Tai Yick is my favorite place to buy gifts. It is an amazing store with high quality porcelain. I…read moream in awe of this place since I was 5 or 6 years old when my Dad first brought me there. I am close to 50 and appreciate its uniqueness.
This is not a souvenir shop selling cable car lapel pins! Going to there is like a lesson in Chinese legend, mythology, symbolism, art and folk art--the Monkey King in his traditional pose, Kuan Yin traveling the sky on her lotus like a flying saucer... Through the years, I've purchased Kuan Yin's, Monkey Kings, buddhas, ginger jars, flower pots, chickens, foo dogs, three kids carrying the peach on their backs...
Last year, I got a Monkey God from the 1970s. China Bazaar, Canton Bazaar, Far East Bazaar, and so on, didn't have that model. Oh my God, it's the one I wanted when I was 10 years old!
Then, I got these really cool kylins (Chinese unicorns)--very colorful and lively.
This past week, I got all my Christmas gifts for my parents, sister, aunts, and uncles from there. I was stuck at my desk working and realized, "Oh my God, I have to go out and buy stuff for Christmas!" I emailed Tai Yick and asked Mr. Eng if he had Hong Kong rose medallion plates--my great grandfather left us two very small ones and I've always thought they were beautiful.
Mr. Eng only had two, but he emailed me back with a suggestion and sent me photographs. I was absolutely floored. They were these gorgeous bok choy plates from 1950s.
They were the same pattern as the bok choy teacup and saucer I got from my mother-in-law 15 years ago and she had gotten them from her mother-in-law, my husband's grandmother.
My husband's grandmother had come out to San Francisco to visit her youngest son and got these items in the 1950s and brought them back to Maine, years later they made their way to my mother-in-law in Missouri, and my mother-in-law had brought them out to me in San Francisco! I've looked for this pattern for the past 15 years because I loved it so much!
I ordered them for my parents and six sets of uncles and aunts. Mr. Eng packaged them all up and sent them out quickly for such short notice--he didn't have to do that, but he was very kind to. I was very thankful.
The shop has very reasonable prices for exceptional ceramics.