Jade and Jade carving

This' the largest jade store in Asia,which houses thousands different kind of the jade pieces in it.The jade stuffs in this store are guaranteed by the government,they will write out the “quality guarantee card” for the items which you bought here.The customers could ask about 20%-30% off,it all depends on your bargining skills.Here are the stories of the Jade as followed:
Stones hold a special place in Chinese culture. That is evident from the various strange shapes of artificial rockeries, stones hewn from quarries that decorate scenic spots, jade ware and trinkets for people to appreciate and enjoy.
    Chinese stone culture started with people using stones, owning them, then appreciating and becoming connoisseurs.
    Primitive, or Stone Ages, could not give a better example of the relationship between primitive man and stone. Of all the easily-acquires materials, stone was the hardest. hence stones had wide use as tools, hunting weapons and so on. Making stone tools and weapons reflect the scope and degree of primitive people's understanding of stones. That was limited to stones' hardness and density of mass.
    Discovery of jade deepened people's understanding of stones. After using stone tools for many years people gradually classified them into different types, according to their "beauty". Hardness, mellow colour, soft feel and pleasant sound, were standards used to gauge the "beauty" of stones. All found expression in one type of stone-jade.
     Once the concept of the "beauty of stone" materialized, it became the aesthetic standard of stone's beauty. In the ages to follow, people indeed judged the degrees of beauty of all kinds of stones by jade.
    Jade began to be used in sorcery and ancestral sacrifice because of its fine qualities. Gradually, people began to believe that jade had divine and supernatural forces. People also believed that these forces would multiply when jade was made into wares and ornamental pieces of various shapes.
     Primitive people believed jade possessed supernatural forces. Since it was hard to process, jade ornaments can not be considered as merely beautiful pieces of stone. We should instead ask: Why were the jade ornamental pieces worn? who was qualified to wear them?
     These kinds of questions bring up the divine power of jade. We can be fairly certain that the jade poeces of the Liangdu Culture were not made for the sake of art. The jade pieces must have mysterious meanings and functions.
     During the period of the Liangdu Culture, we find in tombs that round flat jade pieces were placed on the chests of the dead; jade rings around the mouths of the dead. Evidently, primitives believed that jade could make people's souls immortal and preserve corpses.
     Of course, Jade pieces were also made for people to appreciate, analyze and enjoy, evidenced in the numerous jade trinkets in the tombs of the imperial concubines of the Shang Dynasty(16th-11th century B.C).
     In the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476B.C), people used jade because they compared human virtues to pure jade on the one hand and admired its beauty and fine textures on the other.
     When people linked human virtues to pure jade, they elevated its value. While they admired jade's beauty, they also played up the stone's fine material qualities. In the Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring States Period (475-221BC), and the Qin (221-207 BC) and Han (206 BC-AD 220), jade pieces were characterized by elaborately beautiful patterns, fluent lines and complicated images. All this was attempted to make jade pieces beautiful.
     There's a Chinese saying: "Jade is no more than a stone before it is chiselled, ground to an ornament." For a long time, the carving of jade articles has been an intrinsic part of Chinese culture, one reason that Chinese jade is renowned throughout the world. The Chinese people's love and use of jade dates back to ancient times. Flowers, birds, animals. vases. incense burners and human figures are the usual subjects of jade carving, but the most favorite subject is beautiful women from popular fairy tales and legnds. The most skilled craftsman can make the best use of the natural colour and the shape of the raw material. The best jade sculptures were belived to be those carved in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)
      Jade has been cherished by the Chinese as a symbol of many virtues. Its hardness suggests firmness and loyalty, and its lustre projects purity and beauty.
     Chinese jade appears in nature in great varirety. The majority of Chinese jade is used to make jade articles and objects, with a very small amount of the best jade being set aside for jewel manufacture. Jade can now be found in about 100 places in China. Of all the different types of jade, Nephrite is the traditional favorite of Chinese artisans.