China Part XXIV The Jade Factory

Today we went to the Great Wall at Badaling, with a stop first at a Jade factory.

The Jade factory:

OK, to start off, organized tours have their benefits and their drawbacks. They are a great jump-off  point when traveling in an unfamiliar city. They give you a quick overview and you can get an idea of where in that city you would like to return to spend more time. One of the things I most hate the very most about organized tours are the obligatory stops at tourist traps, usually factories where the tour operators make a kickback for delivering the 'patsies', you, to the seller...tourist traps like 'the government run Jade factory'. 

Why a tourist trap? Well, for starters we all know that jade is a semi precious jewel that is highly adored by the Chinese for good luck but did you know that quality Asian Jade and Jadite (more expensive version of Jade) is mostly mined from Myanmar, Yunnan Province in Southern China and Cambodia and so is cheaper in these areas. Consequently, buying jade materials and jewels here is more expensive than in other areas (even so, it is cheaper than Hong Kong, Shanghai or Macau if you really love and must have some jade). A jade piece cost around RMB 90 for a small pendant and up to 30,000 RMB for, say, a big Jade Dragon Carving.

If you happen to be a jewelry fan you might think differently but it is not, I reiterate NOT my thing. That being said you must look on the positive side and try to extract whatever interesting or enjoyable aspects of the experience that you can. Try to make it educational, as it were, for example. In that vein here are some informative facts about Jade.

Jade is a name that was applied to ornamental stones that were being brought to Europe from China and Central America. It wasn't until 1863 that it was realized that Jade was being applied to two different minerals. The two minerals are both exquisite and are hard to distinguish from each other.

Jadeite is almost never found in individual crystals and is composed of microscopic interlocking crystals that produce a very tough material.

 Below is a large chunk of raw Jadeite with a finished Buddah to the right.

Nephrite is actually not a mineral, but a variety of the mineral Actinolite. 

(See more examples: click here) The Nephrite variety is composed of fibrous crystals inter-twinned in a tough compact mass. (Other Actinolite varieties are quite different from nephrite.) It is the less prized but more common of the two types of jade and may be distinguished from jadeite by its splintery fracture and oily luster. Nephrite occurs in low-grade (formed under low-temperature, low-pressure conditions), regionally metamorphosed rocks. Important deposits occur in China, Siberia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Alaska, and Wyoming.

The toughness of jade is remarkable. It has a strength greater than steel and was employed by many early civilizations for axes, knives and weapons. It was later that jade became a symbolic stone used in ornaments and other religious artifacts. Today jade is still highly valued for its beauty. Its many colors are appreciated, but it's the emerald green color that jadeite produces so well, that is highly sought after by artwork collectors. This emerald green jade called "Imperial Jade" is colored by chromium. Other colors are influenced by iron (green and brown) and manganese is believed to produce the violet colors. Nephrite is usually only green and creamy white, while jadeite can have the full range of jade's colors.

Jade has been used for eons in China and Central America as an ornamental and religious stone of deep significance. The Nephrite Jade was used mostly in China, although both have been used in both regions. Nephrite is more abundant than Jadeite and has few color varieties, ranging only from creamy white to green.

Jadeite is found in strongly metamorphosed sodium-rich serpentine rocks, and is named from the Spanish "piedra de ijada" (stone of the side) as it was thought to cure kidney stones and other kidney ailments.

While green Jadeite is most recognizable as Jade, it is more commonly found as a grayish green, and may also be white, a pale blue-gray, or even a pale purple. 

Feel like you're back in school? Sorry, on to lighter things.

We boarded our bus, again, and headed for the northern fringes of the city.

We passed the central Beijing rail station.

Lots of other landmark buildings and some that aren't famous at all.

This one I think is a Marriott Hotel, the one in the background with the gold domes.

The day was another typical heavy smog day. Here are examples of before and after photos (after I adjusted the exposure to compensate for the smog).

This is the very famous and unusual CCTV headquarters.

Next to it was a charred high rise building (visible to the left of the CCTV building above and in the photos below), we were told that it caught fire and burned as it was being constructed. No one was injured but the building was a total loss and left unfinished. This happened just prior to the Olympics, if my memory serves me well.

The roads in Beijing are very busy and crowded. I noticed a lot of Cadillacs, Fords and Buicks on the streets as well as lots of other foreign and domestic  Chinese makes and models. Many portions of the city's ring roads are elevated so that the Expressway runs uninhibited through the city suspended above the street level, theoretically (visible in the photo below to the right).

As I have said before, it was amazing how many skyscrapers were under construction. There were ubiquitous construction cranes visible in the skyline no matter which direction you happened to look.

We caught a glimpse of these window washers on this high rise.

This is the Beijing World Trade Center. It is Beijing's tallest building (China's tallest is in Shanghai) and sports a remarkable resemblance to New York's Twin Towers that were destroyed in the 911 terrorist attacks.

By and by we arrived at the Jade factory.

In the anteroom there were examples of exquisite works of art carved in Jade.

Next we were shown artisans at work.

And finally the showroom and the Jade mongers out for your money.

My sister made a couple of short videos.

Now, a lesson in telling real jade from the fake glass and marble look-a-likes that abound in the tourist shops. 

One of the mainstay tests is that real jade is harder than glass, so if you're unsure, trying to scratch a piece of glass with it. All reputable establishments, it is said, will have a square of glass available for just such a test. If they don't, it is advisable to be skeptical and pass on the purchase. Other methods include checking the uniform purity of the item (complete uniformity is unlikely, since Jade is, after all a stone), see if there are any small air bubbles in the item this is very common in glass replicas. 

There are loads of videos available on the net if you want to spend the time. Here are a couple to whet your appetite:

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I decided to break this up into 2 posts so....

Next: The Great Wall of China at Badaling