I have to share my Chinese yarn stories. During three weeks in China I only found two yarn shops, although one was too tiny to mention, this picture is of the larger one. We were in the Old Town of Lijiang in southwest China when I found this shop. Lijiang is more then 800 years old, a World Heritage Site and absolutely beautiful!! Note the sign by the entrance of the shop, 'completely manual'. Makes me wonder if the Chinese think Westerners have something against knitting machines. The shop had hand, commercial and, yes, machine knits for sale plus a few skeins of yarn. Note the green 2-piece outfit on the upper left. It was knit on a chunky and there were a few skeins of the yarn below. I asked what the content was and after some trouble the answer was translated as 'ferret yarn'. After some Googling, we found it was really a blend of mink and cashmere so I went back and picked up a few skeins to see what we can do with them. At another market, I asked the content of a shawl and that translation was 'yarn from a horse'.............I think that should have been 'wool from a goat' or cashmere. No offense to the Chinese, I went knowing two words of Mandarin and they're still the only ones I know. Thank goodness we all know how to read a calculator. Truly if you get the chance, China is a wonderful country to visit. There was lots of public hand knitting and crocheting seen throughout China; on the job, at the bus stop, in the park...........just no visible yarn shops.