Not an antiquing person, I didn't know the existence of the Volo Antique Mall untill I came across a Japanese blog about it. It sounded like fun from her description, and it was only an hour or so away from where we live, so my mom, Patrick and I drove to the Mall early Sunday morning (after a filling breakfast of an apple pancake etc. at Walker Brothers' Pancake House). The drive out to the town of Volo, northwest of Chicago, was a pleasant one. The morning sun hadn't reached its midday, sizzling temperature, and the scenery became decidedly greener as we drove past the civilization. Among the new housing developments of identical mac-mansions, a few corn and soy fields popped up, and silos and barns became a regular feature along the road. We even saw a marshy nesting ground of a bunch of large herons from the Belvedier Road.

The mall was huge; there were three buildings dedicated to "real" antique with another selling collectibles that may not qualify as "antique." Here, individual antique vendors pay a certain amount of monthly rent to use a display case or a booth, so there were a lot of overlaps in terms of the items available. For instance, I saw an astronomical number of thick, cut-glass bowls and goblets probably from the 60s or 70s. It seemed as if those had been in everyone's cupboard at one time. Another, slightly less predictable staple was the set of Chinese-inspired bowls and dishes made in Japan. I was astounded to see how horrible its quality was: the ceramics were unevenly shaped, the paints went astray everywhere, and the colors were just ghasly. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, I always associated "Made in Japan" with "high quality," but the extremely poor quality of the Japanese-nade ceramics reminded me of the time when Japan survived as a source of cheap labor of the world. The entire place smelled of old things, just like the musty, somewhat pleasant smell of my grandma's closet back in Japan. I was sort of amused to realize that the smell of old, forgotten things are the same on both sides of the Pacific.

I wouldn't say that the Volo Antique Mall is the place to go for high-quality antique. It's more a place to find kitsch stuff that you can actually use in your everyday life without worrying to death about breaking them. There must have been literally gazillion artifacts there--we ran out of energy after exploring only the first (and the largest) building. But our hunt wasn't fruitless. I found a quaint Japanese-looking tea set for $3.95. (My mom bought two sets of tea cup and saucer and a matching sugar pot.)

Granted, the tea pot had a chunk missing from the handle, and its lid had gone AWOL. One of the tea cups even had a hairline crack on it. But hey, for that price, I wouldn't care. I wasn't going to use the tea set as a tea set anyway--I thought I could use the tea cups to put dipping sauces or small amount of food (most likely something to accompany a good chilled sake!), and the tea pot might look good as a flower vase, say, with a few yellow chrysanthemums in it, when autumn comes.

On the bottom of the tea cups, I noticed a marking that said "kutani-zukuri" (九谷造). Given the cheapish make of the tea set, I don't necessarily believe that it's a real kutani, which is known for its super-high quality and elegant design, but the caligraphy does make me believe that it was written by someone who writes Chinese characters daily. So, the set was probably made either in Japan or China. To imagine where and when it was created, how it came to the United States and how it ended up in an antique mall in Illinois stimulates my imagination no end. I'll probably never really know the history and stories attached to the set, but it'll give me with just a bit more fun every time I serve my food on it. For a lay person, that flight of imagination seems to be the essence of the antique fun.