I was going to save the Lisa See novel "Dreams of Joy" to read next week while we are vacationing, but I couldn't resist. It picks up where "Shanghai Girls" left off, when Joy is a young adult. One of the characters is Dragon, which explains why she is.....I'm not going to give the story away! But a quote a quote is very descriptive of Dragon personality: "A dragon, believing he is just, will often bound headlong into a disasterous situation". Makes you want to read the book now, doesn't it! I couldn't put it down until I finished it. Good thing I also have some other books which I haven't read. We will be back to business February 5, and I will miss all the jade I play with every day. I'm going to wear a black jade bangle on my right wrist for protection for body, mind and spirit. And since I'm going to a warm location, will wear my old mine lao pit sister bangle, very yin light green and white with some precious deep imbedded green veins. And probably put a few other jade bangles in my carry-on just because I like them and would miss them if I didn't have them with me. I will also take a photo of all my jade bangles on my wrist, next to my Florida license plate on our car as proof that I own them and had them in USA prior to the Lantos law embargo on jadeite, so they don't get confiscated when I go through US customs. Actually, you are supposed to go through this big production of registering embargoed items prior to leaving the country so there is no problem returning with them, but I always take the photo that shows I have them in Florida, like with the car license plate. The jade will protect me, and itself, I am sure, and will keep my happy and balanced. January 27

I think I have the shipping figured out, so customers outside USA will pay less for smaller orders, but the EMS express mail charge will also automatically show so there is no confusion on higher price orders. And by doing this, I could actually lower the shipping for orders under $50 for USA customers. I tested it, and works for me, but let me know if you have any problems, especially if you are in international customer. January 25

We ship by USPS mail and the rates increased yesterday. I looked only at first class and priority domestic mail rates and decided that the change wasn't significant enough to also increase our standard shipping which usually covers the cost of international first class mail for items under $100. My first surprise was when I made the label for an international express mail, required for orders more than $100. It was $10 higher with the increase and I hadn't changed the shipping price on the web site. Then I noticed that first class shipping for international mail also increased and my actual cost is now more than the standard shipping for all mail. So I have to figure out how to make our shipping rates different for international and for USA shipping, which is very confusing for me. We will be out of town all of next week, and that's my first job when we return, so 1) if you are an international customer make your orders now while I'm actually losing money on shipping because prices will increase and 2)all customers will have to bear with me when I make all the mistakes I'm sure I will trying to get the new shipping rate tables installed correctly. I just want to sell jade. I don't like to spend so much time with all the "business" aspects that come with my sharing all this great jade with you! January 24

It's the year of the Dragon! Best wishes to you for a very happy year, much happiness, good luck and fortune, and health, longevity. You can read about the year of the Dragon, click here. January 23

We are going to take a week long vacation the end of the month, early February, so plan now to make your Ying Yu Jade purchases for Valentine's Day! Jade is always a thoughtful and cherished gift, and we have some heart jade items which are perfect for someone you love. And don't forget, you need to love yourself. This weekend if you purchase "kiss of blood" jadeite heart pendant, you can get a coupon to take off $10 on either green or "kiss of blood" coordinating earrings. The other special is a very classic symbol for couples/lovers, the mandarin ducks who mate for life, and are featured in a hightly detailed carved heart. Only 2 remain of those, and get a discount if you purchase now.
January 20

Today some major online sites like Wikipedia are "black" to protest the SOPA act that congress will vote on, Stop Online Piracy Act. They do not rely on sales, but they have links to products. The purpose is to stop online piracy by report sites that promote theft and piracy like music, media and fake brand name items to the internet service provider who will block the offending web site. For Ying Yu Jade, in theory this would be wonderful, because customers have told me they see my products and content on other web sites and think they are truly legitimate. But the reality is that if government gets involved it may be so costly to small web sites (like ours) to "prove" you are legitimate that there's no way we could afford to do that, ie you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent. Ebay, PayPal, Amazon are protesting, but not going "black" today, because they are some of the biggest offenders of selling and accepting payment for fakes and pirated items, so of course they do not want to see this SOPA pass. And I don't know how it will impact outside of USA, because for YYJ the biggest content theft comes from China people using my photos and materials. Web sites that accept payment through credit card processing companies recently were required to get an approved company scan their sites regularly to make sure they are secure for accepting payments. This has been one of the biggest scams because the result I see for the $100 month I pay doesn't tell me anything, but if I don't submit the report for this service, I will get dropped from my credit card company. I stopped accepting PayPal because they do not protect merchants. I have lost thousands of dollars through PayPal and the last time was when they approved a payment that was fraudulent, then froze my PayPal account with hundreds of dollars in it, then without notifying me took money from my bank account and caused me to be overdrawn, and this was three months ago, it is still not resolved and they want me to provide them with receipts for all the items I sell, which is none of their business, but they insist it is because I might not even own the merchandise I am selling. They are bigger than me, so they are winning. Paypal is the pirate, and there are more out there, but YYJ has always been an honest seller, and I would rather see SOPA pass to protect me, even if it hurts sites selling fakes like Ebay and their payment service, PayPal. I provide a great deal of information through blogs, videos, other resources and that's a mark of a very valid web site and trusted seller. Whatever you buy online, you must be careful, and you can use Ying Yu Jade and JadeBangleBracelets web sites as examples of trusted sites. January 18

I received a small shipment of Chinese jade items today, only 60 pounds and two big boxes. It includes my standard restocking jades, including jade ben wa balls, jade eggs, jade gua sha tools, and rollers. And of course Chinese jade bangles, more sizes of the "yang black" deep dragon green almost black jade bangles which is the best of all the Chinese jades. Now we have some smaller 53-54mm and larger 60-65mm in the black jade. And a box full of the Chinese "river jades", a Ying Yu Jade customer favorite. The natural colors come from minerals in the river water and this kind of jade is the most traditional and oldest jade used in China. I think we are the only jade seller outside of China that sells this kind of jade. I've seen some on the internet that at first glance looks like it might be, but on closer inspection it appears to be agate, glass or dyed material of some sort. I probably moved that jade around several times, and it sure is heavy. I managed to break most of my fingernails, and my hands have a couple of big bruises. I can understand that US customs needs to inspect what's in the boxes I receive, but those #*^!&# unspeakable ^&*@% idiots (a "nice" term I have for them) insist on cutting open the clear plastic bags that organize each style of egg and ball, and after cutting them open let them spill out all over the box, and don't repack them, they roll around and crack and damage other things in the box, and I'm sure they take a handful of them for their own use because my supplier packs tightly and my box comes loosely packed. And that's what hurts my hands: sorting out hundreds and hundreds of eggs and balls into their style, drilled or undrilled, and size. The inspectors seem to just cut them open with a knife just for the sake of cutting the bag. True %$#*^ unspeakable idiots! I would never smuggle in illegal embargoed jadeite, and risk losing thousands of dollars and the possibility of being sent to prison, and I doubt that's what they are even looking for. But I have heard from customers telling me their Burmese jadeite bangle they purchased from China or Thailand was confiscated and they were out whatever they paid. So when my hands heal enough to get some of these listed, you will have some new Chinese beautiful jade bangles to enjoy! January 16

Sometimes I get emails from women who tell me that their jade bangle hurts their wrist after they put it on and have been wearing it for awhile. They describe it as dull ache. They wonder if the energy is wrong for them, or if their body isn't accustomed to having the hard stone on it, especially on those sensitive acupuncture points in the wrist. I haven't had a good answer for them. Yesterday I was getting ready to go out to dinner with a group, was feeling a little run down, wondering if a cold was coming on, and didn't want to catch more germs or virus while I was out, so I slipped on a "black" deep deep green Chinese jade bangle on my "other" non-dominant wrist. It really hurt after I put it on, and my wrist ached so much I almost took it off during dinner. But then decided to leave it on all night which is a good way for your body to get used to wearing a hard jade bangle. This morning I woke up and felt great, no signs of a cold. There's a 12 hour time difference between Kissimmee and Beijing, so I chatted with my Chinese doctor friend early this morning, and when we were discussing health, told him about my jade bangle and aching acupressure points last night that felt fine this morning. He said that in acupuncture, gua sha treatment, the doctor knows he has the correct points that are causing body health problems when the patient mentions that it really hurts. So what's happening with the aching from the jade bangle is probably that it is touching acupuncture points in your wrist that need to be stimulated to improve your health, and the energy from the jade is exactly the energy you need. . But if the pain continues for more than three days, there's probably something else going on, maybe not the right energy for you. January 14

I've written about carved jade bangle bracelets in the past. but with Chinese New Year of the Dragon approaching, and carved jade bangles being so popular to wear, it's worth some more time. For the New Year I've been wearing the carved jadeite bangle at the bottom of this page. When I wrote about this jade bangle the general price on this was about $2500 but it's at least double now. One reason is that jade carvers do not want to carve unique design on good quality jade. You can read below about the black jade bangles I couldn't get made for me. Jade carvers have standard patterns for carving, and it's time consuming to do something original. Many of the jade bangles you see are commercial quality, not A grade jadeite. Firstly, the jadeite itself is expensive. Carved bangles often get broken during the process, so if best quality is used, it's lost when it's broken. That's why there's a lot of low quality color treated jade being used now, or a jade bangle that has already been damaged being carved to disguise the carving. You cannot expect a carved jade bangle to be "perfect" because it's stone, the carving is by hand, and part of what makes it valuable is the "mistakes", the small chips or nick, scratches because that proves it is carved by hand, and show it is natural, just like you don't expect a hand knit sweater to be "perfect". The imperfections are what make an original hand made item special. Of course, there are some carved A grade jadeite bangles that are "perfect", and you can expect to pay thousands of dollars for those. You can see some at the bottom of the first carved jadeite bangles page. All of YYJ is natural color unless otherwise stated in the description. If you cannot tolerate "imperfections", you probably won't be happy with carved Chinese jade or Burmese jadeite bangle bracelets. In fact, you will probably see "imperfections" if you look hard enough on all jade bangles. And that's truly what makes them special. December 10

Moving around all the jades is a big job, heavy work. It's like moving rocks! My husband was helping today pack up the jade three legged money toads and I told him the new little ones were almost sold out. He frowned, then told me he didn't like selling them. Of course I asked "why". He said those toads feel like "family", their appearance, the good quality, heaviness. We have a huge one inside our entrance door, facing toward the office and living area to bring in good luck, but the little ones that are on special today are truly wonderful. I had better keep an eye on the few remaining because he may get so attached to them and might "get adopted". December 9

I DO understand how difficult it can be to purchase online when you are not sure what you will actually get. I love essential oils and aromatherapy and have started buying essential oils to use personally. But there are so many sellers, so much price difference, they all claim to be 100% pure and natural. So I've been buying a few. Some of them smell really bad, or have no fragrance and I'm sure they are not as described. But there's one seller whose oils always have a "clean" smell. I can't explain it because I really don't understand how they are made. Her essential oils blend well with the fragrance free creams and oils I use them with, and when placed on a fragrance disc don't "stink up the house", but leave the air clean and blissfully softly fragrant. How did I choose to purchase from her? She had the usual claims about being 100% pure and natural, but also had a great deal of information on her web site, and wrote about how they are made, how to blend them, and lots of information about their use. A seller who spends that much time and energy with her products shows that she not only appreciates them personally, but will spend the time to inform potential customers. And that's what we do on Ying Yu Jade. It's difficult for you to choose jade by photo only, but we hope that with all the information and videos we provide, you will know that we love our jade products and believe in them enough to spend the time and energy to share our knowledge with you. December 8

If you signed up for the new mailing list, you will get an email from us this weekend. I wasn't expecting as many people to sign up for the mailing list because I get so many comments on orders requesting to NOT be on mailing lists. I will never share the mailing list with any other company. I don't have time to even think about selling mailing lists! Managing a mailing list is a big job: getting the information, putting it in a usable format, saving it twice so it doesn't lost or destroyed, and loading it onto the email service I'm going to use. I need to think of some specials and/or coupons to offer to mailing list customers this weekend. I'm going to a trade show today, I hope I get some special new items, or at least some good ideas of special offers for you! So if you signed up, be patient, you will get your offers soon. I hate it when my personal email box gets filled with "sales" from the same companies every day. How can it really be a special sale, if there's a sale all the time? Here at YYJ and JBB, our prices are NOT artifically marked up so we can mark them down for a "special sale". Our Daily Specials are real specials, and coupons are true discounts. January 6

I am so disappointed to get the news today that I won't be getting the deep deep green "black" jade bangles carved with dragons for Chinese New Year. I've been working on trying to get these for a year. We cannot find a jade carver willing to make an original design. I promised the jade carver a big order, then a repeat in green and white jade after the Chinese New Year. Jade carvers do not want to do original work anymore. They will use their standard tools for standard design, but the truly talented jade carvers are few and far between. Most of the carved jade and jadeite bangles these days are made for export and are commercial quality, most color treated and some not even real jade. The ones in our inventory are between 5-9 years old because we haven't found any really good quality jade with good carving. A customer asked me about the old style carving shown in the video on the carved jadeite bangle page, and I told her they would start at $8000. You can't get that gorgeous A grade jadeite AND the unique carving these days. So if you have an old carved jadeite or jade bangle, it's a treasure. January 5

If there's anything better than jade, it's tea! It's healthy for you, and benefits your body, mind and spirit. When I go shopping in a mall, I always look for a Teavana store, because a few sips of their sample tea gifts me a remarkable lift for the rest of my shopping. But so many teas! How to choose! One of the Daily Specials is a Chinese tea sampler. I've drank most of them myself, so only a few remaining. Six varieties of tea in very cute canisters. In fact, the tins are valued at more than the $8 DS price. When I was at Teavana, those tins were quite pricey. So get a blissful tea samples and some cute little tins at a great price today. Yes, the shipping charge brings the price up, but that's what they cost to ship. January 3

White jade has good energetic qualities for cold weather, like our January here in North America. Sometimes people suffer from seasonal affective disorder, tend to feel depressed during the long winter months. White jade balances that, as it has very spiritual qualities and will calm your spirit. If you love white jade but feel like you need a little more "yang", some green or charcoal veins will add healing and protection. If you thrive in the winter, you might prefer to wear a deep deep dragon green or black jade which is very protecting. I am wearing my regular jade bangle which is mostly white with soft green, a good quality lao pit old mine jadeite, but I'm also wearing a black Chinese jade bangle on my other wrist. My girlfriends also swear by the protecting qualities of black jade and keep telling me that as soon as they take off their deep deep green "black" jade, they have gotten sick. How do you know what's the best jade for you? If it makes you happy, feel good when you look at it, then it's right for you. January 2

Happy New Year! Again over the past month, my email boxes have been filled almost daily with special offers from online companies I have previously purchased from, and some of them are welcome, most are annoying because I am suspicious of "regular prices" when there are "sales" every day. The Ying Yu Jade email list has been around for almost 10 years and there are lots of old and no longer existent emails on it, so I am going to collect emails again because some of you want to get special offers and coupons from Ying Yu jade. I promise to send one out every month, not more than two, and you will get coupons only available to mailing list customers. If you would like to be on the mailing, here's an easy form to complete and submit, click here

The Calm Spirit / Ying Yu Jade complete January newsletter is available online now, click here. This month features Chinese medicine wellness information for January regarding balance of body, mind and spirit. There is information about what kind of jade to wear this month if you wear jade for your health, and more. January 1

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