sihui china jade capital

Calm Spirit / Ying Yu Jade China Trip 2009

Sihui - China's Jade Capital

An adventure day! China's "jade capital" is a remote city, about an hour and a half from Guangzhou. Last time we went, we hired a car and driver, and our English speaking assistant. This year we decided to go "local style", on the bus. The bus station in Guangzhou is huge! We arrived just a few minutes to catch the bus, which was quite comfortable, and didn't stop at every little town, so we got there in about 75 minutes, but we got off the bus too early and were at a secondary jade market that sold mostly the rough jadeite boulders. So we took a taxi to the main jade market. The driver quoted us a fairly high price to take us, so we figured it was far away, and when we finally all got in his taxi and held the doors closed, because they didn't close all the way, less than 5 minutes later we were at a jade market he told us was "cheaper" than the big one.

There were more jade shops closed than open due to the poor global economy

We ate lunch then walked to the main jade market. Last year every shop and stall was packed to the maximum, busy, and this year many shops were out of business. We wanted to check jade trends, and this was a good opportunity to see the situation in person. The US dollar is low against the Chinese RMB, and there is less jade because of the jade mines being closed down. Prices were almost twice as high as last year. And there were much fewer "fancy" jades, the unique and unusual colors. And fewer sellers would acknowledge "foreigners", and either would not deal with us, or completely ignored us. My assistant was surprised, and decided that having "foreigners' with her was a liability.

She wanted to buy another jade bangle for herself, and one for her mom, and was looking for a low Chinese price. But I am a good "Chinese" bargainer, and we got very good prices for her.

I truly enjoy people watching and observing daily life in China. After lunch, it's traditional to take a rest, a nap, and then play games in the street with friends. As we wandered around, we could hear the click of mahjong tiles, Chinese checkers from the back of the shops, and the middle of the streets.

Time to play Chinese checkers on the streets of the jade market. Few shoppers, business is very slow. This is one of several "jade streets"

And I truly enjoyed talking with my assistant, Angel. We both had many questions about daily life in each other's countries, and enjoyed sharing. Chinese people think we Americans are rich because we have more money, and she was amazed at what our cost of living is in the USA. The information they get about the world is controlled by the government, and she was amazed to hear the other side of the story, like about the octuplets. She said they saw the news about how the babies were born and all the team that helped with the birth, but never heard about the controversy following and when I told her, she kept asking if that was really true, like the fact she was not married, and had other children. And as we did business, she had not realized that being with foreigners was a liability, that there was a Western price, higher than a Chinese price. And she commented on my blonde hair, which is curly and stands out. Her comment was that maybe I am so busy I forget to comb my hair, and slightly skeptical that curly hair is somewhat stylish in the USA and I pay good money to get it to look like that!

Jade often is purchased directly from the carver in a "ring" and the entire "ring" is purchased wholesale so the buyer gets an assortment of coloring and sizes that are carved from the same jade rough. If you try to purchase individual jade bangles from the "ring", you lose your wholesale buyer status, and the price of just one or two becomes much more expensive. These are highest quality old mine "lao pit" jadeite

I helped my assistant buy her jade, and it was very sad that I didn't buy any, but the Lantos Law of 2008 prohibits importing jadeite to USA. So this was my last trip here, a chance to look, visit with a friend, but not buy.

But we found ourselves in an unexpected situation when we went to the bus station to return to Guangzhou. Because we got off the bus early before the main station, we didn't realize we had to purchase our return tickets in advance. We were ready to leave at 4 pm but couldn't get a bus ticket to leave until 6:30 although busses left every few minutes. We were "lucky" to find seats at the bus station right next to the toilets, unisex, filthy, wet, and odorous, and waited. And waited an extra hour as the buses were all backed up and delayed. The bus station is chaotic and the bus girls manually check each ticket and scan it, and know if someone is missing when the bus is ready to go, then search the station to find the person, so that's why buses get delayed. The organized chaos was amazing, and the women who scan the tickets and get everyone on the right bus are truly tough and awesome people. They are constantly having the "piao", ticket, shoved at them and when the bus is late everyone yells at them, and there is pushing and shoving to get to the bus, but they deal with it all, giving back what they get, and keep everything going as good as they can. I started to take a photo of these awesome women at work, but got a "look" that nearly cracked my camera lens! I do respect the culture.

We intended to be back around 5 PM, but got to our hotel at 9 PM, hungry, filthy and exhausted. The room we had at the hotel was a business suite, but the internet connection was very bad, and pages didn't load, and I waited a long time to check emails. I tried uploading the daily blog with photos and couldn't connect, and decided that I would give up, not even try to deal with the poor Internet connection and try again in Hong Kong. We were so tired it was difficult to do anything except fall into bed at end of the day. And with the 12 hour time difference, the body doesn't think it's time to sleep. But that's part of travel.

Next - Another day in Guangzhou