My Unfiltered Take on Buying from China: When Bargains Meet Reality Okay, let’s get real for a second. Last month, I found myself staring at two nearly identical ceramic planters. One was from a local boutique in Amsterdam, priced at €85. The other was on a Chinese marketplace site, listed for €12.50, shipping included. My inner pragmatist (read: cheapskate) screamed at the difference. My inner aesthete, the one who writes about sustainable living and mindful consumption for a living, winced. This, my friends, is the daily conflict of being a freelance design journalist with a middle-class budget and a collector’s eye. I bought both. And that messy, contradictory experiment is…