PHILADELPHIA, PA.- Domestic buyers and sellers of Chinese decorative arts, no matter how experienced in the trade, have come to face each major sale on the auction calendar expecting the unexpected. China’s dynamic economy and the subsequent explosion of that nation’s antique and decorative arts market has created surging, wave-like trends that suddenly, unexpectedly crash American auction house floors, often to the delight of auctioneers and their consignors. Such was the case on Saturday, March 20, 2010 when Freeman’s Asian Arts Department hosted a large contingent of international buyers for their spring auction and saw strong prices bid for known achievers such as hardwood furniture and antique carved jade and -in some cases- even stronger prices bid for pieces heretofore considered good but middling property. Lot 396, a large Chinese Hu-form vase from China’s Republic period in the first half of the 20th century w