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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Culture
Chinese hunt for traditional U.K. treasures
     2012-April-12  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

    RICH Chinese are turning to antiques as an investment as well as a hobby, and their interest is not limited to Chinese antiques.

    When International U.K. auction houses linked up with the Chinese Web site epaiLive.com in November last year, it opened up a platform where the buyer didn’t have to travel halfway across the world to trawl through British antiques. Chinese collectors can browse through hundreds of online catalogues and authorize epaiLive to bid.

    This new procedure has given Chinese collectors direct access to auctions overseas. It has also been responsible for the increase in hammer prices and the revitalization of the British antique market as Chinese bidders buy up old-fashioned English goods found in many homes and turn them into treasures.

    “The Chinese respect the history and lifestyles of the English,” said Susan Sun, a Shanghai businesswoman who owns an interior design company that places a very big markup on British imports.

    The cost of imported products is very high in China. British auction house Sworders sold a cup made from rhinoceros horn for 215,000 pounds (US$341,270) in November, which far exceeded the estimated price of between 50,000 and 70,000 pounds due to the presence of Chinese bidders on epaiLive.com.

    “The exoticism and elegance of British goods is what’s so attractive to Chinese people,” said Sun.

    Sun who spent 17 years working for a U.K. investment bank and eight years in Hong Kong said her business caters for upper middle class and wealthy families who are often on the lookout for furniture. Her company stocks traditional and modern European furniture in a number of cities across China.

    English bookcases that would usually be sold for 980 pounds could fetch 10 times that amount in China. A Gainsborough-style leather armchair that would sell for 450 pounds could sell for 1,750 pounds.

    While there are many customers who prefer to buy British antiques from China, the number that are browsing for antiques in U.K. auction houses is reportedly growing at an unprecedented rate.

    Chinese furniture collector Zhang Weibin recently asked his friend in England to place bids of up to 500,000 yuan (US$79,365) for traditional furniture to fill a shipping container.

    “I especially love British-style furniture. It is in vivid contrast with that found in traditional Chinese and modern homes,” said Zhang.

    Shanghai furniture buyer Chen Mengfei acts as an agent for a collector base in Shanghai. Chen visits U.K. auction houses once a month. “I never come back empty-handed,” she said.

    This is good news for British auction houses such as Sworders, which has seen Chinese trade grow from 2 to 20 percent of turnover in the last three years.

    Woolley & Wallis also reported positive results as Chinese buyers alone contributed 19 million of the 28 million pounds of its 2010 sales revenue.

    The obsession with British antiques is unlikely to fade. Rebecca Li, marketing director of epaiLive.com, said Western furniture is increasingly popular in China. “We can see people hit epaiLive’s overseas catalogue page for all kinds of goods. Watches, jewelry, silver and furniture are getting higher hits than others,” she said.

    But despite the buying frenzy from China, there’s a suggestion that some customers are getting ripped off.

    The most sought after British antique furniture includes pieces from the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian eras.

    “Right now some Chinese buyers often can’t even distinguish between British and French furniture,” said Li.

    Sun also admitted that many Chinese don’t have good taste when it comes to buying British antiques. “They require proper education,” she added.

    (SD-Agencies)

    China puts bird-like dinosaur fossil under protection

    CHINA has listed the remains of a large, bird-like dinosaur for the highest level of protection, said authorities in the northern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where the fossil was found seven years ago.

    The skeletal remains were accidentally discovered in the Erlian basin in Inner Mongolia in April 2005.

    The feathered, but flightless “Gigantoraptor erlianensis” was eight meters long, over five meters tall and weighed about 1.4 tons.

    Researchers said the dinosaur lived some 85 million years ago and died at 11 years old, indicating it would have been much larger had it lived to be an adult.

    “National protection of the fossil is crucial to further research on the origin of life, biological evolution and climate changes,” said a spokesman of the land and resources bureau in Erenhot city.

    Meanwhile, he said the move would help improve public awareness of heritage protection and crack down upon unauthorized excavation and smuggling of fossils that were once rampant in Erenhot, a city on the Chinese-Mongolian border known as “dinosaur town.”

    The dinosaur fossil was among the first items included on Ministry of Land and Resources’ list of fossils for protection, said Jia Yueming, curator of the China geological museum.

    The list will be expanded to include 400 kinds of animal fossils, he said.

    (Xinhua)

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