Why Secondhand Objects Matter Beyond Their Price

The pleasure of finding something overlooked

Xin cleaned the postal bicycle and placed it in a converted cowshed. He calls his search for secondhand objects a treasure hunt. New things interest him less than the moment of discovery: just as an object seems ready to leave the historical stage, he notices its charm.

A few months before the reporting, he found old scale weights online and bought 110 of them at 20 yuan apiece. Each weighed two jin, about one kilogram, and could be used with a scale to weigh loads of up to 200 jin, about 100 kilograms.

The rusty weights had come from different households before gathering in one secondhand shop. Each had witnessed changes in a family's life. Those changes, Xin explained, interested him as much as the weights themselves.

His parents saw something else entirely. When the shipment arrived at home—hundreds of jin of old weights in assorted shapes—they were bewildered. They thought he had collected scrap metal to sell.

The bicycle and weights were only a small part of his collection. Six years before the reporting, he had begun a series of projects in Yunnan villages under the idea of using art to change rural places. Many secondhand objects found their way into those projects.

Among his earliest memories is a wooden handcart. His father pushed it to the grain administration depot to deliver grain, with Xin riding along. Eventually, the cart that had accompanied his childhood was retired and chopped into firewood.

During his first year in rural Yunnan, Xin found a similar cart online. He paid a few dozen yuan for it and made it into a table. He wanted it to awaken memories while giving an old object a new function.

He knows some younger people have never encountered these things. But, as he puts it, all young people will grow old, and memories need to be collected. Before buying an object, he spends days learning its story. Finding a particular old piece can take four or five days.

His most recent purchase began with a listing for individual dark-brown leather seats, each with a high back and wheels. They were advertised at 10 yuan apiece. He could scarcely believe the price and immediately contacted the seller to arrange a visit.

The seller owned an internet café and had been in the business for more than a decade. He said he had earned enough, fewer people were coming to internet cafés, and his landlord wanted the premises back. He had two days to clear everything out.

The chairs had been sitting there like rubbish, he told Xin, with hardly anyone interested in buying them. For 200 yuan, Xin could take as many as he could carry away.

The truck he found held 22. He brought them to the courtyard he rented, seeing in them the history of a business and all the different customers they had served. Visitors guessed that each chair had cost 200 yuan, 500 yuan or even 800 yuan. Nobody guessed correctly.

Eventually, the courtyard could not accommodate them all. Xin sold some on.

A shop that carries a friendship forward

Sun Xudong describes secondhand buying as a treasure hunt anyone can join. His shop stands in Chongqing's Wulidian used-goods market, a market described as roughly 500 square meters, with secondhand goods filling all three floors.

At 54, Sun was lean, sturdy and energetic. Old trunks, appliances and furniture crowded his shop. Cassette recorders from the 1980s and 1990s were stacked in the storeroom and on carts. They remained popular, he said, partly because people were nostalgic and partly because the machines were well made.

At eight in the morning, he was already moving methodically through his work, labeling unsold stock—a weekly routine.

The shop had belonged to his close friend Niu Huayang. On September 20 of the reporting year, Niu died suddenly of a heart attack. He was divorced; his former wife lived in Chengdu with their son, and they did not know the secondhand business. Sun took over the shop, which had been operating for more than 20 years.

Niu had hoped to bring the objects he had collected back to his hometown of Ziyang, Sichuan, and arrange them in a small exhibition room where more people could see them. That wish remained unfulfilled.

For Sun, keeping the shop open meant carrying forward his friend's work. All of Niu's effort was there, he said, and he wanted the stories to continue.

On October 1, he reopened the doors. He reorganized the old televisions, ceramics, gramophones, books and guitars, sorting and labeling them. Every object, he said, had its own story.

Revisiting those stories also meant remembering his friendship with Niu. Sun has a particular affection for small ceramic ornaments; he owns more than 100 at home. He was born on Chongqing's Nanshan, among surviving buildings from the Republican era, including a procuratorate described as having once been headed by Yu Youren.

As a child, Sun liked rummaging through rubbish for bottles and jars to turn into craft projects. As an adult, he became absorbed in old objects, especially those bearing writing. For him, writing and buildings are evidence of history, and that history becomes concentrated in the objects left behind.

More than ten years earlier, he had met Niu at Caojiaxi, described as Chongqing's largest flea market. In a dark-gray old building, they spent a long time talking beside a secondhand wooden door. Afterward, they often went searching for good finds together.

On market weekends, people brought Niu things their households no longer wanted. One regular seller was a 77-year-old man who arrived with sacks containing radios, books, clocks and other possessions. Niu bought everything he brought. Some of it was of little use, but the man had carried it a long way.

A banner at the shop advertised buying and selling, conversation, exchange and help finding things. People moving into new homes often wanted to replace their old belongings but felt it would be a shame to throw them away. They would tell Niu what they had and explain each object's history. He listened quietly before sending workers to collect the pieces.

Things worth passing down through generations were uncommon; those that grew more valuable with time were rarer treasures still. Meanwhile, as people accumulated more possessions, pawning belongings became more common too.

Niu had opened his first small shop on Chongqing's Zhongxing Road in 2000. The area was one of the city's largest secondhand markets and a predecessor to the Dongjiaxi flea market. On December 2, 2010, the market was closed over safety concerns. Traders gradually relocated, most of them to the Dongjiaxi building.

With its old appliances, books, pottery and stamps, the market held memories of old Chongqing. Niu remained in the trade, and his shop became increasingly well known. Sun said everyone at the flea market knew his name. Young people regularly visited to take photographs, continuing even after his death.

Niu's favorite possession was a train route board for Chongqing–Beijing West. White with black lettering, it measured 1.2 meters long and 15 centimeters wide. He had bought it from a railway worker and immediately told Sun about it, as excited as a child who had found a favorite candy.

After Niu died, the shop's employees brought the board to Sun. They also brought Niu's turtle, now without its owner.

When Sun took over the shop, he returned both the board and the turtle to their original places.

Buying less, finding use—and sometimes accumulating more

Not everyone approaches secondhand possessions through the emotional attachments that matter so much to Xin and Sun. For some, the choice grows out of everyday habits and a different approach to consumption.

Zhang Yuting, a woman born after 1995, advocates a sustainable, minimalist life. During the reporting year, she found inspiration in a book by Japanese minimalist Fumio Sasaki about moving from decluttering toward minimalism.

Sasaki described reducing his belongings to necessities: a bed, a table, a few clothes, a laptop and a small number of other things. When he needed something, he applied a set of criteria. Its form should be simple and easy to clean, its colors restrained. It should be durable, simply constructed, lightweight and useful for more than one purpose.

After adopting this way of living, Zhang began using secondhand websites much more often. First came a round of danshari, the Japanese approach to letting go: refusing unnecessary things that might enter the home, discarding the excess already there and loosening one's attachment to possessions. Within that philosophy, clearing accumulated objects also means clearing one's mind.

She inventoried everything she owned, then listed unused clothes, books and cosmetics for sale.

When an item sold, she cleaned it again, touched it, folded it neatly where appropriate and packed it away. She thanked her belongings for their companionship, said goodbye and wished them a better home. Letting go had its own ritual.

She checked the websites every week. While selling what she no longer needed, she noticed how many nearly new things were available simply because their owners had no use for them. She bought a backpack for 40 percent of its original price, an outdoor hammock for 50 percent, a ukulele for 10 percent and a tablet for 70 percent.

These were things she needed. To her, they offered excellent value while reducing wasted resources.

Previously, changing fashions had kept her replacing clothes and household goods. Now, when she wanted to buy something, she first looked at secondhand listings. If the item appeared in large numbers, she asked herself whether that meant it was especially likely to sit unused. Why else would so many people want to sell it?

That reasoning helped curb her desire to shop. Redistributing unused possessions sensibly, she believed, saved money and was better for the environment. A later inventory showed that some belongings had stayed with her for more than five years. Having survived several rounds of decluttering, they seemed to her to be the things she truly needed.

On secondhand platforms, buyers are often sellers too, purchasing what they need while passing on what they no longer use. A 2021 Chinese report on carbon-emission reductions from idle-goods and secondhand trading, issued by institutions including Tsinghua University's Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy, put China's secondhand consumption market above one trillion yuan in 2020.

The report forecast that transactions in idle goods could exceed three trillion yuan by 2025, with used phones, computers, televisions and related consumer electronics accounting for hundreds of billions of yuan. It portrayed the market's scale and growth prospects as far exceeding those of European countries and the United States.

For Gao Zehao, a 22-year-old programmer, the attraction of secondhand electronics was what he called the joy of scavenging. He browsed forums and resale sites for CPUs, hard drives, motherboards and phones.

Most of his purchases were equipment retired by businesses. Enterprise hard drives, he said, had long service lives, good stability and strong performance, yet became very cheap once retired. Equipment originally priced above 1,000 yuan might cost only a few dozen yuan used.

One room at home was filled with his secondhand electronics. After using them, he could not bear to throw them away. Once he no longer had a use for them, they became display pieces.

He drew a firm distinction between buying and selling: he could buy secondhand, but he would not sell secondhand. He worried about data leaking from his hard drives.

Gao owned relatively few other personal belongings, but his electronics purchases had added up to between 100,000 and 200,000 yuan. He felt there was value in equipment others called rubbish finding someone who could use it fully. Getting substantial utility for a small outlay left him deeply satisfied.

Reuse can also ease some of the guilt people feel about consumption's environmental effects. Zhang believed more people would come to accept the way of living she favored. Reexamining her purchases and accumulated possessions had brought her to a difficult realization: things she treasured often had no value to anyone else.

Once she accepted that, she found it easier to let go. She became less interested in pursuing things she did not need and more willing to restrain the urge to buy.

Between people and possessions

Running the shop made Sun more aware of a practical problem. When a home is full of belongings headed for the rubbish bin, someone has to decide what to do with them. That is where a secondhand shop becomes particularly useful.

At a deeper level, the trade connects people who have things with people who lack them.

Watching visitors arrive at his shop each day, Sun could not pinpoint when secondhand markets had become so popular. But he expected them to grow. People were becoming more environmentally aware, he believed, and understood that something they no longer used could still be useful to someone else.

He liked selling an object to someone who seemed right for it. Prices depended on the circumstances. If a buyer truly loved a piece or had a real use for it, he might let it go cheaply.

His main business remained offline. He did not understand how the popular online resale platforms worked, and the prospect of lengthy exchanges with buyers put him off. He worried that he would be unable to describe an object accurately. Secondhand buyers, after all, could be especially observant and particular.

Some people rejected used goods altogether, uneasy about who might have owned them and whether that history made them inauspicious. Sun challenged that objection with a hypothetical question: would they feel the same way about a knife once used by the Qianlong Emperor or Nurhaci?

He saw himself as the person who moved things along—a link between an object and the person it might suit.

Yang Yani's Chengdu shop offered a different setting. Opened in the year before the reporting, it looked modern and fashionable, its merchandise arranged by category as neatly as in a department store.

Brighter lighting, vivid labels and professional displays were helping some secondhand shops raise expectations of what used-goods retail could look like. Physical shops also offered something online listings could not: the chance to touch and inspect an object. They placed particular emphasis on care and condition.

At Yang's shop, staff sorted consigned possessions by category and cleaned them. Appraisers then valued them before they went on display and back into circulation.

Over the preceding seven years, Yang had visited Japan, Thailand and several European countries to learn about their secondhand cultures. Those experiences prompted her to consider opening a shop in China. Through consignment, reuse and the passing of objects between people, she wanted to change habits of consumption and daily life.

In an age crowded with possessions, such shops made it easier to find a place for old things. One woman's belongings occupied a third of Yang's shop: children's toys, clothes, shoes and bags, many still looking new. They represented 20 or 30 years of family life. As her children grew up, the possessions had accumulated at home.

They were cherished things, Yang said, and parting with them was difficult. Still, their owner wanted them to reach people who needed them more.

Yang observed that her customers were usually women aged 18 to 30. Many enjoyed browsing shops like hers and were comfortable with what they saw as a more environmentally conscious form of consumption.

Sullivan's 2021 research described a broader shift: as consumption attitudes evolved and environmental ideas gained ground, trading unused goods was moving from a relatively niche way to save money toward a fashionable lifestyle. It was especially popular among people born in the 1980s and 1990s.

For Yang, low prices alone could not explain the growing secondhand economy. People's ideas about consumption were changing, she said, and becoming more rational.

Another life, without a certain destination

Where old possessions will ultimately end up remains as uncertain and mysterious as the end of a life.

A customer once brought a vinyl record to Yang's shop for consignment. Its owner had written a message on it: the record might not be worth much money, but it had accompanied them through a period of depression. Now, they said, their depression had lifted. They hoped to pass it to someone who needed it more.

Other objects need physical care before they can move on. Many things Sun acquires are damaged. With a broken lamp, he might stitch the shade so that the cracked area resembles a flower in bloom.

He washes dusty furniture with specialist cleaner, then applies protective oil, bringing out the glow of its aged patina. Iron, wood and stone each require their own kind of attention and protection.

He has learned that former owners want different things from the transaction. Often, they hope to hear that someone is still using what once belonged to them. Knowing that makes them feel better.

The desire to see a possession come back to life sometimes has more to do with emotional satisfaction than with concern for the planet or opposition to waste. Losing something that has been yours can bring an inward sadness, a feeling that you are losing part of yourself along with it.

For Xin, old goods evoke earlier, happier times. Most are no longer manufactured, so finding a piece he likes can take a long time. His selectiveness is also bound up with his understanding of art.

He regards an old object as a possible precursor to an artwork. Before something becomes art, he says, an artist must intervene in it or discover it. Looking at secondhand objects in that way reveals their charm and the stories they hold.

Five years before the reporting, beside a rubbish heap near Beijing's 798 Art District, he found a discarded surrealist oil painting, 80 centimeters wide and 100 centimeters long.

He thought of it as something whose life had ended and wanted to give it another. In the lower-right corner, he added an inscription identifying himself as its finder: “Found by Xin Wangjun.” He wanted to make clear that he had found the painting, not painted it.

He posted it on WeChat Moments, and someone eventually bought it for 5,000 yuan.

In its new owner's home, he imagined, it might hang on a wall. It might be given to a friend, sent to auction or thrown away again. Those possibilities remained open. What mattered was that it had already received a second life.

Xin cares about where his finds go and what happens to them. He hopes every old object can reach someone who understands it.

His most expensive secondhand purchase was a camera costing 3,800 yuan. It had photographed many people in the 1950s or 1960s, and it still worked. The meeting of history and the present made it more appealing to him than a new camera. He continued using it in everyday life.

In the old houses he has renovated, there are old televisions, cameras, barber chairs and desks. Visitors like to pose beside them, sometimes treating them as fascinating things they have never seen before. Xin keeps asking how these possessions can acquire meaning again.

Their purpose, he says, is to gain new functions and find more people who appreciate them, rather than simply disappear as history moves on.

He does not know where they will eventually go. But he is certain that, like the history they carry, they existed.