn't end there. If the factory owner is greedy, he goes on to crank out a bunch more. Only now he doesn't have to worry about BigBrand's strict quality control. He can cut a few corners, slap the BigBrand label on them, and make a great profit. These may or may not be a good buy, but in any case they are not what you would expect from BigBrand.

• Finally, of course, some other factory may be cranking out utterly bogus "BigBrand" shirts. On these outright forgeries, they often misspell the brand name, which is a dead giveaway.

• If possible, try on the item you are buying. The sizes are very erratic and not consistent. Something that may be a size XL in the USA can be anywhere from an L to a XXXL in China.

One traveler found a reversible jacket with "Adidas" on one side and "Nike" on the other. This might be an interesting curiosity, but it definitely is not a genuine example of either brand (This editor found a pair of socks in Guangzhou with the same problem).

There are two basic rules for dealing with expensive brand name goods in China.

• First, you cannot just trust the brand; inspect the goods carefully for flaws. Check the spelling on labels.
• Second, if the deal seems too good to be true, be very suspicious. China makes a lot of good cheap products, but a hundred dollar "Rolex" is utterly certain to be bogus.

Bogus goods can cause legal problems. Selling "pirate" DVDs or forged brand name goods is illegal in China, but enforcement is lax. It is generally much less lax at customs for travelers' home countries. Customs officials will seize "pirate" DVDs or bogus brand name goods if they find them. Some Western travelers have even reported having to pay hefty fines after being caught returning home with bogus products.

Western goods
Areas with large expat communities like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen have local stores catering to those communities. See the individual articles for details.

There are also several foreign-owned supermarket chains that are widespread in China — American Walmart, German Metro, French Carrefour and Japanese Jusco. All have some Western groceries. Metro is probably the best of these; in particular it usually has a fine selection of alcohol. The Taiwanese chain RT-Mart (大潤發) may also carry imported goods.