Dear readers, this post is in progress, and is a repository of links and vocabulary for finding affordable fabrics and calligraphy supplies from China, similar to the Japanese Goods Stores post. Please expect it to be fully complete in a month or so, it will slowly grow from today forward.

Stores

Sites

Taobao
This is one of the main online shopping malls in China. Some people have managed to ship directly, but for me, somehow my phone number was used by another for account abuse, so I use a shipping proxy.
ParcelUp
This is a proxy service for Chinese shopping, it’s also very nice because the search is in Chinese, so you can ask for what you want precisely.
Superbuy
This is probably the most popular proxy service, they have a very sophisticated site. I have used them and been satisfied.

Reliable Stores

These are stores I have personally purchased from.

Forest Fabrics
This is a Hong Kong Fabric store that sells high quality chemical fiber kinran.
SiLiHeCo
This is an etsy store that sells some of the softest, highest quality hemp I’ve ever purchased.
FengXing
This is an aliexpress store that sells digitally printed ramie. The ramie is soft and light, good for summer. The printing was slightly off grain but still very lovely and in period for song dynasty China.
New Art Silk
This is a silk seller on taobao that I have ordered rinzu from.

Interesting Stores

These are stores that I have not purchased from but look very promising.

洋五月。
This taobao store sells kimono bolts.
李跃淋
Fine ramie/linen store.
丝绸面料打样中心
Silk broker that sells a lot of traditional silks.

Useful Vocabulary

Fibers

Linen:亚麻
Hemp: 大麻, 汉麻
Ramie: 苎麻
Silk: 绡,丝
“Real” Silk: 真绡

Bast fibers in particular are hard to distinguish, often something listed as 汉麻 will turn out to be ramie and not hemp. I think there’s a difficulty because 大麻 is a restricted word on taobao and aliexpress, so 汉麻 is often used to “get around” this restriction. Sometimes you will see 汉麻in the title and 苎麻 in the material section.

A lot of chemical fibers get listed under “silk” so please be careful if you are interested in mulberry silk.

Weaves

These are terms that seem to produce fruitful results in search engines, not necessarily the pinnacle of good grammar or spelling.

Weave: 织
Gauze: 纱布,丝(for silk, see below)
Jacquard: 提花
Brocade: 锦缎
Habotai: 平絹 (flat silk), 真丝电力纺 (electric spun silk tabby)

Silk Gauze: 真丝绡, 真绡纱
Silk Jacquard: 提花真绡
Silk Jacquard Gauze: 提花真丝绡, 提花真绡纱
Silk Brocade: 锦缎真绡

Modern Chinese terms for Ancient Weaves

Phonetic	Characters	Phonetic
Han qi	汉绮	tabby patterned with warp floats
jialuo	假罗	open tabby (‘mock leno’)
jin	锦	polychrome compound warp-faced tabby or twill
juan	绢	plain tabby
luo	罗	gauze
luosha	罗纱	gauze
qi	绮	tabby patterned with twill
qirong jin, rongquan jin	起绒锦, 绒圈锦	jin patterned with pile warp
qiwen juan	畦纹绢	warp rep
sha	纱	open tabby
wenluo	纹罗	patterned gauze
xiewen	斜纹	twill
zhou	绉	crepe

Example Searches

I cannot use taobao itself, because my phone number is somehow tied to someone else’s account abuse, so I use a proxy that allows chinese searches.

Jacquard Gauze Silk
Plain White Cloth (Gives interesting results)
Kimono Fabric