Ｃｈｉｎａ　Ｃｏｒｎｅｒｓ　Ｃａｒｐｅｔ　Ｍａｒｋｅｔ

ＳＥＡＮ　ＯＣＯＮＮＥＲ

I saw an advertisement for a 30-foot by 30-foot silk Persian carpet in a pan-Middle Eastern newspaper recently with the punch line "If your palace needs it, contact us." Palaces and carpet weav-ers are synonymous with the oil-soaked Middle East. As an occasional collector of Oriental rugs, I was stunned to learn the attention-grabbing advert wasn't placed by an Iranian or Turkish carpet magnate, but rather by a factory in central China's Henan Province.