October 1, 1999

While living in Shenyang many of my friends told me of the famous jade Buddha in Anshan that was supposed to be in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest jade Buddha in the world. They also told me of Xiuyan, the famous city east of Anshan that was the center of jade mining for Liaoning Province. The jade Buddha was carved from stone mined at Xiuyan and sounded very impressive because it weighs in at about 260 metric tons.

The 1990 China Pictorial featured an article on the jade mined and carved in Xiuyan County. The centerfold was a rather brightly colored beauty about 5 meters tall, 11 meters long, and 6 meters thick. This was portrayed as the largest jade boulder ever found in the world. It was reported that the boulder weighed 260 tons.

During the 50 th Anniversary celebration of the People's Republic of China in October Yang Xu, Wang Ai Li and I took the bus to Xiuyan to visit the jade mine and jade market. We also planned to visit an isolated Buddhist temple to the north of Xiuyan at the base of Herb Mountain. On the return trip we would visit the famous jade Buddha at a temple in Anshan.

My friends wanted my advice concerning the purchase of jade in Xiuyan. They wanted to buy real jade at reasonable prices for themselves and their friends. I knew in advance that most of the material mined in Liaoning County was not jade but the softer Serpentine minerals that resemble jade. Nephrite Jade also naturally occurred in Liaoning Province and had been collected and used since the people of the Hongshan Culture lived along the Liao River and western Liaoning Province between about 3500 and 2200 BC. Most references indicated that the nephrite jade deposits of Liaoning Province were very limited in extent and most of the jade was collected from streambeds. None of the references mentioned large deposits of Jade that could be economically mined. Neither the jade Buddha in Anshan nor the jade of Xiuyan was mentioned in the Lonely Planet Guide for China.

We arrived in Xiuyan on October 1 and most stores were closed for the celebration of the 50 th anniversary of the Republic. On the main street there were a few street venders with various carvings and trinkets, but they were all obviously serpentine, agate and meta-jade glass. The most impressive sight in Xiuyan was the new jade museum. The building was of Mediterranean design with an impressive Romanesque doom. It looked oddly out of place like a UFO had landed on the edge of downtown Xiuyan.

We had a nice dinner at a local restaurant and watched the 50 th anniversary fireworks. The fireworks were very impressive for a small city. It was the largest fireworks display I had seen in my life. It was larger than the fireworks display I had seen in Washington DC in commemoration of the 200 th anniversary of the birth of the United States. Considering the size of Xiuyan it was difficult to imagine the extent of the fireworks display in larger cities like Shenyang and Beijing. The Beijing display would likely be a candidate for the Guinness Book for the largest fireworks display in history with China taking the national honors.

The next morning we toured the street market and the large jade market on the main street. Except for many banners extolling the glory and success of communism for the last fifty years, it was business as usual on the streets of Xiuyan. After touring the street market and the first floor of the indoor market I expressed my disappointment to my friends that everything that I saw was carved from serpentine minerals, meta-jade glass, or agate. As we worked our way up through the second and third floors my friends enthusiastically pointed out item after item that they liked and thought should be jade. We saw many of the sculptures of white and green cabbages like Yang Xu wanted to buy for the woman he worked for, but they were not jade.

The impatience and frustration of my friends grew each time I said no and pointed out the soapy feel and luster, and the coarse carving techniques used for the softer less durable serpentine minerals. Most of it was also a yellowish green to army green color more characteristic of serpentine minerals. We purchased a few trinkets of different colors and I demonstrated to them that they were easily scratched with a knife. The second and third floor revealed the same selection of mostly serpentine carvings with an assortment of meta-jade glass trinkets and pillow covers made of army green and cream serpentine.

My friends became a little confused and impatient with me when I continued to describe everything we looked at as serpentine minerals, meta-jade glass and some agate. I kept seeing some small pieces that might be jade, but on closer inspection they were not jade.

“Xiuyan is famous for jade. Surely there is some jade for sale in the markets,” Yang Xu protested.

“Remember the article we saw in the China Pictorial . They called the huge boulder in the picture jade, but it resembles the variegated serpentine material called bowenite we see in the large carvings in the stores. They may be just calling the bowenite jade. The bowenite found in Liaoning Province is either mined in the mountains or collected as gravel and cobbles in the river. Most of the river jade had a brown rind with a light colored opaque to translucent white, yellow and light green, but not usually the yellowish green to very dark bluish green interior. These pebbles and cobbles are nodules that weathered out of metamorphic rocks.

If there is nephrite jade in the region it will come from mostly blue schist that occurs in the region where nephrite is found. Those conditions may exist around Xiuyan, but the only material I saw that might be jade were small nodules in some of the large carvings we saw made from highly variegated serpentine rock. The serpentine minerals mined and carved here are often called Xiuyan yu or Xiu yu. This type of rock is softer and more brittle than nephrite so the carvings are large and coarse.”

“My friend bought some jade bracelets like these and one easily broke. Would that have been serpentine jade?” Wang Ai Li asked.

“Yes, nephrite jade may break, but not easily. I noticed some people digging in the river gravel when we entered Xiuyan on the bus. They may be collecting jade from the streambed. Unfortunately the only river stone I saw in the market were some large serpentine cobbles and boulders from the river with a brown weathered rind. These were mostly much darker and more yellowish in color,” I responded.

“I read in my jade book that there are two kinds of nephrite jade found in western China. Ziyu is collected from the rivers as gravel and cobbles. Shanyu is found as larger cobbles and boulders or from mines and shows less discoloration from weathering,” Yang Xu said.

We went back and negotiated the purchase of a nicely carved white cabbage for Yang Xu's boss. Yang Xu and Wang Ai Li bought a few pieces for themselves. We bought them knowing they were serpentine. The price was a third of what it would have cost in Shenyang.

“This afternoon we will visit the mine and visit the new museum before we leave on Sunday. Maybe our questions as to where the jade is in Xiu Yan will be answered,” I responded.

After lunch we took a rather bumpy ride up a river valley to the jade mine. As we neared the mine the road cuts began to show more and more serpentine minerals. The mine was near the summit of a small mountain at the head of a valley. The taxi dropped us off and we walked up a steep winding road to the mine. The road was paved in serpentine rubble and boulders of serpentine littered the hillside to our left. At the top of the hill where the mine was located there were piles of serpentine boulders. I spent some time scrambling over the boulders looking for signs of inclusions of nephrite but found none. Most of the boulders were yellowish green to white serpentine minerals like bowenite. I had seen large carvings in Xiuyan of a highly variegated rock with dark bluish green, green, brown, red and white minerals that may contain small nephrite nodules, but I did not see any of that here at this mine. We did see a huge hot-air balloon shaped formation of bowenite that was exposed in the side of a quarry. It was easily four times or more the size of the Buddha carving.

On the way back from the mine we stopped along the river and looked through the river gravel. We did not find any jade. It was too late when we returned to visit the museum so planed that for when we returned from Herb Mountain.

The next morning we went to visit Herb Mountain near Jiucai north of Xiuyan. Herb Mountain is small granite mountain with a Buddhist Temple at the base. It is one of the four famous mountains of Liaoning Province, but it is rarely visited because it is far from any large city. It is called Herb Mountain because a famous traditional doctor, named Sun Si Miao, diagnosed the condition and treatment of the wife of Emperor Li Shi Min in the Tang Dynasty. His recommendations were successful and the Emperor's wife delivered a baby boy.

The bus let us off at hotel and restaurant at the intersection of the country road that lead up to Herb Mountain. Herb Mountain appeared as rounded stone humps among the hills to the north. Like many famous mountains in China it had three distinctive humps like the Chinese character for mountain.

We walked several kilometers through the countryside to the Buddhist Temple. As we walked we took pictures of farms and scenery. It was harvest time and the workers were in the field picking the corn and neatly stacking the corn stalks. All the family members appeared to be involved in the harvest. They did the harvesting by hand in a rather through and methodical way. These methods probably developed in the lean times of China when food supplies were limited.

The Buddhist temple was interesting, but not unique in any way. There were three Buddhist priests at the temple and one student. The student was dressed in blue. The interesting thing about the priests and the student were their distinctly different personalities.

The Elder priest I called the impatient goat. When he entered the temple for prays he had an impatient erect gait and took the temple stairs two steps at a time. When we met him he appeared cool, had a distant look in his eyes, and he always hesitated before looking at us. His conversation with Yang Xu and Wang Ai Li did not have a welcoming friendly ring to it

The second priest was a young priest and likely a novice priest. I called the blind sheep because he seemed to follow and mimic the movements of the elder priest. He did not appear to have a vision of his own. When we were introduced he glanced at me only briefly. He appeared too preoccupied with reacting to the movements and gaze of the elder priest.

The third priest I called the unicorn. His moves were smooth and subtle and his manner very relaxed. When he joined the others in pray he walked slowly and flowed up the stairs unconcerned about following anyone. His gaze was constant and relaxed and when we met he gazed deeply into my eyes without staring. He seemed very friendly and helpful.

The student in blue I called the docile lamb seemed somber and unconcerned with his surroundings. When he walked about his gaze was slightly downward. He mechanically went about his duties of washing dishes and helping the elder priest with the prayer ritual.

After we visited the temple we walked up the mountain. On occasion we stopped relaxed, took photographs and made sketches. Various wild flowers were scattered through the woods and along the small stream. There were several varieties of mint, a small knotweed with a blue flower, and a colorful orange and yellow flower of the aster family.

I found an ancient broken millstone half buried in the ground with a lotus pattern carved in it. In the middle was a small pool of water gently reflecting the surrounding forest like a apiece of jade framed by stone. In the reflections of the forest shade I saw the subtle silky texture of jade.

To Yang Xu it looked like a well. He shared with us a line from a poem ‘Oh mother!' by the Chinese woman poet Shu Ting.

Oh mother!

My desire is a deep longing not flowing as stream or a waterfall,

but an old well lying tranquil under the branches unable to sing.

Further up the mountain we found a Taoist temple in a cave where an elderly Taoist monk lived in another cave nearby. He seemed to be a truly gentle innocent soul. He was 87 years old and he had originally moved to the cave in about 1959. During the Cultural Revolution he was told to go home when they closed the temples in 1969. He returned again in about1985 to live in the cave and care for the temple. On the return trip down the mountain he invited us to have dinner.

He served us noodles with too much oil as a gesture of friendship. We had a pleasant visit, played Chinese chess, and took pictures together. I was the first westerner he had apparently met. While we were there some of his friends and disciples stopped by to visit.

We walked back from the mountain to the main road and spent the night at the hotel next to the main road. The next morning we returned to Xiuyan and visited the Museum. The museum was apparently in the final stages of construction and had not opened yet, but they showed us around. There were huge three-meter statues of Manchu warriors in a dark green grainy bowenite guarding the front entrance, and numerous large carvings of ships, Buddhas and dragons lining the main hall. They were in the process of putting together several rather huge impressive panels with a mosaic carved from various serpentine minerals mounted in ornately carved wood. The museum was more likely going to be a luxury hotel and a tourist supermarket for the local stone. I did see some beautiful white translucent carvings and some river pebbles and cobbles carved out as Buddhas and dragons that were partially surrounded by the brown rind. The white translucent carvings are sometimes called Afghan jade.

After visiting the Museum we took a bus to Anshan to visit the huge jade Buddha. The temple they built for the Buddha was quite elaborate and new. The columns and panels on the walls were ornately carved and painted imitating ancient temples. The floors were polished and fastidiously cleaned by several workers. The Buddha was huge and very impressive as advertised, but it was carved from a boulder of variegated Serpentine minerals remarkably similar to the one featured in the 1990 China Pictorial .

I later read that a source of nephrite river jade is reported at Xiyugou or little jade gorge also in Xiuyan County west of Xiuyan, and at another locality north of Xiuyan on the Road to Heicheng. White and very light green nephrite jade is reported to have been found there. This site would have to wait for our next rip to Xiuyan.

Our trip to Xiuyan and the Buddha at Anshan brought some unexpected surprises. Besides buying interesting carvings our search did reveal jade in the little tranquil pool in the ancient millstone and the gentle soul living in the cave on Herb Mountain.