Taipei market a journey through jade wonderland

Publish Date:01/03/1998

Byline:Sam Dixon

Cupping the small jewelry box in the palm of his hand, the jade merchant leans forward across his display table to let the customers appreciate the contents more closely.

Inside the box, sparkling beneath the arcade's suspended fluorescent lamps, is a remarkable gemstone nearly the size of a plum.

This piece of expertly cut jade has a deep-green color as pure as Earth's first forest. For novices and connoisseurs alike, the beauty of the pendant is breathtaking.

The splendid stone is Tseng Chun-tien's prize item--and with its high price tag, his toughest sell to customers who flock around his table at this busy outdoor market.

The way the onlookers ooh and aah, you would think they are gazing at the legendary Hope Diamond.

Then one of the customers, a neatly dressed middle-aged woman, asks the inevitable question: "How much does it cost?" "This goes for US$65,000," Tseng announces without even a shudder of shyness. "That's enough to buy a Mercedes Benz!" the woman exclaims. But the way she lingers at the table with a contemplative expression, it's clear that she respects the value of the precious pendant.

A visit to Tseng's display stand is a highlight of any stroll through the Taipei Weekends Jade Market. Yet there is much more to see in this deep cavern of viridescent gemstones.

The market is located in downtown Taipei beneath the Chienkuo South Road elevated highway. The underbelly of the expressway and the flanking support columns form a cool, arcade-like passageway that runs the full length of the block, from one cross street to the next. Every Saturday and Sunday, vendors of jade and other cultural treasures gather from throughout Taiwan to set up their stands on this long stretch of shadowed city concrete. "This is one of the largest jade markets in all of Asia. There are nearly 600 stands," says Chang Ching-huang, a member of the market's governing council. The display tables that line both sides of the market are arranged with glittering arrays of bracelets, rings, necklaces, earrings, animal carvings, ornamental pieces, figurines and brooches made from jadestones of varying hues. The colors of the gems and carvings mostly range from dark bottle green to emerald to pale green. But the mineral compositions of some of the stones have turned them a surprising blood red, creamy white or auburn.

Vendors of crystal, agate quartz, coral, gold articles, amber and Chinese shou-shan stones also operate stands at the market. Liao Shu-ming, a sales representative with the governing council, notes that the market is always packed with wholesalers, retailers, buyers, weekending city residents and a smattering of foreign tourists. The Taipei Weekends Jade Market is an example of how the seed of a good idea can, with the proper nurturing, blossom into a thriving enterprise.

Its governing body is the Chienkuo Holiday Jade Market Council. The forerunner of the current market was a loose group of jade merchants who in 1980 began gathering on weekends at the same site. At a meeting of the International Lions Club in Taipei during the summer of 1987, the mayor of the city unveiled a plan for increasing local leisure-time activities and promoting Chinese culture to foreign tourists. He ordered the market to organize into a tightly knit business group and set up a self-governing council. The council's successful market now serves many purposes besides promoting Chinese jade culture and tourism. Today it acts as a hands-on jade museum and is used as a venue for exhibitions of various kinds of precious and semiprecious stones. In addition, the council itself holds lectures on jade culture, publishes related books and magazines, and sponsors jade exhibitions in foreign countries. Moreover, every Sunday two directors from the governing body are present at the market to evaluate jade objects and determine their authenticity free of charge.

Since the dawn of Chinese civilization, jade has been a highly treasured object. The sun itself might as well be made of the shining stone. Chinese people down through the millenniums have fashioned jade into ritual items, daily utensils, beautiful jewelry and exquisite works of art. Archaeological findings reveal that, in prehistoric times, pieces of jade served important religious purposes. The ancient Chinese carved jade into small disks, called pi, to use when worshiping the God of Heaven. Four-sided jade containers known as tsung were employed to appease the God of Earth. According to the cosmology of the ancients, the sky was round and the earth square, which explains the logic behind the shapes of these two ritual objects. A legacy of all this is the popular Chinese saying recited by one of the market's vendors: "Jade is the essence of Heaven and Earth".

Jade carving, with a history of thousands of years, is perhaps the most refined of the Chinese arts. Dragons and phoenixes were the dominant classical motifs of the carvings. In Chinese society of bygone centuries, jade ornaments were worn in daily life as an indication of rank and social status. During the Chou (1122-221 B.C.) and Han (206 B.C.-A.D. 221) dynasties, the lustrous stone embellished imposing-looking swords and sheaths, making the weapons valuable gifts as well as implements of war. The literati of the Sung (960-1279) and Ming (1368-1644) dynasties wrote with elegant stationery items made from jade.

The households of nobles and wealthy families were filled with all sorts of ornately carved daily articles made from jade. These included hairpins, combs, walking canes, drinking cups and boxes for holding trinkets. Amulets made of jade were worn by the early Chinese as a means of warding off injury and evil spirits. And apparently the same holds true today. "Some people like to wear a jade bracelet because they believe it will protect them," says a young Taipei woman who was browsing at the market. "It is believed that if you have an accident, the bracelet will get broken but you will be spared from harm." One such mint-green object encircled her own wrist. She exuberantly offered a few insights into Chinese jade culture. "A mother often gives her young child a jade bracelet, one large enough to be worn for a lifetime. It is meant for protection and to remind the son or daughter of a parent's strong love," she says. "When a couple becomes engaged to marry," she continues, "the groom gives his jade bracelet to the bride and she then presents hers to him. This is a very special thing to do, because these bracelets come from their protective souls".

A publication by the governing council describes the market as "a place to contribute to one's peace of mind during leisure hours." This concept of inner tranquillity echoes in the words of perhaps the market's eldest vendor. "Jade is a stone very special to Chinese people. Jade means lifelong peace," explains 80-year-old Chang Tze-lang. He has been a jade merchant for six decades, including when he lived in the city of Tianjin on the Chinese mainland. Most of the sales at the market average between US$90 and US$150, according to Chang of the governing council. "But you can bargain here," he adds with a wink. Small jade trinkets can be scooped up for US$20, perhaps as little as US$12 if you heed Chang's advice and engage in strategic haggling with the vendors.

The council member himself operates a stand of mountain-color-jade figurines, which radiate in twilight hues of mulberry and light purple. "This variety of jade is very special because most people think that jade is only green in color," Chang says. He adds that his pieces come from the mainland China province of Yunnan and areas near there on the border with Vietnam. Many of the market's black-velvet-draped tables look like miniature worlds of green-pigmented tigers, oxen, rabbits, dragons, snakes, horses, rams, rats, monkeys, roosters, dogs, pigs, squids and lions. Most of these are auspicious totems in Chinese culture.

Meandering throughout the market also leads to discoveries of delicately carved tai chi wafers, smoking pipes and even mahjong sets. The land in the shadow of the elevated road is also home to jade figurines of Buddhist and Taoist deities and exquisite ceramic snuff bottles. The small white bottles are painted with scenes of Chinese courtesans in long flowing gowns and cranes flying over majestic mountains. The jade market is a great place for surprises. Meggie Chu, a Taipei resident browsing among the plethora of cultural items, was thrilled to come across a miniature-size pair of brass baby slippers. She had been looking for such a collector's item for several years. "In traditional Chinese culture, baby shoes symbolize purity because newborns are so innocent," she says. "Also, as there are two slippers, they represent two hearts beating as one, two minds sharing the same thoughts, a husband and a wife together as one love." Still, most visitors eventually make their way back to Tseng's display table to ogle at that plum-size pendant before they leave the market. The brilliant piece of jade stares back at them like the soulful eye of ancient Chinese society.