Often many friends ask: jade and jade are not the same thing? Actually, jade is a kind of jade, also called jadeite. Jadeite is composed of many tiny hard jade minerals, these small minerals are like small felt and interweave together, very dense and strong, making it hard and tough. Jadeite is green because it contains a kind of element called chromium, this kind of nature makes the color bright and beautiful, as if it has life. Many people call it "the king of jade".
Jade culture has a history of more than seven thousand years in China, began in the new Stone Age, its history as early as in ceramics, literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, silk, and other forms of Oriental culture, and it had almost no partition in seven thousand. Around the world, there are a few places, like New Zealand and South America, and there have been jade cultures in history, but the boom was over, except for China. It can be said that jade culture is one of the oldest and most representative of Oriental civilization.
In the eyes of westerners, jade is the most representative of Chinese culture and the most mysterious. It is difficult for them to understand that the worship of a certain natural material can last for thousands of years. They like to listen to Chinese friend jade have spiritual, jade can bless the master, to come to China, they could buy some jade, go back to tell the family friend: "we like diamond, Chinese people love jade."
What is jade? The eastern han xu shen has a clear definition of jade in the words: "jade, the beauty of stone, and the five virtues." That is to say beautiful rock, jade's five virtues, can be called jade. The Confucian school of the mainstream of Chinese culture has the highest opinion of jade, and thinks that jade has jade virtues. Only those lofty qualities of jade can become a gentleman and realize the highest state of man. Therefore, one definition of jade is not only the "beauty of stone", but also the "five virtues" of jade.
What is jade's "five virtues"? "Moist with warm, benevolence square also", gentle and moist have the luster, show jade benevolence shi enze, rich benevolence heart; "From the outside, you can know the square of righteousness," the jade has a high degree of transparency, and can be seen from the outside of the internal characteristic texture, which indicates that the jade is devoted to the heart of loyalty; "Its ShuYang, much smell, the party of the think tank", if the percussion jade, clear and melodious musical sound, and can spread to far away places, shows that jade has wisdom and communicated to the person all round; "Not to scratch and fold, yong fang also", with extremely high toughness and hardness, indicates that jade has superhuman courage; "Sharp and not the same, jie fang also", has broken mouth but the edge is not sharp, indicates that jade itself is clean, self-discipline but does not harm others.
About five thousand years ago) "hongshan culture", "liangzhu culture" to about five thousand three hundred to five thousand three hundred years ago, whether the hongshan culture in the north, and south of liangzhu culture, have unearthed a large number of jade products. When jade materials for hauling rocks, diorite rock class, rich decorative pattern, color bright, the jade is very soft, it has to do with the machining tools limited, now only to see the jade in the museum, the auction, generally called the ancient jade.
During the spring and autumn period and the warring states period, jade ware was developed as an important tool for ritual teaching, and the amphibole jade from kunlun mountain in xinjiang was widely used. From the tang and song dynasties to the Ming dynasty, the raw materials of jade were all used in the gemstone jade, which is also known as naphthalene. Hetian is the most important place of origin, so it is also commonly used to refer to soft jade, which can be divided into white jade, topaz, jasper, and black jade. Among them, white jade is most famous. If we only say "jade" now, it often refers to soft jade.