Another area in the antiques market focused on ethnic wear. Silver necklaces, pendents, bangles, ear rings etc. They seemed intricately designed and finely crafted. I was thinking that I had actually never seen anyone wearing these jewellery in China during my 10 years there. That’s because these are worn by the minority ethnic groups whom you rarely see in Shanghai or Beijing. They cannot be normally found in the central interiors of China. You have to go to other far-off provinces if you want to see them. I know for the foreigners’ eyes, everyone might look Chinese, but not everyone might belong to the same ethnic group. According to Wiki, there are actually 56 different ethnic groups in China. The Han people are the largest ethnic group in mainland China. As of 2010, 92% of the population were Han (~1.2 billion) but there are also 55 other minority ethnic groups in China numbering about 105 million people (8%). That’s huge. That’s like 1/3 the population of USA.
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