Editor’s Note
This article explores the profound cultural significance of jade in Asia, contrasting its deep-rooted symbolism with its relative obscurity in the West. It uses the iconic jadeite cabbage at Taipei’s National Palace Museum as a focal point to illustrate how such artifacts embody values like prosperity and well-being, reflecting a heritage that spans millennia.
Every day, queues of adoring Chinese people parade in front of the shrine in Taipei’s National Palace Museum that encloses a cabbage-shaped jadeite measuring only 18 centimetres. It is an icon of the Qing dynasty that, in line with the art of Feng Shui, symbolises prosperity and fertility, health and well-being. This says little or nothing to the Western world, while it embodies and exalts, on the contrary, the value that jade has held for thousands of years for the Asian region. A value that, economically speaking, is close to 30 billion euros, while the most prized quality, called Fei Cui, is worth around eight billion and among precious stones is second only to diamonds. The difference is that diamond sales are now suffering in Asia, with the spending power of the Chinese being hampered by the moral suasion of the central government not to spend on luxury goods, especially Western ones, and not to display them. As well as the ongoing semi-blockade of fund flows. Investing in top-quality jade, therefore, can be an excellent alternative for the Chinese and, conversely, a significant business opportunity for those in the precious metals business.
If this hard stone, famous for its green colour (but shades vary, the Taipei cabbage is in fact multicoloured) geologically has its epicentre in Burma, processing and trade have always followed the routes of the provinces of Yunnan and GuangDong. Embedded in the history of Chinese civilisation also for the magical and healing properties attributed to it, jewellery jade is challenging from the name. The standard considered by Cibjo-The world jewellery confederation, is called Fei Cui and refers exclusively to precious minerals such as jadeite, omphacite and cosmocloro. Six years ago, the world confederation chaired by Gaetano Cavalieri, opened a new and historic chapter of action, inaugurating on Fei Cui a painstaking work of technical nomenclature and set of standards, starting from the definition of the stone, in collaboration with Chinese agencies and study centres. The Cibjo 2024 congress in Shanghai facilitated the development of a Fei Cui Guide, which will be integrated with the Esg Iso criteria and included in the Cibjo Blue books, with the aim of creating an integrated Iso Qms standard. Subsequently, efforts will also be made to actively train the skills of gemologists around the world on Fei Cui.
Moreover, given the cultural value of this stone, it would be unthinkable to go ahead without Chinese cooperation. Ren Lu, an expert and lecturer at the Gemmological Institute in Wuhan, not surprisingly urged caution:
Rules matter, said Julius Zheng, an expert jewellery analyst, reconstructing the history of Hong Kong’s legendary Lee family, now in its third generation. The progenitor Lee Ben Ren became the king of jade by buying eight tons in northern Burma and reselling them in China for 100,000 Chinese silver.
The strategic relevance of the work of the Fei Cui working group at Cibjo was evident from the active support of China’s National gems & gemstone testing company, the Gemmological association of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Jewellers’ & goldsmiths’ association (chaired by Kent Wong, managing director of the world’s largest jewellery retailer, Chow Tai Fook, with nine thousand shops). A sign of success was the streaming on Chinese media of the conference session on Fei Cui, with half a million viewers. Fascinating was the account of Yang Lang, a star system glory, who explained how the passion for jewellery with this stone, loved by celebrities such as Gloria Swanson and Jessica Chastain, has also grown in the West.