Sungang Stationary Market

You know when you go to the dollar store and everything is labeled "Made in China"? Well, it's made here but you rarely see any of that stuff for sale here. When you're teaching, you rely on dollar store items- specifically from the craft and stationary sections- for activities with students, so we've really missed having access to a good selection of stationary. In Korea, stationary stores were everywhere and they sold the coolest things, but in China they just aren't common. Anyway, when we first moved here we were given a welcome basket with a city guide for Shenzhen, and one of the places highlighted under "shopping" was Sungang Stationary Market. We had no plans for the weekend (and we were spoiled with two full days off after last weekend's manditory Saturday-swallowing PD session at work), so we decided to check the market out.

 

We met our friends at the Sea World Starbucks, but the path we usually take there was flooded, so we walked through a little park next to it to avoid the puddles. We often do this when the path is flooded, but this time we were met with a little surprise- barbed wire was blocking the path! After slipping through the fence, we were on guard for land mines and trip wires for the rest of the walk. What the hell?

The market is about 5-10 minutes from Dongmen Market by taxi, so we went to the toilet restaurant for lunch, of course!

I noticed something new over the urinal at the toilet restaurant: a cartoon of a Chinese and Japanese soldier arguing while another soldier takes a big steamy poo in the foreground.

So, after eating out of toilets, we got separate taxis (no one would take 5 people) and traveled to the market. It. was. awesome!

We arrived to find ourselves in a winter wonderland! Wasn't expecting that! Recently, I mentioned that all of the Christmas ornaments I've seen for sale look really crappy and dated, but this is where to shop for your Christmas needs for sure. There was stall after stall stuffed to the max with beautiful Christmas ornaments, trees, snowflakes, lights, decorations, stockings, everything! The selection was overwhelming, and everything we asked about was so cheap. Kerry got a tree with decorations for $5 that would have easily been $25-$30 at home, and we got stockings for 70 cents a piece!

Entering a Christmas explosion.

There were blinding stalls just selling Christmas lights.

There were a lot of stores flipped to sell only holiday merchandise, but most of the shops were still selling stationary. It's also a wholesale market so things could be bought in small or very large quantities. There were three buildings with multiple floors, and each floor was stuffed full of small shops with very narrow aisles stocked full of every kind of pen, paper, or pencil sharpener you could ever imagine.

There was even poop shaped bottles of white out.

There was more than just stationary, too. There were sports stores, music stores, toys & games shops, and educational supplies stores. Everyone in our group was a teacher and we were so excited by all of this stuff! Alphabet dominos, number jenga... my teacher mind was racing. And it was all cheap, cheap, cheap! 50 cents for a cool pen, 75 cents for stickers, $5 for a board game... the prices were very fair, and you could bargain too.

Just a random shot of one corner of one of the floors. There was a lot to look through!

Of course, the reason a lot of the products were so cheap was because they were fakes. Here's a game of "Squares" aka Blockus. $10 versus $40 that we paid in Canada for the identical game.

After 4 hours, and only covering 1 and 1/2 of the 3 buildings, we hired a van to take us back home. Even that was cheap! The traffic was rotten, and we spent an hour driving, and it still only cost 100rmb split 5 ways. That's about $3.30 each! When we got back, we treated ourselves to Korean food and fruit sojus with Kathy before heading home to veg out and watch three Top Chefs in a row. Now we're all caught up!

So, here was our haul. Actually, looking at it now and thinking back to all the things that tempted me there, I feel like we showed some restraint in our purchases! We got 2 stockings, some writing paper, a set of markers, a pencil sharpener, craft feathers, a Domo pen, a game of alphabet soup (for my class), and two poop-shaped coffee mugs.

They came in boxes labeled "grotesqu cup". That's the cup for me!

Almost forgot to mention our most exciting finds- gigantic fleece blankets for $5!! I mentioned a few days ago that it's starting to get a little cooler here, and blankets are so expensive in China. I couldn't believe when Mel found these ones for $5 and they feel like a cloud. The softest blankets I've ever touched, for sure! So, here I am this morning, watching the rain from our balcony under the warmth of my tacky Angry Birds blanket, drinking from a poop mug. Take me seriously, world.