This charming boutique upcycles shards of porcelain vases smashed during the Cultural Revolution into unique and desirable jewellery, boxes, ornaments and art pieces. You can pay ¥50 for a shard fridge magnet, or a few hundred for a metal box inset with the character for 'double happiness', a common decorative motif on blue-and-white porcelain. English-speaking staff have a wealth of porcelain-related knowledge.
A tenet of Mao's Cultural Revolution was to smash the 'four olds' (old customs, culture, habits and ideas), a campaign that began in Beijing in 1966. Poor old porcelain never stood a chance, sacrificed by households to the rampaging Red Guards in the hope that they would overlook smaller valuables such as jewellery, which were easier to squirrel away.
