Day Five: Dragon Mart

Dragon Mart is the largest Chinese marketplace outside of mainland China. Dragon Mart is absolutely vast. Over a kilometer long in fact. Composed of many small stall-like shops whose names generally have little if anything to do with their products, there is nothing that cannot be found at Dragon Mart. The economic structure of the place is interesting; it is heavily subsidized by the Chinese government, thereby providing extremely cheap goods to the huge Indian worker population. By undercutting the prices it gives the China a virtual monopoly on goods sold to the working class in Dubai.

The store most closely resembles a physical manifestation of eBay. There is everything imaginable, from heavy machinery to textiles and house wares. The store names are usually mistranslated, that is when they make any sense at all. In all it is a fascinating place and a welcome change from the western style shopping malls surrounding it.

Just an interesting shot of the front of Dragon Mart. This in no way shows its gigantic size.

Silk and pashmina scarfs are seen for sale at a store in the Dragon Mart. A huge variety of both wholesale style and finished textiles were availible for most any use.

As seen from the store's name, a store which sold commerical grade packaging machines is seen at the Dragon Mart. Perhaps this is where all those evil blister packs are born?

People are seen walking amongst the shops in the Dragon Mart.

Typical signage and products, although the pictured translation is remarkbly cogent compared to some of the store names in Dragon Mart.

Fire sprinkler system parts at a store which catered to commercial fire safety products. Many such niche stores were to be found there and one could easily find part to either make or repair most any kind of machine.

Needless to say I had a lot of fun parusing the varied and sometimes downright odd goods at the Dragon Mart and would have like to have spent substantially more time there and bought several suitcases to bring stuff home in. Apologies for the lack of frequency of posts over the last couple of days, I have finally finished battling some kind of crazy Emirati sinus bug. A post on the land and ownership system is upcomping.