Chapter 0725 – Buddhist Artifacts (II)

Eight corridor street is all the people who come to Lhasa tourist must be, very prosperous, here the store, naturally, is also an inch of gold.

Zheng Hua brought Zhuang Rui them to this handicraft store, not very large, only ten square feet, the goods placed inside, are also common Tibetan handicrafts, the only characteristic, is the boss is a foreigner.

To be precise, the boss here, is a foreign chick, not very old, white face slightly with a few freckles, wearing a twisted braid, is using English plus gestures, bargaining with the guests coming and going.

“Brother Zheng, there shouldn’t be any old objects here, let’s go to some store run by locals!”

Zhuang Rui took a look at the commodities placed in front of the store, those tied together in a tie, and some Tangka small Tibetan knives and other objects, obviously all modern craftsmanship, and not much to look at.

Those in the store wandering guests, ten inside is eight or nine people, is attracted by the boss’s wife to come in.

“Hello Lei guys, please come in ……”

The foreign girl saw Zhuang Rui and his party stood in the doorway, and hurriedly came out to say hello, although the Chinese language is not very authentic, but the enthusiasm on the face is not pretending.

As the saying goes, the hand does not hit the smiling face, this foreign girl’s so enthusiastic, turn your face away is too inconsistent with the country’s hospitality, Zhuang Rui and others can only walk into the store, thinking of turning around and then go out.

Although the Gegul Lama and Zhang Keji did not follow in, but the place was not big, Zhuang Rui three people went in, or feel a little crowded, there are still people in line at the door waiting to buy a single, an eighteen or nineteen year old Tibetan girl in the collection.

However, the white lion just entered the store, the foreign tourists were scared to death, are to the sides to hide, but to Zhuang Rui and others to make a large piece of space.

“Go inside and take a look ……”

Zhuang Rui saw in the innermost row of shelves, placed a lot of seemingly a little old objects, and hastily greeted Zheng Hua, walked over.

“Hehe, the things here are not bad ah!”

Zhuang Rui picked up an ornament made of Tibetan silver, a hint of astonishment appeared on his face.

“Elder brother Zhuang, what’s wrong? Didn’t you say that this place is all modern crafts?”

Zheng Hua, who was following behind Zhuang Rui, asked, also pretending to take a strand of Tibetan silver necklace from the shelf and looked at it.

Zhuang Rui shook his head and said, “It’s not the same, Brother Zheng, go set this boss up and ask her where these things came from.”

Other objects Zhuang Rui hasn’t looked at, but the thirty to forty pieces of Tibetan silver jewelry placed here are solid old Tibetan silver, aged at least a hundred years or more, considered antiques.

“Okay, I’ll go ask …….”

Zheng Hua walked directly to the door and chatted with the foreign girl in English.

Zhuang Rui turned his head to Peng Fei and said, “Peng Fei, this stuff is good, it’s all from old Tibetan silver, pick some for your daughter-in-law to take with you!”

With Tibetans say, Tibetan silver is actually white copper, the silver content is very small, the proportion of old Tibetan silver containing silver is generally thirty percent silver plus seventy percent copper, and modern imitations, simply even that thirty percent silver are removed, the whole is made of white copper.

The source of Tibetan silver jewelry, is due to the pre-liberation time, Tibet is very poor and backward, the number of silver is very scarce, in order to avoid alkaline corrosion, the silver added to other metals, over time has become a craft.

Sterling silver jewelry to exquisite some, and set the stone is mostly real turquoise, red coral, etc., stone quality is better, its brightness is also stronger than the Tibetan silver to some, Tibetan silver compared to the more ancient and primitive some.

Modern technology made of sterling silver jewelry, than Tibetan silver in the price is more expensive, but there are years of old Tibetan silver jewelry, is precious and rare, the market can rarely see.

Like these jewelry that Zhuang Rui was looking at, all of them had a faint white aura in them, which means that these Tibetan silver jewelry should be made according to the traditional craftsmanship, and have a certain collection value.

“Older brother, I’ve asked clearly.”

Zhuang Rui was picking through these Tibetan silver jewelry when Zheng Hua squeezed back and said, “That foreign chick is British, due to her love for this place in Tibet, after coming here to travel, she is not willing to go back and opened such a store ……”

“Brother Zheng, I’m not asking you to pick up a girl! What’s the point of talking to me about this?”

Zhuang Rui cried and laughed as he interrupted Zheng Hua’s words, which country this foreign chick was from, and Zhuang Rui didn’t have a dime’s worth of relationship.

However, the character of these foreigners, it is difficult for Zhuang Rui to understand, come to an unfamiliar place, feel good on the unwillingness to go, which is difficult to leave the homeland of the Chinese people think, there is a big difference, at least Zhuang Rui can not do this kind of thing.

Zheng Hua was Zhuang Rui said some embarrassment, smiled back: “brother you also too look down on brother’s vision, right? We are looking for, that at least if a British royal family.”

Zheng Hua really did not brag, to Zheng’s family in Hong Kong and the influence of the United Kingdom, find a dip a little bit of royal blood what distant princess, is not an impossible thing.

“Alright, don’t get carried away, tell us where these things came from!”

Zheng Hua, this person does not have the arrogance of those “masters” in the city of forty-nine, and Zhuang Rui socialized a few times, the relationship between the two is not bad, so Zhuang Rui also speak more casually.

“Uh, all the things on this shelf, are that foreign girl from the Tibetan herdsmen and temples inside the collection, she often go back to the pastoral area, and those Tibetans to deal with …….”

Zheng Hua’s words let Zhuang Rui released, no wonder there are so many old objects, Zhuang Rui previously and Rinzheng Tsom chatting, heard him mention, Tibetan girls get married, is to be accompanied by a lot of colorful exaggerated gold, silver, beads and jade ornaments. In this way, passed down from generation to generation, many Tibetans will have some objects such as jewelry made of Tibetan silver in their homes.

“Lei Hao, what to buy? Cheap!”

Zhuang Rui was talking to Zheng Hua, the foreign boss lady walked over at some point, she wasn’t afraid of the white lion by Zhuang Rui’s side, and took the initiative to come forward and greet him.

“Use English!”

Zhuang Rui looked at that boss lady speaking Chinese with difficulty, said in English, “I like all these things, how much do I need in total?”

“All of them?” The foreign chick shouted in surprise.

To know, that shelf on the Tibetan silver jewelry alone has thirty or forty pieces, plus a few thangkas, turquoise, and yak bone made of tobacco jar, seven or eight there are always sixty or seventy pieces of handicrafts.

“Yes, that’s all ……”

Zhuang Rui nodded, now want to buy pure Tibetan-made handicrafts, or more difficult, like the rest of the shelves of the handicrafts placed on, nine times out of ten is from Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, come in, Lhasa City, Beijing East Road, the small commodity wholesale market, a large number of such things.

Did you see so many old handicrafts, have this opportunity, Zhuang Rui of course want to buy all of them, take back to give away is also good, that is to say, their own that quadrangle now live in the people, can digest a large part of it.

“Oh, you are too generous, I have to calculate ……”

This foreign boss lady, in her surprise, ran to the door and took the calculator in her hand, her mouth reciting the words in the calculation, her eyes also surveyed the things on the shelves from time to time.

In fact, these are done to Zhuang Rui and others, the boss lady ran to the Tibetan herdsman’s home last month to receive these things, a total of more than nine thousand yuan, this will be the boss lady in the consideration of the matter is, is it in the nine thousand after adding a zero, or doubled a few times to sell to Zhuang Rui and others?

“Well, the total is eighty thousand dollars, of course, it’s RMB.”

The boss’s wife gave the price after some consideration, these jewelry and handicrafts, she sells them individually for almost five hundred dollars a piece, just that there are not many people who buy them, and it’s been more than a month since they were put away, but they’ve sold a few pieces.

Now Zhuang Rui wants to pack, the boss’s wife simply doubled the retail price and offered this price, who says foreigners can’t do business?

“Oh no, beautiful lady, you don’t look like a Jew ah? This price is too high.”

Zhuang Rui shook his head, these Tibetan silver jewelry are normally three to four hundred dollars a piece, the rest of the artifacts are also between the price of a few hundred dollars, seventy to eighty pieces of things, at most only worth thirty to fifty thousand dollars, this foreign girl is a lion’s mouth.

“Forty thousand, I’ll offer up to forty thousand RMB ……”

Zhuang Rui stretched out four fingers, although he was rich, he was not a kaiju ah! These days, only a fool would use a throw of money to show his wealth.

“Forty thousand? Oh no, that won’t buy these things.”

The English girl, who resembled a little more of a Jew, was obviously very good at Chinese haggling, especially if the other person could understand English.

“Bam!”

While Zhuang Rui was preparing to let this foreign girl learn the level of Chinese men’s bargaining, something suddenly fell off the shelf and made a crunching sound when it hit the ground.

“Uh, you guys carry on, I was casually rummaging around.”

Peng Fei bent down and picked up the thing, which was placed in the middle of a few stale hada, and he had accidentally touched it to the ground in a moment when he was rummaging through the hada.

The proprietress obviously didn’t notice that Zhuang Rui’s sight had been caught by the object in Peng Fei’s hand, and was still chattering away, “This sir, the things I have here are all pure handicrafts, different from the ones sold outside… you have to know that if it was in England, these things would be even more expensive… …”

“Fifty thousand, all of it, any more and I’ll go to the Tibetans’ homes myself to collect ……”

Zhuang Rui withdrew his eyes and stretched out a palm, his gaze was very firm, although he himself knew that even if this foreign chick just wanted a hundred thousand, he would obediently shell out the money.

“Okay, deal!”

The foreign boss lady obviously knows the way of doing business in China and knows the reasoning of stopping at the right moment, after making some eye contact with Zhuang Rui, she agreed very quickly.