Shi Juping Zhou Qiao Chengyu

Every day at 10 a.m., Pingzhou Jade Street in the South China Sea began to lively. A variety of bracelets, beads, and rings are constantly being sold here, and there is a constant stream of customers and businessmen. The noise is basically going to be until 4:5 in the afternoon.

An outwardly unusual stone may end up becoming a worthy piece of jewelry on your body. This is what is known as the “crazy stone” of jade. This "crazy stone" not only makes people flock to it, but also becomes an important pillar of Foshan's cultural industry.

How was this "crazy stone" born? Why can it be so "crazy"?

Text / Reporter Pan Muying Chart / Reporter He Bo

Overview

Past and Present Life of the Jade Market in the 1980s

As we all know, the gorgeous jade early status in the court of honor, and later flew into the homes of ordinary people. According to Lan Lijun, vice president of Pingzhou Jewellery and Jade Articles Association, Foshan Aiyu has a long history and has been very prosperous during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Pingzhou, which is not the raw material production site for jade materials, can gather jade merchants in the world and become one of the four major jade products markets in China. This must mention three Foshan native jade merchants! As early as the mid-1970s, the three brothers Chen Guang, Chen Zuorong, and Chen Ruinan of Pingtou Pier Village established the Pingdong Pierhead Jade Processing Plant, which undertook the jade processing business of the Guangdong Arts & Crafts Export Corporation and became a Pingzhou jade ware. The "original ancestor" of the community.

In the early 1980s, a large number of private workshops emerged. Skillful craftsmen from Pingzhou personally went to the Sino-Burmese border in Yunnan Province to purchase Burma jadeite and sell it in a family workshop.

In the mid-1990s, the Pingzhou government invested a large amount of funds and manpower to turn Pingtung Avenue into Pingzhou-Jade Street. Small-scale family-style workshops gradually changed and shops were established. It also became Pingzhou’s characteristic economic industry.

Current situation

More than 8,000 people engaged in jade carving industry

Lan Lijun said that there are currently more than 3,000 manufacturers in the Pingzhou jade market, with nine jade tender trading fields, forming the nation's largest jade wool distribution center. The production and sales volume of light body jade jade products is the largest in the country. In addition to the traditional light body trim, there are numerous types of flower parts and ornaments.

According to the relevant person in charge of the Cultural Industry Branch of the Foshan Municipal Culture and Development Bureau, in 2013, the added value of the city's cultural industry reached 33.2 billion yuan (corporate unit), accounting for approximately 4.75% of the city's GDP. Among them, the manufacture of jewelry and related articles accounted for the first place in the cultural industry, with an added value of 5.82 billion yuan.

At present, there are about 8,000 people engaged in jade carving in Pingzhou, mainly engaged in general engineering. They are engaged in jade processing, carving and polishing.

Behind the interpretation

The original stone prices up to tens of millions of yuan

Thousands of original stones lie on a simple open-air plaza, and merchants gather in a lively exchange. The scene is spectacular. Each stone is marked with weight and price, a humble stone, and the price can reach 1 million yuan. These seemingly clumsy stones will be photographed by the buyers at a high price, and they will change their fate after they are cut. Some were carved into exquisite jade ornaments and then entered the pockets of collectors for a few hundred thousand yuan. Some may remain intact, but they will be sold at higher prices in the next auction.

Since 2003, the Pingzhou Jewellery and Jade Products Association has introduced jade jade auctions from time to time for Burmese jade, and this trade fair has been performed almost every month on the Juche Street in Pingzhou, and this has become the first stop for jadeite jade. How does a stone rise after being "turned over"? The reporter unveiled the birth of Jade.

According to Yao Zhoushan, a jade carving master in Pingzhou, the purchase of rough stone is the first step in creating jade. These stones are as little as one or two kilograms, and they can be as heavy as one or two tons. Auction prices can be as low as a few thousand dollars, or as high as millions or even tens of millions of dollars. Prior to this, many manufacturers went to Myanmar, Sihui, and Guangzhou to purchase jade raw materials in person, but they often had to take huge risks. "What kind of material is cut out after it needs to be judged by jade carving masters with rich experience." Yao Wangshan said.

After carving and grinding, the price is “inflated”

The original stone auctioned off will be continuously transported to the jade factory. The experienced jade carving master designs the original stone according to the color and material of the original stone. After being cut in layers, the mellow and transparent jade gradually reveals its true content and carries out one of the most important steps - carving. The jade carving master then polishes the sculpture and constantly modifies the design according to the jade condition. Liangrong District, a Chinese jade sculpture master, said that carving a work is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and it takes at least a month.

After finishing the light and polishing steps, a beautiful finished product was formed. After becoming a finished product, the price of rough stone has turned several times. After the finished products appear on the market, they will be sold to major cities such as Beishangguang, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and even to Southeast Asia. The final price has already been tens of times already.

"Gold is valuable, jade is priceless." The price of jade has already been "gold". Why can Jadeite be "expensive"? "High-end jade is a non-renewable resource, and the mining costs are increasing, and prices tend to have a lot of room for growth," said Liang Zhoulin, president of the Pingzhou Jewelry & Jade Association.

Second, Yao Wangshan believes that each piece of jade is naturally formed and therefore unique. Once again, jade sculptures have won the celestial carving skills and made jade more points.

Difficulties in the development of oversupplied buyers

The Pingzhou jade market has a history of nearly 30 years in Foshan and has become an important part of the Foshan cultural industry. However, in recent years, the jade market has also experienced an unprecedented test. Lan Lijun said that the downturn of the entire industry is a common problem facing the jade market. "Because jade is a luxury product, sales of luxury goods have fallen a lot in recent years due to the impact of the environment. The purchase of goods by dealers has been reduced, so the price of jade articles has also dropped slightly."

As the overall environment is sluggish, the phenomenon of “oversupply” has already appeared in the current Pingzhou jade market. As buyers are hard to find, many manufacturers and studios have “slacked” a lot, resulting in poor capital turnover.

Liang Zhoulin, president of the Pingzhou Jewelry and Jade Association, said that the association has already proposed that Pingzhou's jade dealers should diversify their business operations. They should not only do fine works, but also open up more popular products to attract wage earners and expand their sales channels.

Related suggestions

Department: Abundant Industrial Structure of Jade Street

Pingzhou Jade Street has officially been listed as a national 4A scenic spot in September this year. For the next development of Pingzhou Jade Street, the relevant person in charge of the Nanhai Tourism Bureau stated that the department will enrich the industrial structure of Pingzhou Jade Street and face more. The level of buyers and tourists, and increase the appropriate facilities for tourists to spend on restaurants and other facilities, such as hotels, style commercial street, etc., to promote better matching. At the same time, transportation lines will be appropriately increased in terms of transportation settings, such as bus lines, to improve diversified modes of transportation. Finally, it will also guide the association to further enhance the management service level of the Jade Street area, in addition to standardizing the trading order in the Pingzhou jade market, and at the same time improve the tourism management service level of the scenic spot.

Judging from the collection situation, it is also an art collection and is located in Taodu Foshan. Compared with the Shiwan pottery that has been accumulated for hundreds of years, the Pingzhou jadeite is much younger. There have been statistics from auction houses showing that at the 2012 Foshan art auction, Shiwan pottery accounted for half of the works sold. In other words, the collection of Shiwan dolls is still the most active. However, Jadeite is also a constant topic in the collectors' community. The high-end jadeite has great room for bullishness in the future, and the popularity in the collectors industry continues to grow.

At the same time, the number of jade carving masters is small, and it is equally important to cultivate them. It is understood that although there are about 8,000 people working in Pingzhou jade carvings, the majority of them are ordinary workers and they are engaged in jade processing, carving and polishing.

According to Lan Lijun, a conservative estimate of the capabilities of middle and senior technicians is about 100 people. It includes 14 senior technicians, 19 technicians, 10 technical experts from Guangdong Province, 8 masters of arts and crafts in Foshan, and 20 Chinese jade carving masters.

Identification: choose to identify the certificate more secure

Jade variety, ordinary citizens how to identify? Yao Wangshan said that the most sought after product in the jade ware is Burmese jade, which is usually called jade. Secondly, there are various jade articles such as Huang Longyu, Jinsiyu, Taishan Jade, and Nanhong agate.

According to whether the texture of jadeite is transparent or not, it can be divided into three species: glutinous species, ice species, and glass species, among which glass species are the most transparent, followed by ice species, and then glutinous species. The jade has many colors, among which the green and purple colors have higher prices.

The jade is based on whether the material is natural, semi-natural, pure artificial, is divided into A cargo, B cargo, C cargo three categories, of which the highest value of A cargo.

Yao Wangshan stated that due to the high degree of simulation on the market, ordinary citizens do not have many years of identification experience and it is difficult for the naked eye to distinguish between true and false.

Therefore, it is recommended that citizens choose to have a jade certificate with a certificate of authenticity at the time of purchase. The reporter noticed that in the Pingzhou Jade Street, there is the Pingzhou Laboratory of the National Quality Supervision and Inspection Center for Gemstones and Jade Products, which provides product quality certification for the Pingzhou Jade Market. After the citizens purchase jade, they can go to the scene to identify and print the identification certificate. Yao Wangshan suggested that if ordinary citizens want to start a jade collection, it is best to visit the market for a period of time and go for more. After accumulating a certain amount of experience, do not start trading.