潘家园古玩市场

This guide to Beijing's Panjiayuan antiques market opens at three in the morning, watching a former nobleman unwrap a jade vase by oil-lamp light in the dark that gave the place its nickname, the ghost market. You'll hear how aristocratic families sold off their heirlooms in secret after the fall of the Qing dynasty, trading in whispers and hand signs near a bridge in Chaoyang, and how the trade stayed illegal for decades before China finally legalized it in the mid-1990s. Wander among the roughly four thousand stalls as you listen.