Say, Alan Cpe1991...
Are you back from China? Anything interesting in your travels, with respect to chess sets? More importantly, how are you?
On a side but related note... today, I spent a couple of hours taking pictures of my sets in chess room #1. I came across a chess set that my daughter brought back from her few months stay (college experience, which eventually resulted in a "minor" in Mandarin with her Asian Studies degree) in Yunnan Province. She also spent some time in Beijing.
Anyway, she gave it to me as a present. It was/is supposedly "jade" carved figures (somewhat crudely carved), but I doubt it that it is jade. It is a stone (one side is a very dark green, and the other side is a light green). While nearly any seller anywhere (from ANY country) could be tempted by exaggeration in an effort to sell a chess set (or anything else), the "Chinese Culture" seems to especially encourage what others might think of as deception. And not to "excuse" such use of words of extreme or uniqueness (such as "antique" or "rare" - when sets up for sale or bid are certainly not antique or rare - at least by our standards)... however, a generalization might be said that a large segment of the Chinese multi-cultural population seems to use exaggeration in their business dealings.
Any thoughts? And of course, see any chess sets?
John.
