Today, we are going to visit the jade carving factory,it is located on the way to Ming Tombs. Now ,I would like to take this chance to tell you something about jade and jade carving, and I hope the information will be useful for your visiting and shopping later.

When we talk of jade, we can start from Chinese stone culture. Stones hold a special place in Chinese culture. As we can see, in many scenic spots of China, you can find there are various shapes of artificial rockeries, they decorate the scenic spots. Chinese stone culture started with people using stones, owning them, then appreciating and becoming connoisseurs. In the stone Ages, some 5000years ago, for a long time, people found many materials, of all these materials, stone was the hardest, then they used stone to make stone tools and weapons.

After using stone tools and weapons for many years, people gradually classified the stone into different types. According to their “beauty” , Hardness, mellow color, soft feel and pleasant sound . at last, they are surprised to find that , all these can be found in one type of stone, that is jade! In the ages to follow, people indeed judged the degree of beauty of all kinds of stone by jade.

There is a Chinese saying: “Jade is no more than a stone before it is chiseled, ground to an ornament” Jade carving is a well known special local product, it is not only the high-tech skills on carving , exquisite on appearance, but also inject many Chinese traditional cultures into it.

Maybe you have learned some about Chinese characters, in which, A character with two across and one upright is called Tu, meaning earth, which symbolizes our living area. A character with another across above Tu is called Wang, means king, representing the ruler of the earth. A character with a dot added to Wang, we call it Yu, which refers to jade, symbolizing the treasure of the king. A character with a square around Yu means country in Chinese, reflecting that a kingdom must have jade inside. Without it, the kingdom is just left a square, meaning nothing. That is why there is a large jade carving placed in front of the Hall of Mental Cultivation in the Forbidden City.

It has a long story for the usage of jade as a symbol of a king’s power. About 5000 years ago in primitive society, there were a lot of nomadic tribes in China. Each leader of these tribes was required to have three jade wares respectively. They were jade Bi, jade Cong and jade Yue. Jade Bi round in shape means the heaven, representing the king’s power from the heaven. Jade Cong square in shape means the earth, a symbol to govern the tribe. Jade Yue is like an ax in shape, meaning military power. Without this piece of jade ware, the leader had no right to control the army. When a new leader was chosen, he must have these 3 jade wares made as to gain supports from common people. Today, many ruins of primitive tribes have been discovered in China. The spots where the archeologists found these 3 jade wares were considered the leaders’ residencies of the tribes at that time.

As the capital of Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, Beijing was a place where emperors, nobles, officials, rich men and intellectuals all lived. As a result, many handicraft industries congregated here in this city. On account of the jade’s high status in Chinese culture, it was considered upper classed and well educated to have jade carvings placed in houses or to wear gird jade wares. The best example is that in the Forbidden City you can see many jade carvings placed in emperor’s bedrooms and offices. Therefore Beijing’s jade carving industry has been very flourish up to today. It is a symbol of wealth and high social statue for people to wear or have jade wares. Jade has been cherished by Chinese as a symbol of many virtues. It’s hardness suggests firmness and loyalty, and it’s luster projects purity and beauty. In ancient times, people compared human virtues to pure jade on the one hand and admired its beauty and fine textures on the other.

In ancient China, people up from the emperor down to common people all concerned about a science. That was Fengshui, the wind and water in English. The science mainly expounds the relationships between locations and human fortune. Even in nowadays, in China or foreign countries’ China town, when Chinese people want to build some new constructions, normally they will invite a geomancer to research the place. If it is good, they’ll start constructing; if not, they will do something to ward off so-called evil spirits, such as placing a small mirror above the door or a Buddha statue facing to the door or a jade carving on some special position.

In ancient times, jade was also used in sorcery and ancestral sacrifice because of its fine qualities. Gradually ,people began to believe that jade had devine and supernatural forces. We have visited the Ming Tombs, we knew that “being buried with jade on a gold well .”from that, we can see the importance of jade and people also believed that jade would make people’s souls immortal and preserve corpses.

Traditionally, the jade can be divided into two kinds, which are the jadeite and nephrite. The jadeite is above 7.5 degrees in rigidity while the nephrite below 7.5. In China, the jadeite is called the Chinese hard jade while the nephrite is the Chinese soft jade. The jadeite, with 3 rankings: A, B, C, is mainly found in Chinese Yunnan province and Burma. And each ranking of the price is basically stable. In China there are many nephrite mines, which are mainly located at Xinjiang, Liaoning and Henan provinces. The nephrite has its unique historical value in China. Since the primitive society about 4000 years ago, we have used it for more than 6000 years. And it has been greatly popular among Chinese emperors. The color of the nephrite is various such as green, blue, yellow, orange, red and white etc, among which the white jade is the most valuable and is called the diamond of the jade. And its value even surpasses that of the A ranking jadeite. Because the nephrite is soft, we have made the jade carving with the nephrite since the ancient time. With the development of the history, the jade carving industry came into being. Because the emperors and rich men were all fond of the art of jade carving, the industry of jade carving developed rapidly with the gradually elaborate skills and reached its peak in 16th century Ming and Qing dynasties when many jade carving artists appeared, like Lu Zigang, who was a jade sculptor in the Ming dynasty as famous as the artist Michelangelo in Europe during the Renaissance. The jade carvings with his names were usually tributes directly presented to emperors. Today, a jade carving bearing his name values more than 1 million US dollars. That’s why the old jade carving is the most expensive in Beijing antique market.

From all these , we can see ,the Chinese people’s love and use of jade date back to ancient times, flowers, birds, animals, vases, incense burners and human figures are the usual subjects of jade carving.

In addition to carvings, the jade is also used in our living. For example, we knit many small jade pieces together to make jade pillows. You’ll feel very cool to sleep on it in summers. We also polish the jade to make jade sticks, which can be used to polish faces. And it is believed that the faces will get more and more smooth in this way. In China, that drinking wine with jade cups has 2000 years’ history. In this way, the wine is believed to taste better and cooler. In nobles’ families a jade screen is often placed. On one hand it can block the view of visitors, and the other hand it can make good effect of sun lighting.

Ok, we will arrive at the jade carving factory soon. The guide there will tell you something about how to distinguish real jade from ersatz. Firstly she will take you to see how the jade carving is made, then you’ll have about one hour for shopping. Later we will meet in our bus. Clear? Ok, now please take your stuff and get off the bus.