By now, there must have been thousands of books written by foreigners in China about China, and the huge majority are mediocre at best.
Two of the exceptions to this are Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporters Nicolas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s “China Wakes” (1994), which remains an essential read for anyone coming to China for a decent length of time, and the other is the subject of this review.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that it is a former BBC journalist responsible. This translates to no more clambering over sentences to figure out what the author is trying to say and a book that is as effortless to read as it is pleasurable.
Andrew Shaw lives in Suzhou and gave up his life in England to embrace jade, so much so that he is today the only foreign national-level Master Carver of jade in China.
Often thought of as something ancient and gathering dust in museums, in China, jade is a vibrant part of modern life. More jade has been carved this century already than in the rest of human history combined. For Chinese people, jade represents everything that is pure and noble. Jade Life tells Shaw’s story, and also the story of jade itself, its past and how it intertwines today with the lives of one and a half billion people.
His description of the jade industry provides insights into the hearts of Chinese people and also how they managed to turn a backwater state into a world superpower in less than three decades.
As a foreigner himself, Shaw picks up on the little idioms present in common vernacular that a Chinese would miss; “‘It’s made of Jade’. Chinese people always say this as though they think Westerners have no idea what jade is. This used to irritate me until I realized that virtually all Westerners have no idea what jade is.”
Of course, the fake jade market in China is staggering, and Shaw offers practical tips for identifying the real thing; “Both jadeite and nephrite are harder than steel so you should not be able to scratch them with a penknife. … Just toss the jade into the air and feel the weight of it. Jade is very dense and weighs more than other stones.”
While the value of jade in China has increased one thousand fold in the last 30 years, so too the sky-rocketing demand means that China increasingly looks beyond her borders to source her jade, providing Shaw with many a philosophical comment in the book’s closing pages; “The conditions for miners in Myanmar are appalling. The jade imported from Yemen is from a conflict zone. The jade from Guatemala is taken out of the country illegally. How long before people in China begin to object to the questionable way their favourite precious stone is acquired?”
Jade Life is published by Earnshaw Books, ISBN 978-9888552184.
