After a more than two-hour lunch, the two recognized each other as friends and exchanged phone numbers.
"Where are you going next?" Liu Dong asked after settling the bill.
"I have nothing to do today. I can go anywhere. What about you?"
"Me? I plan to visit the antique streets in Seoul!" No matter where he goes, as long as Liu Dong has free time, the local antique streets will always be his first choice for sightseeing.
"Antique Street? Ah, I remembered, it's in Insadong! The Antique Street you mentioned should be in Insadong. When I passed by there before, I saw many shops with porcelain on display!"
"That should be right! By the way, how to get to Insadong?" Liu Dong asked.
"I'll take you there, I have nothing to do in the afternoon anyway!"
"convenient?"
"certainly!"
Girls have said so. As a man, Liu Dong would naturally not refuse, and he had such a stunning beauty by his side to go shopping with him. Although he had no idea, it was pleasing to the eye when he saw her.
…
During the Joseon Dynasty, Insadong was a place where the private residences of government officials and yangbans were concentrated. In the later period of the Japanese occupation of Korea, the yangbans who declined in Insadong sold their belongings to make money, so some antique shops emerged here.
Later, Insadong Antique Street also had galleries and related shops for displaying antiques, and Insadong gradually became a cultural street for buying and selling cultural goods in Seoul, South Korea.
Although the antique street in Insadong is not long, it is home to 41% of Korean antique shops. Moreover, compared with other ancient art streets, it mainly sells high-value items.
The ancient art items traded in Insadong include ancient paintings, ceramics, woodware, metal products, ancient furniture and ancient daily necessities, especially ceramics, ranging from earthenware from the Unified Silla era to white porcelain from the Joseon era.
On Central Street where Son Ye-jin led Liu Dong, Liu Dong could see a dazzling array of products in these well-preserved shops with a strong ancient style and unique characteristics.
Most of them are various Korean modern arts, Korean clothing, ceramics ■style_txt;, various handicrafts and other tourist souvenirs, etc., among which the most are related to modern arts.
However, Liu Dong has no interest in these modern works of art. It's not that he looks down on Korean culture, but that there are too few fine works among them.
If you want to pick up Korean cultural relics in Korea, it will definitely be difficult.
But it is relatively easy to find out among the Chinese cultural relics here.
Especially when Liu Dong discovered that there were cultural relics from China in many shops here, especially after seeing the many fine Chinese porcelain displayed in the stalls and windows, Liu Dong suddenly became more interested in shopping.
But what he didn't expect was that he had just entered the first store and already gained something.
Taking out the Korean won he had specially exchanged, Liu Dong spent about 20,000 Korean won and picked out one of the many jade items placed on the stall outside the door.
Because the items are not very eye-catching and the size is not large, the price is not expensive.
But Liu Dong understood that this inconspicuous jade Buddha was indeed a piece of high-quality Hetian jade!
Although the carving period is only a little over a hundred years ago, jade is different from porcelain, calligraphy and painting. The longer it is, the more valuable it will be.
Compared with the time of inheritance, the value of jade is more reflected in the quality of jade.
Good quality jade, even if it is new jade, is more valuable than old jade. Second is the knife skills. The better the carving, the higher the value added to the jade.
The last thing is the quality and inheritance time.
He took the Jade Buddha in his hand, wiped it, and repaired it secretly with the relic Yuanguang. Liu Dong bought a red string on the roadside, tied the Jade Buddha around, and made it into a pendant.
"Give it to you!"
"Give me?"
Looking at Son Ye-jin who looked stunned, Liu Dong smiled and said: "What? You think this thing of mine is not valuable?"
"Of course not. But do girls wear pendants like this?"
"Men wear Guanyin and women wear Buddha to keep them safe! Bring them on. All Chinese girls wear these!"
"Really?"
Son Ye-jin curiously reached out and took the Buddha statue as big as the size of a fingertip from Liu Dong's hand. After looking at it for a few times, she said in surprise: "It looks so beautiful!"
"Can it not be beautiful? This is the finest Hetian jade. Such a small piece costs hundreds of thousands of Chinese coins!" Liu Dongxin said.
However, now, antiques worth tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands have become too common in Liu Dong's eyes. Even if he picked them up, he has no interest in collecting them, so he might as well give them to a friend.
"Take it with you and take a look!" Liu Dong said.
After nodding, Son Ye-jin did not refuse.
Soon he put the Jade Buddha on his chest.
"How's it going? Does it look good?" After turning around happily twice, Son Ye-jin asked Liu Dong expectantly.
"Of course she looks good! Moreover, you become even more beautiful with her!" Liu Dong praised without hesitation.
He said this sentence both sincerely and subconsciously. The reason why he said it subconsciously is because he said it too much when he was shopping with Wang Qiang, Lin Ling, and Jiang Tingting, and he had already learned it.
For creatures like women, whose emotions are greater than reason, reasoning will not work at any time, and praise and praise are the best way to solve the problem.
No, as soon as Liu Dong finished speaking, he could clearly feel that Son Ye-jin's mood was a little higher than before. Her pretty face was flushed, which was particularly attractive.
Sun Yizhen, who had just seen Liu Dong buy the jade Buddha, thought the price was not too expensive and accepted the gift directly without being polite to Liu Dong.
"Thank you!"
"You're welcome, just treat it as repayment of the money you gave me to buy clothes before! Let's go shopping, there are a lot of good things here!"
Regarding Liu Dong's proposal, Son Ye-jin, who was very happy, naturally had no reason to refuse.
Not to mention, Liu Dong really gained a lot of good things during this trip. In addition to more than half of the Korean cultural relics here, at least 30% of the remaining cultural relics come from China.
This ratio is not low in Insadong, which has hundreds of antique shops and galleries. More importantly, although most of these Chinese cultural relics are fakes, the probability of being genuine is much lower than in the domestic antique market.
It's a lot higher.
This is understandable. After all, this is South Korea, and naturally more antique appraisers specialize in the appraisal of Korean cultural relics. Therefore, when competition is relatively small, it is relatively easy to find missing items among Chinese cultural relics.
However, although it is easy, there are only a few really good things. No, Liu Dong didn't pick up a few first-class cultural relics, but he did buy a lot of good items among second- and third-class cultural relics.
Because porcelain is fragile, paintings and calligraphy are easily broken, and cultural relics are too precious, everything that Liu Dong bought after seeing it was put in the trunk of Son Ye-jin’s car in advance!
To Liu Dong's surprise, Son Ye-jin, a girl, not only had no objection to these seemingly shabby cultural relics, but also followed Liu Dong shopping with great interest. She was really an anomaly!
"Liu Dong, there are a lot of people there, let's go and take a look, too?"
"That's a gallery, what are we doing there?"
Following the direction of Son Ye-jin's finger, Liu Dong saw a modern building with a large flow of people, a gathering of luxury cars, an exterior decorated with glass curtain walls, and artistic patterns made of colored glass.
The signboard of 'Xinghan Gallery' above this building shines in the summer afternoon sun.
"The gallery is great. Don't you know how to paint? Let's go over and have a look! Oh, let's go, it's still early anyway!" Seeing Liu Dong not moving, Son Yejin stepped forward and took his arm towards the gallery door.
.
Perhaps today was the time for the art exhibition to open, and the security guard at the door did not prevent the two from entering.
However, after entering, Liu Dong looked around and completely lost interest.
What is exhibited here is indeed Korean calligraphy and art, which have the same roots as Chinese calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting. The paintings are just that, and the content is roughly the same as Chinese traditional painting, including landscapes, figures, and meticulous flowers and birds.
But what the hell is Korean calligraphy?
A bunch of calligraphy composed of 'ooxx--' looked like the 'ghost talismans' drawn by fake Taoist priests in China to swindle money to Liu Dong! No, it was not even as good as a ghost talisman. He really didn't see this so-called
Yes, there is no beauty in calligraphy that only changes in thickness, and I don’t think there is any need to develop it.
However, since people feel good about themselves, Liu Dong, a foreigner, has nothing to say.
Fortunately, Koreans have a long-standing tradition of officially writing in Chinese. There is no shortage of Chinese calligraphy works here. Although the level is limited, you can barely take a look.
Originally, Liu Dong, who was deeply disappointed after coming in and shopping around, planned to leave quickly, but seeing Son Yejin's high spirits, Liu Dong didn't want to disturb others' interest. After all, everyone had been shopping with him before.
After a long time, it was his turn to accompany someone around, and he couldn't leave right away, so Liu Dong, who suppressed his thoughts, reluctantly followed her around the gallery.
"Liu Dong, Liu Dong, there are pen and ink there, why don't you go and draw a picture too?" Son Ye-jin suddenly said with excitement.
The space in the venue is very large. In one corner of the first floor, there are three long solid wood tables with pens, ink, paper and inkstones placed on them.
However, among the three tables of pens, inks, paper and inkstones, only one is occupied, and the others are vacant. Obviously, this is a place specially reserved by the exhibition for people in the industry to try their skills.
"What kind of painting do you want? Landscapes, figures, meticulous flowers and birds, or something else?" Liu Dong didn't refuse after being dragged here by Son Ye-jin.
"I don't understand this either. Anyway, just look at the painting!" Son Ye-jin said after pouting.
"All right!"
After nodding, Liu Dong glanced at Son Yejin a few times, then waved his hand, "You take a few steps back!"
"How many steps back? Why?"
"Of course it's painting. Didn't you ask me to paint for you? Just take a few steps back if you want!"