JADE




                                                    Some history of jade
 

    In the human history there are only two civilizations that have regarded jade as more precious than gold, diamonds or any other gemstones; namely the azteks and the Chinese. The azteks, similar to the Chinese, were so fond of jade, that even the Spanish colonialists were highly bothered by the fact that there were no vast gold reserves to plunder. Similar to the azteks, the Chinese regard jade objects as intrinsically valuable. Basically one can not have a stroll around a Chinese city without seeing a shop that sells jade or without spotting people wearing different kinds of jade bracelets.

    In China jade is seen combined with human characteristics such as virtue and morality. This is due to the solidity, beauty, and durability of jade. Many countries boast a jade ware culture indeed, but none of them can match China; and certainly not from a historical perspective. With a history of 10.000 years, jade has functioned from everything between as a tool for witchcraft to an emblem of privilege.

    About hundred years ago Tengchong was a major centre for jadeite trading. Supposedly Tengchong stood for 90% of the jade deals in the 1930's; a kind of an Amsterdam for jade. The history of jade in Yunnan is longer though. According to an early historian of jade, the history of jade trade is the following:

"The discovery that green jade of fine quality occurred in Northern Burma was made accidentally by a small Yunnanese trader in the thirteenth century. The story runs that on returning from a journey across the frontier he picked up a piece of stone to balance the load on his mule. The stone proved to be jade of great value and a large party went back to procure more of it. In this errand they were unsuccessful, nobody being able to inform them where the stone occurred. Another attempt, equally fruitless, was made by the Yunnan Government in the fourteenth century to discover the stone; all the members of the expedition, it is said, perished by malaria, or at the hands of hostile hill-tribes. From this time onwards, for several centuries, no further exploration in the jade country seems to have been undertaken by the Chinese. Small pieces of the stone occasionally found their way across the frontier, but the exact source of the supply continued unknown."


"The year 1784 marks the final termination of a protracted series of hostilities between Burma and China, and from this time dates the opening of a regular trade between the two countries. Adventurous bands of Chinese before long discovered that the jade-producing districts lay on the right bank of the Uru river, and a small but regular supply of the stone was now conveyed every year to Yunnan. Impracticable roads, a malarious climate, and an unsettled country prevented the expansion of the trade. Some twenty or thirty Chinese at the most went up into the jade country each season and a very small proportion of these ever returned. In the Chinese temple at Amarapura is a long list containing the names of upwards of 6,000 Chinese traders deceased in Burma since the beginning of the present century to whom funeral rites are yearly paid. The large majority of these men are known to have lost their lives in the search for jade. The roll includes only the names of well-known and substantial traders. Could the number of smaller traders and adventurers who perished in the same enterprise be ascertained, the list would be swelled to many times its present size."

"The earliest route followed by the jade traders led from Momein (Tengchong) to Kunyung Lien and Chansi on the Yunnan frontier. Here the (hostile) Kachin Hills were entered and a week's journey over exceedingly difficult mountain-tracks brought the travellers to Kachins-Yimma on the Irrawaddy, a place which appears to be some distance above Talawgyi."

"The Hsimu quarries were first discovered in 1790; they yielded a very brilliant jade, pieces of which are said to have been sometimes exchanged at Momein (Tengchong) for their weight in silver."

"The green variety of the stone seems to have been extremely rare, but not entirely unknown, for attempts are recorded to produce its color artificially by burying white jade in juxtaposition with copper." 

"The period of its greatest prosperity is comprised within the years 1831–40, during which time at least 800 Chinese and 600 Shans were annually engaged in business or labour at the mines. All the stone was sent by one of the abovementioned routes to Yunnanfu, at this time the great emporium of the trade. The business there was mainly in the hands of Cantonese merchants, who bought the rough stone in large quantities and carried it back to be cut and polished at Canton."

"In 1841 war broke out between Great Britain and China. Hostilities first commenced at Canton and the effect on the jade trade was not long in making itself felt. Cantonese merchants no longer came to buy stone at Yunnanfu. Stocks accumulated and Yunnan traders ceased to go up to the mines."

"There was a partial revival of the trade for a few years commencing with 1847, but the disturbed state of Southern China, consequent upon the Taiping rebellion of 1850 prevented a complete recovery; and with the outbreak of the Panthay rebellion in 1857 the roads leading to Yunnanfu were blocked and all business in jade came to a standstill for several years."

"The year 1861 witnessed a great improvement in the jade trade. From that date until now, the bulk of the stone has been carried by sea to Canton. In 1861 the first Cantonese merchants arrived in Mandalay. He bought up all the old stocks of jade and conveyed them to China by sea, realizing a large fortune on this single venture. His example was quickly followed by other Cantonese, and once more the trade in jade revived and numerous Yunnanese went up to the mines." (1)



                                            
                                                
                                                         Jadeite and Nephrite


      The best jade is found, at least according some of the jade dealers in Yunnan, opposite the border of Burma, in an area called Mengong. Another major Chinese centre for jade is located in Xinjiang, this is the so called "Chinese jade", which is also referred to as nephrite. There are actually 5 known regions for Chinese jade, but Xinjiang being the most famous. It was a French mineralogist called Alexis Damour in 1863 who first discovered the difference between jadeite & nephrite. He named the new jade, jadeite, that is where the term old jade comes from meaning the original Chinese nephrite. So these days jade is a collective name for both jadeite and nephrite. Xinjiang locals (mainly Moslems) say that the Xinjiang jade has the best quality of jade, but the people of Yunnan on the contrary say it's more or less worthless. It's probably a bit difficult to judge which jade is the best one, at least not being the utmost expert here, but a certain variety of jade called Hetian imperial jade from Xinjiang is traditionally highly valued. The ancient poet Dufu also writes about a jade mountain in Xinjiang - nothing about Yunnan or Burma. However plenty of the jade sold in Yunnan around these days is bad quality or pure fake and it is said to come from Xinijang. So in conclusion, likely there is good and bad jade in both Burma and Xinjiang.

    Back to Tengchong, after the revolution the jade trade was gradually stopped, as well as the habit of using it. No real communist was carrying jade; this was bourgeois vanity. Not until the 1990’s Tengchong tried to pick up its reputation for jade again, and is still working on it; same come to gold in China actually. Once entering Tengchong there's a huge sign proclaiming Tengchong as Chinas "Jade capital", however these days Tengchong cannot live up to the reputation of, say, Ruili, anymore. Furthermore, there are hardly any Burmese traders left in Tengchong anymore, as the majority of the dwellers have been thrown out. According to a friend of mine they were involved in too much shady business around there, so they were not allowed to stay there anymore. Tengchong is not as close to the border as Ruili, where the Burmese "immigrants" just walk over the fence some 50 meters from the check-point without a passport or any kind of proof of identity. This was not the case with Tengchong, maybe up more close to the border at Pianma it's different. There are plenty of check-points on the route too, mainly for preventing the heroin smuggling and human trafficking - on the contrary - timber, gemstones and natural resources is more or less fine. Now being close to the Olympics, these checkpoints are having a much stricter control too, even entering Tengchong a checkpoint guard, proudly carrying a machine-gun, interrogated me asking where I am going and why.




                                                        My Friend Mr.Yue


     One of my connections down in Tengchong is a jade carver. Lately there are more and more people in Tengchong picking up the habit of carving jade again. Some villages on the outskirts of Tengchong are predominately occupied in the carving business. So is my connection Mr. Yue too. Mr. Yue invited me for a dinner and proudly showed his tools and art. He showed how the art of carving jade is in guidance according with strict rules. As an example there are these traditional symbols jade in carved into, that look in a certain way, for example the laughing Buddha, the jade boat or the frog with a pearl in its mouth. There are a couple of these symbols, and anyone carving anything else apart from these set of symbols, is likely not considered a real professional carver and would probably not do good business either. Here is a good example of the more traditional approach on art in the East, and the more individual approach in the West. Picasso would not necessarily have done too well in China, even though he has said he values calligraphy as on of the highest form of the arts.

    Asking Mr.Yue about the quality of jade in Tengchong these days, he said that the businessmen from Guangzhou have already settled down in the jade towns of Burma. As the historical documents provided in the beginning of this essay, the same seemed to have happened in earlier history too. Now, from there on the other hand, the Cantonese merchants send the jade straight buy flight to Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macao or Taipei. No good jade came to Tengchong  – and according to Mr. Yue - if one wants to get hands on good jade in Tengchong these days, someone must first go to Guangzhou to get it and bring it to Tengchong; even from the Burmese market it would be almost impossible to obtain. The businessmen have grass-root level connections and all good jade was being sent to the Asian cosmopolitan cities; none of the more precious good were to sent Yunnan.

    There was another kind of mineral of good quality though, which English name I'm not yet familiar with while writing this entry. It's Chinese name on the other hand is referred to as "yellow jade". This is a yellow like granite like stone and is found in Yunnan. This particular mineral is also used for carving certain symbols on it. Mr. Yue’s house was full of these stones, no wonder his wife looked disturbed about having guests there. There were piles of stones from the kitchen to the bedroom. In fact, even to be able to enter the house of Mr. Yue, one had to crisscross between huge piles of stones. The carving tools were in the living room, so while having dinner, I was leaning on a huge stone cutting saw to my left of the sofa. According to Yue's information this particular kind of mineral mentioned above, is still reasonably cheap and widely found too, however in a few years it will likely become much more expensive and less easily obtained. Thus, Mr. Yue has started collecting it as much as possible and more or less even sleeps on a bed of stones.

     I asked him where he gets his stones, to which he replied that some of them he picks up himself, and some of them he buys at the weekly stone-market. Unfortunately - being fond of minerals and fossils too - I wasn't able to attend the market. Apparently there's plenty of minority people bringing stones there to the market. Some minerals come from the Nujiang River (Salween) and some more South close to Tengyueh such as the Longling area. There are 150 minerals in the world of which over a hundred are found in Yunnan, so no wonder not only locals are interested in the minerals around, there are plenty of multinational companies around the corner too.

      As an artist Yue was also a calligrapher. He showed some of his scrolls painted in his unique style. This style is very rarely used and is a certain kind of "waterish" style. In this style the brush is used as if it was floating in water, hence the calligraphy will also look waterish. When he asked me which poem I would like to have as a calligraphy gift, I replied Sun Ranweng's antithetical couplet. To this Mr. Yue acted somewhat numb - not surprisingly though - the couplet is the longest antithetical couplet in China and consists of 180 characters. It is regarded as one of Yunnan's most valued cultural treasures. In fact my wish of calligraphy was more of a joke. There's a statue of Sun Ranweng located in Daguan Park, Kunming. The statue has been built there later, during his life Sun Ranweng was a poor fellow, so as Herman Hesse has written about the fate of artists that many times occur, so happened to our friend too, he was neglected during his time, but got his honor later. Not by the bourgeois in this case though.

      As I couldn't attend the weekly mineral market, I went to another smaller market around and bought an amber bracelet for a hundred and a few pieces of petrified wood for the same price. The petrified wood is also known as fossil wood. Both the amber and the wood were from Burma. The wood is millions years old, and has lately grown into a huge business, again, sent from Burma to China. The fossil wood is looking good indeed, polished it's like some kind of a marble stone. In case some insect is found inside it, the value increases plenty, same goes for the marble. 

     I don't know the most recent policies, but traditionally no gem stones could be taken out of Burma according to the Burmese SLORC laws, unless there was some kind of a specific certificate to take out a certain amount, for a certain reason, of national treasures from Burma. SLORC is the State Law and Order Restoration Council by the way – namely the Burmese government. The laws don't seem to affect the selling of gemstones and fossils to China though. There are not too many laws around the areas where you can walk over the border 50 meters from the check-point. China has also a huge influence in the area around the borders of it's neighboring countries borders, so huge in fact, that it has been able to marginalize the poppy cultivating business by dealing straight itself with the farmers cultivating the poppy. Something the Burmese government was unable to do.


(1) W. Griffiths, 1847: Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bootan, Afghanistan, and the Neighbouring Countries.