Shishui jade market

Calm Spirit/Ying Yu Jade China Trip 2006

Sihui Jade Market

Sihui City has a notice at the entrance that it is China's capital of jade crafts. Morning market begins at 3 am, it is an hour drive from our hotel. It's an outdoor market, row after row, table after table under the roof, and vendors on the ground and at tables outside. We were the only non-Chinese and drew a crowd every time I stopped to look at something. Americans are known for not appreciating really good quality jade and preferring what Chinese consider more poor quality, so that's what I was always offered. That kind of jade you see on ebay. I wear a jade bracelet I bought from Jackson in 2002 that is a very good quality with an imperial green vein in it, that Chinese consider the good quality, so I would have "good face" and they could see that I know what good quality jade is. As a side note, Jackson kept asking me if he could buy the bracelet back from me as that quality is more rare now and it has increased tremendously in value. Jadeite has doubled in price the past few months, so any jadeite you buy will go up in price and jadeite you have purchased has gone up in value. I sell some trade in and estate jadeite on my web site for lower prices that my regular inventory, and I realize that they should actually be higher priced. I didn't price it higher because it isn't new, and most of my customers do ask if my jade bracelets are new. Anyway, I didn't sell my bracelet back to Jackson. And I didn't see any like it, either.

Chinese people think all Americans are rich and should pay higher prices than Chinese people, so I always get the "foreigners" price which I know is very inflated. I watch to see what price was being offered to Chinese buyers so I know what price I should pay. I knew those eyes on the back and side of my head would come in handy! I was always looking at the price the Chinese people were being offered, then of course try to bargain that down

Buying jade required complete focus, it was too distracting to take photos as well as not appropriate. I have to look at each piece to check for cracks, check the coloring in bright light to make sure it's not color enhanced if I am buying only A quality jadeite, try to get a variety of sizes, and make sure that I am leaving with what I bought and that it wasn't switched during wrapping. There are people bumping into you all the time trying to pick your pocket as they know you have money to spend on the jade, trying to get in my purse and bag. It's cash only, Chinese money which is about 8:1 so that's a lot of Chinese money we carry when we shop.
It's not like browsing through a clean and safe store for a particular item. I had my customer's requests in mind while I shopped, but it's difficult to buy one of something a certain size, color, width, style when you're wholesale shopping. And with all the audience I attracted. When I left one seller, others would grab me. But not all the jade sellers would sell to me because I am not Chinese, they'd just ignore me. It wasn't a problem with all the hundreds of sellers and thousands of jade pieces.

The morning jade market was over at 9am, then the jade street market opened. It was less chaotic. And jade sellers in these kind of market have permanent plaques on their store if they are certified to sell A quality, and show their certificates. The overall quality is better in this market, less cracked jade. I try to buy several items from one seller to get a better price, and it is amazing that what you see on the selling table is the tip of the iceberg. When I look at bracelets, the seller often brings out bags of other items that weren't on the table. I purchased a lot of bracelets at this market. And since it was raining, I think I paid lower prices since there were fewer buyers shopping because of the weather. It's very euphoric to handle all the jade, but it's also exhausting to do all that bargaining. I know enough Chinese language to shop, bargain, and buy, but I really wish I had better language skills, and have a very difficult time comprehending. The goal is to get the "pengyou" (friend) price, with handshaking all around, and that rarely happens.

Sihui is a relatively clean city with light traffic. Many families have a jade manufacturing business in the home, specializing in carving a certain kind of item, or polishing. The equipment is expensive and takes a lot of space, and most people live in small Chinese style apartments, so they might own one piece of equipment, the most common being a tool to carve pendants. Then they will sell the carved semi piece at the jade market to a buyer who does the polishing, who will then sell the completed piece

Jackson and Kathleen shopping and buying jade in the Sihui Jade Market

Jackson and his brother have a jade carving shop where they cut and carve large boulder. They then take it to their other shop where the smaller pieces are carved. Some of the finished jade is made into jewelry with findings and sold in his retail store on the bottom floor. It's a family business that appears to be quite successful. He gets wholesale orders from all over the world. His specialty is nephrite, which is unique as most of the nephrite in China has been depleted and he gets his rough from Russia and European countries. It's a pretty stone, but isn't very popular in the US.

Lunch was very Cantonese style, a chicken chopped up and spread out in flight with the head looking up at us, a plate of pigeon also spread out in-flight, noodles, and some other unidentifiable foods. It takes skill to take a piece of chicken that's been chopped up bone and all and put it in your mouth with chopsticks and chew all the meat off then spit it out. Takes a long time to eat it that way, but you can play with your food and make it appear that you are eating it

The weather was truly miserable, raining and hot and we were soaked and exhausted when we returned to Jackson's jade shop. Before we left, he made tea "gong fu style", which is ceremonial and cultural, and a pleasure to participate and of course drink.

Jackson's staff tested the jadeite we purchased to make sure it was genuine jadeite and A quality. He also tested some jadeite bangles I brought with me that I wasn't sure about. One of them was purchased from a seller in Thailand and included a certificate that it was A quality, but although it cost nearly $1000, it was B quality and color enhanced. Unfortunately, most certificates issued in China and Hong Kong are fake and worthless, so I don't get certificates for each bangle because they have a bad reputation. I test everything, and offer certificates of authenticity for an additional price if the customer wants one. One of the jadeite bangles he tested for me because it looked so different from my other bangles, and I bought it as an estate item and trade-in. It was identified as very old jadeite, very high quality and natural color, and similar to Mings water jade, with a value of more than $10,000. Although I was happy to get that news, now I will never feel comfortable wearing it because I'll always be worrying about breaking it.

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