Is jade from Nanyang, Henan really so famous?

One out of three parts of the world

The world is full of "jades" in Nanyang, Henan

April 28, 2004 Zhejiang Online News Website

Zhejiang Online Nanyang News (Special Correspondent Xu Xiaofeng): One-third of the people doing jade business nationwide are from Nanyang, and there are as many as 300,000 people engaged in jade carving crafts; Nanyang jade carving products reach more than 10,000 categories In terms of variety and product quantity, ornaments account for more than 90% of the country's products, pendants account for about 40% of the country's products, and tea sets, wine sets and musical instruments are unique in the country. In the words of local people in Nanyang, Nanyang is one of the best in the country's jade carving industry.

One-third of the people in the jade business nationwide are from Nanyang. Someone once conducted a survey and found that nearly half of the flights from Nanyang and Zhengzhou to Guangzhou were from Nanyang who were in the jade business; from Zhenping County, the "hometown of jade carving" with the largest development of jade carving in Nanyang, to Kunming, Shenzhen, There are more than 100 buses in dozens of large and medium-sized cities such as Hangzhou, Qingdao, and Urumqi every day, and 80% of the passengers on the buses are Nanyang people who are engaged in jade business.

In Beijing alone, there are more than 1,250 Nanyang jade carving merchants. In prosperous neighborhoods such as Wangfujing, Xidan, Cuiwei, and Hualian, in some large and well-known restaurants, hotels, at the Capital Airport and many tourist attractions, most jewelry stores are opened by Nanyang people; the " "Chenggu Zhai" and many businesses in the Arts and Crafts Building, as well as "Baozhiyuan" and "Dongfang Xiaoming Company" are all run by Nanyang people; in Panjiayuan's flea market, there are hundreds of jade carving stalls with ten stall owners. Eighty-nine of them are from Nanyang. Over the years, many Nanyang jade carving operators have become billionaires.

The Chinese nation regards jade as its beauty, and its jade culture has a long history.

Xu Shen of the Han Dynasty said in "Shuowen Jiezi": "The beauty of jade has five virtues. The color of jade is warm, moist and lustrous, and it is also benevolent. According to the texture, you can know the middle from the outside, the outside and the inside are the same, and the heart is magnanimous. It is the virtue of righteousness; the sound of jade is stretched and clear, which is the wisdom and virtue of being rich in wisdom and foresight; jade is hard and would rather break than bend, which is also the virtue of courage; honesty and integrity are also virtues. "There is an ancient saying: "A gentleman must wear jade." As the saying goes, "A gentleman never leaves his body without reason."

It can be seen that jade is born by "capturing the aura of heaven and earth, and collecting the essence of the sun and moon". Jade, in our country's thousands of years of culture, occupies a lofty position in the hearts of every descendant of the Yan and Huang Dynasties and the sons and daughters of China from ancient times to the present. She is a symbol of holiness, nobility, wealth and civilization. As a highly developed area of ??civilization in the Central Plains, Nanyang has a long history of jade culture.

According to verifiable historical records, Nanyang jade carving began in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, flourished in the Han, Song, and Yuan Dynasties, followed in the late Qing Dynasty, and flourishes today.

In the Han Dynasty, Nanyang jade had been mined and carved in large quantities. At that time, Shagangdian at the foot of Dushan Mountain was a nationally famous jade carving street, with two rows on one street and numerous workshops, and the sound of jade carving could be heard all the time. Zhang Heng, a scientist and writer of the Eastern Han Dynasty and a native of Nanyang, praised the beautiful jade in his famous literary article "Nanyang Fu": "Its treasures are rare and strange, and the gold-colored jade is pure, and the pearls glow at night...".

According to "Nanyang County Chronicles", Dushan jade was officially mined during the Western Han Dynasty. At the foot of Dushan Mountain, there are still the ruins of the "Yujie Temple" in the Han Dynasty.

The "Shui Jing Zhu" written by Li Daoyuan of the Northern Wei Dynasty also contains: "There is a jade mountain in Nanyang... and jasper comes out of the mountains." During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, Nanyang jade wares were mainly utensils for daily use and decorations for appreciation. host. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the jade industry in Nanyang became even larger. Jade merchants from all over the country gathered in Nanyang, which led to the rapid development of the jade carving industry in Nanyang.

From the "Yujie Temple" at the foot of Dushan Mountain in the Western Han Dynasty to the current "Shifo Temple" in the famous jade carving town in Zhongzhou, the jade carving industry has flourished for thousands of years, forming a rich, extensive and profound Nanyang jade culture , has given birth to an endless stream of Nanyang jade carving artists with superb skills, passed down from generation to generation.

Since the reform and opening up, the Nanyang Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government have sized up the situation, seized the opportunity, and made the jade carving industry, which integrates production, processing, and sales, the city's characteristic economy and pillar industry, and worked hard to build it. Since 1993, Since then, the annual International Jade Carving Festival hosted by the Nanyang Municipal People's Government or the Zhenping County People's Government has strengthened contact and communication with the domestic and foreign jade carving industries and accelerated the rapid development of the jade carving industry.

When it comes to the development of the jade carving industry, the first thing Nanyang people are proud of is Nanyang's "treasure of the town" - "Nanyang Single Jade".

Nanyang Duyu is one of the four famous jade in China. It is located in Dushan, 8 kilometers north of Nanyang City. It was first collected during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. It is available in red, orange, yellow, green, green, blue and purple. There are more than 70 natural blended color types, with bright and rich colors, colorful, dazzling, mottled and colorful. It has high hardness, good luster, fine texture and high transparency. It is a good raw material for carving jade, which is comparable to jade. It is called "jade gem" and has the reputation of "Nanyang Jade".

The "Great Wall" carefully carved by Nanyang jade carving masters using Nanyang jade is known as a national treasure and is displayed in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

The rare treasure "Nine Dragon Sundial" presented to the Macao Special Administrative Region by Henan Province in 1999 is carved from a complete piece of high-quality Nanyang Dushan jade. The design style of this handicraft is novel and unique. It is cleverly conceived and ingenious. It makes clever use of the various colors unique to Nanyang Dushan Jade and uses various carving techniques such as relief, hollowing, and line engraving to make this product smooth in line and both physical and spiritual. , majestic and majestic, the nine dragons are coiled and made according to the materials, and the beautiful colors are used skillfully. The image is vivid, as lifelike as coming from nature. At the celebration of the return of Macao, the unique artistic charm of this rare treasure was praised by guests from all over the world.

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However, Nanyang people are not just satisfied with their own unique jade. In the processing of jade carving, the raw materials used are very rich. In addition to single jade, there are also Liaoning Xiu jade, Burmese jade, Afghan white jade, Canadian jasper, Russian white jade, as well as coral, agate, hibiscus stone, crystal stone, amethyst stone, ruby ??sapphire, etc. More than 150 types of jade.

Jade carving is a category of folk arts and crafts, and each of its finished products has a certain cultural and artistic content. A large number of accomplished jade carving talents have injected cultural color and unique style into Nanyang jade carving works.

According to the authoritative certification of the national gem and jade industry, Nanyang jade carving brings together multiple cultures, draws on the strengths of hundreds of schools of thought, and integrates the majestic craftsmanship of Beijing and Tianjin, the beauty of Suyang craftsmanship, the delicacy of Guangdong and Fujian crafts, and the delicacy of Yunnan crafts. The roughness of Burmese craftsmanship fully demonstrates its unique artistic charm. The character category includes lifelike figures, Buddha statues, characters from Chinese and foreign classics, myths and legends. Flowers and birds, there are birds, insects and flowers of different shapes. The landscape category includes landscapes, gardens, bonsais, pavilions and pavilions with unique and graceful shapes. In the furnace category, there are various ingenious furnaces and tripod vessels. Beasts, creatures with lifelike forms in nature. Jewelry includes jade, agate, natural crystal and various rings, bracelets, necklaces, pendants and other artistic varieties. In addition, the newly developed series of tea sets, wine sets and jade chimes, jade bells, jade flutes, jade flutes and other musical instruments are unique in the country, adding new connotations to the jade carving industry. The comprehensive range of Nanyang jade carvings are colorful, exquisite and clear, all showing the brilliance of Nanyang jade culture.

While inheriting traditional craftsmanship, Nanyang's jade carving art masters continue to introduce, absorb, and innovate artistic design and carving techniques, so that Nanyang's jade carving craftsmanship continues to produce stunning works.

The giant Nanyang jade carving "Wolong Emerging from the Mountain" completed in 1993 weighs 3.8 tons, is 2.5 meters long and 1.6 meters high. It combines the abstract exaggeration and other processing methods in Nanyang Han portrait stone art with modern design techniques. Combination, taking advantage of the rich color and freshness of jade, rigorous layout, clever use of pretty colors, and fine carving, the green is designed to look like pines and cypresses, the red is designed to look like a burning fire, and the white is designed to look like white clouds and flowing water... the characters , animals are cleverly distributed in this beautiful Wollongong, and the three stories that happened in Nanyang in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms": "Xu Shu recommends Zhuge", "Three visits to the thatched cottage" and "Burning Bowang Slope" are vivid and realistic , making people feel like they are there personally. The whole work is majestic and exquisite. It is indeed an artistic treasure among jade carvings.

Up to now, Nanyang jade carving art masters have designed and carved more than 40 pieces such as "Wolong emerging from the mountain", "Nine dragons turning flowers", "Deer and crane spring together", "Great Wall", "Nine dragon sundial" etc. The fine products have won national and provincial awards, and many products have been collected by the Palace Museum, art galleries and collectors as rare treasures.

Driven by the radiation of leading enterprises and leading products, under the influence of the long history of jade culture, and under the technical guidance of a large number of outstanding talents, Nanyang's jade carving industry has gradually matured and formed a scale. Large and small processing enterprises such as hundreds of people, dozens of people, a few people or even one household have developed rapidly. In just over 10 years, various processing enterprises have grown to more than 11,000.

"There are machines in every village, and every house is filled with the sound of jade carving." This is a true portrayal of Shifosi Town, Zhenping County, known as "a famous town in Zhongzhou" and "the hometown of jade carvings". In recent years, the town has 16 professional jade carving villages, 4 professional markets, more than 20,000 employees, more than 4,000 jade carving processing enterprises (households) of various types, and an annual production and sales of more than 13 million jade products of various types, with an output value of 5.6 billion, becoming the largest jade carving processing and sales distribution center in the country.

Industry supports the market, and the market drives industry. In order to form a one-stop industrial system for processing and sales of the jade carving industry, Nanyang has successively opened a jade street in Nanyang City, built a jade carving world in Zhenping County, and built Hezhuang Ornaments Market and Yushu Market in Shifosi Town. There are four major jade carving professional markets including Zhuang Jade Bracelet Market, Shifo Temple Jade Agate Boutique Market, and Jade Carving Bay Market.

Zhenping Jade Carving World, Asia’s largest professional jewelry and jade market, was built in 1992 with a total investment of 6.5 million yuan. It covers an area of ??32 acres and a construction area of ??24,000 square meters. It accommodates more than 800 merchants. Every day It receives thousands of merchants and has annual sales of more than 240 million yuan.

The Shifo Temple, the county seat, and the U-shaped avenue of Chaopi Liangtang built in 1997 connect the jade carving streets of 16 jade carving professional villages on both sides of the avenue. More than 4,000 large, medium and small jade carving processing companies Enterprises and more than 5,000 operating stores form a prosperous jade carving processing and production chain.

Jade Carving Bay was built in 1998 with an investment of more than 100 million yuan. It covers an area of ??nearly 2 square kilometers and integrates tourism, shopping, and leisure culture. The natural landscape and cultural landscape here complement each other. The industrial area with an urban atmosphere, the artificial lake with rippling blue waves, the lush green corridor, the flying dragons and the Rainbow Bridge, and the European-style jade carving commercial buildings constitute the beauty of Jade Carving Bay. panoramic. At present, Yudiao Bay accommodates more than 400 companies, 1,200 store stalls, receives more than 5,000 tourists from outside the area every day, and has a daily turnover of more than 2 million yuan.

When you have a market, you just invite customers in. The open-minded Nanyang people are not satisfied with the status quo. They have set their sights on large markets at home and abroad, and want Nanyang jade carvings to be sold all over the world.

Relying on the first-class quality of the products, Nanyang sells batches of jade carving products to the United States, Japan, Germany, Southeast Asia, etc. through various forms such as port re-export, self-operated export and setting up sales windows abroad. With more than 50 countries and regions, the annual export turnover reaches more than 800 million yuan, making it the largest production and export base of jade carving handicrafts in the country.

In China, there are more than 100,000 operators of Nanyang Jade Carving with more than 5,000 sales stores in all large and medium-sized cities, many tourist attractions and towns, allowing jade carving products to continuously enter the domestic market, with an annual sales output value of More than 1 billion yuan.

In the history of the development of today’s jade carving industry, it can be said that Nanyang jade carving is one of the best in the world! Nanyang jade carvings are indispensable!