In China, jade is generally associated with beauty and excellence. When describing a person’s appearance, we often use phrases like “floral features and jade-like complexion,” “as beautiful as a flower and as delicate as jade,” “gracefully poised and elegant,” or “round as pearls and smooth as jade.” Even in the "New Accounts of the World," when Ji Kang was drunk, he remarked that someone’s demeanor was like a jade mountain about to topple—“Ji Shuye’s character was unrestrained and independent, like a solitary pine standing tall; his presence was majestic and imposing, as if a jade mountain were on the verge of collapse.” When describing a person’s moral character, we say they are “gentle and soothing like jade” or “pure and immaculate as ice and crystal.” Ancient teachings instruct us: “Adversity and hardship will make you stronger; stones from other mountains can be used to polish jade.” Just as jade cannot become a fine piece without being carved and polished, it is better to shatter into pieces than to remain whole but worthless.

In his "Shuowen Jiezi," Xu Shen stated: “Jade is the most beautiful of stones.” From a mineralogical perspective, jade is simply a naturally occurring stone. Jade deposits are widely distributed across the globe, found in countries all over the world. Russia boasts abundant jade deposits as well. So why is it that only China’s jade culture has endured for millennia and continues to flourish? After all, no matter how exquisite jade may be, it’s still just a kind of stone—so why is that? Chinese people What is it about an inextinguishable love that has endured for thousands, even tens of thousands of years, right up to the present day? In the West, there’s an almost obsessive fascination with gold. Chinese people But I'm glad. Love jade As the saying goes: “Gold has a price, but jade is priceless.” The reason for this lies in the fundamentally different cultural origins of the East and the West. In this article, the editor will delve into China’s jade culture in detail— a culture that everyone should take the time to savor and appreciate deeply.

China’s origin is a culture of power; the West’s is a culture of wealth.

(Liangzhu Culture Jade Cong)

During the Shang Dynasty, jade was exclusively reserved for royal nobles and served as a symbol of royal authority; many pieces were ceremonial objects. Here, "li" does not refer to politeness but rather to social hierarchy. In ancient times, jade was indeed a symbol of royal power—indeed, in early Chinese characters, the characters for “jade” and “king” were originally written as the same glyph. (The top two horizontal strokes of the jade character are relatively close together, whereas the three horizontal strokes of the king character are evenly spaced.) Jade was used extensively in rituals and served as an important ceremonial object. For instance, in the Liangzhu culture, jade cong, jade yue, and jade bi were widely employed as ritual implements. Whether it was the Hongshan culture in the north or the Liangzhu culture in the south, the jade artifacts carved during those periods were extraordinarily exquisite. Take, for example, the jade pig-dragon and the jade cong—under the rudimentary conditions of the time, these intricate pieces required painstakingly long hours of meticulous carving and polishing. The process involved wrapping animal hides around sand and using them to carefully grind the jade surface, a task that could take several months—or even up to a year.

Jade, this beautiful stone, was considered by our ancient ancestors to be a gift from heaven. It is believed to be spiritually attuned and capable of connecting earth and sky. For a long time, it was monopolized by the royal family and the aristocracy, and commoners were strictly forbidden from having any access to it.

(The British Royal Scepter)

In the West, the worship of the sun dates back to very early times. In their view, only the sun can bring light to humanity, and like the sun, gold also radiates a mysterious glow and vibrant colors. Thus, they believed that gleaming, radiant gold was the embodiment of the sun itself—acquiring gold meant acquiring the sun itself, and with it came supreme power and wealth. That’s why the West adorned palaces with precious gold, wore yellow robes, and carried golden scepters (golden scepters are rarely unearthed in the Central Plains; only at Sanxingdui have they been discovered). Nomadic peoples often cherished gold, and tombs of these groups frequently contained gold ornaments.

The moralization of jade

The enduring vitality of jade culture stems from its moralization—specifically, the Confucian emphasis on imbuing jade with numerous noble qualities beyond its mere physical attributes. Confucianism advocates for governance through virtue, and jade has emerged as its ideal spokesperson.

The "Book of Rites" records Confucius as saying: "Jade is warm and lustrous—this embodies benevolence; it is dense and firm yet yields to pressure—this signifies wisdom; it is upright yet does not wound—this represents righteousness; when hung down, it hangs with grace and dignity—this epitomizes propriety; when struck, its sound is clear, resonant, and lingering—this culminates in harmony and joy; flaws do not obscure its beauty, and beauty does not hide its flaws—this exemplifies loyalty; its radiance shines forth in all directions—this embodies trustworthiness; its aura resembles a pure white rainbow—this reflects heavenly virtue; its spirit manifests itself in mountains and rivers—this embodies earthly essence; its exquisite form and exceptional quality embody moral excellence; and all under heaven hold it in high esteem—this is the Way. As the poem says: 'Thinking of the noble man, his warmth is like jade.' Thus, the noble man esteems it highly." Here, the Confucian moral outlook is closely linked to the qualities of jade—even though some aspects may seem forced and artificially stretched.

As a gentleman, possessing these virtues is his lifelong pursuit. The qualities embodied by jade are precisely those that gentlemen should emulate and learn from; hence, the ancients said, “A gentleman measures his virtue against jade, and a gentleman never parts with jade without good reason.”

China’s jade culture is deeply imbued with the imprint of ritual and music culture. In this cultural framework, aesthetic art is never an end in itself; rather, it serves as a means—a pathway—for cultivating the ideal personality. A person endowed with such an ideal personality is known as a junzi. When China assesses whether something is beautiful, it first considers whether it is good. Among truth, goodness, and beauty, it places the greatest emphasis on goodness. Chinese people While Chinese people value beauty and goodness—both of which, in oracle-bone script, are associated with the character for “sheep”—and consider sweetness to be a mark of beauty, Westerners, on the other hand, place greater emphasis on beauty and truth. Westerners value beauty, whereas Chinese people value character and virtue embodied in objects.

For example, Westerners love roses because of their vibrant colors and beautiful forms. Chinese people admire bamboo because of its humility, hollow interior, and upright character. We appreciate the lotus flower not so much for its outward appearance but rather for the noble qualities it embodies—its ability to rise above the mud yet remain unstained.

From this, we can discern the “analogy and image-based” thinking of China’s ancestors. Tens of thousands of years of foraging life and ten thousand years of agricultural life have made the Chinese people’s sensory organs exceptionally sensitive and keen. Upon seeing an object, they immediately associate it with what it represents—such as, upon seeing a plump, well-fed sheep, they instantly think of beauty. In oracle-bone script, the character for “beauty” is depicted as a large sheep. Looking at China’s jade culture, we can gain insight into the nation’s collective character.

(Oracle bone script for "beautiful character"—composed of "sheep" and "large")

Abstracting principles and truths from images. Pay attention to holistic intuition and insight—Chinese people place particular emphasis on “wu,” or intuitive understanding. Many Buddhist verses are rooted in “wu.” This mode of thinking is self-centered, where the process of acquiring knowledge blurs the boundary between subject and object. When it’s said that jade possesses five virtues, does this refer to humans or to jade itself? The distinction between human and jade becomes blurred.

This mode of thinking does not follow a clear logical form; unlike Western logical thinking, it is centered on imagery-based reasoning. As a result, Chinese people are particularly adept at using intuitive thinking to express their ideas—this can be frequently observed in works such as the I Ching and the writings of Laozi. The Chinese way of thinking, which involves drawing analogies and selecting symbolic representations, is rooted in a conceptual framework of unity between heaven and humanity. By contrast, since ancient Greece, Western thought has consistently maintained a dualistic view of heaven and humanity, advocating that the universe and nature should be seen as objects for human conquest. In China, however, humans are not external to the universe, nor is the universe external to humans. The purpose of human life lies not in conquest but in universal love for all things—a harmony between heaven and humanity. As Zhuangzi put it: “Heaven was born alongside me, and all things are one with me.”

The West also has a gemstone culture. Westerners are fond of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other precious stones. Western gemstone culture tends to be driven by rationality, placing great emphasis on the mechanisms behind their formation and their structural beauty. It relies more on logical thinking and less on imaginative or figurative thinking; it involves more scientific exploration and less humanistic reflection. When studying gemstones, Westerners focus primarily on their crystal structures, internal compositions, and material makeups—approaching nature from a natural and scientific perspective, seeking scientific knowledge. This is a purely rational culture, a culture devoted to the pursuit of knowledge. In fact, they don't really have a "culture of stones"; what they have instead is "stone science"—geological and mineralogical science.

The Aesthetic Tendency of Chinese People as Seen Through Jade Culture—The Beauty of Subtle Elegance

China has historically regarded jade as the ideal of beauty—the beauty that “reaches ultimate splendor yet returns to simplicity.” It can be said that the beauty of all art forms, and even the beauty of character itself, all tend toward the beauty of jade: a radiance within, yet one that is subtly restrained—a brilliance that is both supremely dazzling and profoundly serene. (Zong Baihua, “A Stroll Through Aesthetics”)

Chinese people pursue the subtle elegance of jade rather than the dazzling brilliance of gemstones. Yang Boda, a researcher of jade at the Palace Museum, says: “In ancient times, when people were using stone tools, they discovered that jade was superior and more aesthetically pleasing than ordinary stones. Jade is modest yet resilient, warm and lustrous. It’s neither as crystal-clear and transparent as a gemstone—allowing one to see right through it at a glance—nor as opaque and rigid as ordinary stone. Instead, jade possesses a subtle inner depth, vibrant vitality, and a profound spiritual quality. These qualities resonated deeply with the inner aspirations and inner meanings held by prehistoric peoples, and they were carried forward into the civilized era by the Huaxia nation. Jade is precisely the material embodiment that our ancestors found most capable of representing the Chinese nation’s character, culture, and philosophy. That’s why Chinese people tend to favor subtlety and harmony—being introverted in nature—while Westerners prefer transparency and clarity at a glance—exhibiting an extroverted disposition. This is precisely the greatest cultural difference between East and West.”

Jade typically features soft, neutral hues—subtle and subtly rich—causing minimal light stimulation and exuding a delicate elegance and serene tranquility reminiscent of “Peach River still damp from last night’s rain, willows lush green with morning mist.”

After all, jade is a rare resource, and the Chinese nation has long been searching for substitutes for jade. Among the Chinese, especially scholars and literati, there has always been a deep affection for jade. This fondness found its reflection in porcelain production: Chinese porcelain came to embody an aesthetic preference for “jade-like” beauty—using monochromatic glazes and plain-colored wares to capture the warm, lustrous elegance of jade. Even when colored decoration was employed, it predominantly featured red, yellow, and black; green glazes were used during the Han Dynasty. After painstaking exploration, the perfect substitute was finally discovered—the porcelain—a breathtakingly beautiful creation born from the alchemy of fire and earth.

Chinese people love porcelain, while Westerners prefer glassware. Why is there this difference between East and West? Mr. Ma Weidu offered an explanation from a practical perspective: Glassware conducts heat quickly, is fragile, and its broken edges tend to be sharp. Porcelain, on the other hand, does not have these drawbacks. Porcelain provides excellent thermal insulation, and even if it gets damaged, it can be repaired using the traditional technique of "kintsugi" (now a craft that’s becoming increasingly rare). From a cultural and aesthetic standpoint, porcelain has a warm, gentle quality and a delicate luster—it’s translucent yet not fully transparent, perfectly aligning with China’s preference for subtle and restrained beauty.

The beauty of subtlety seeks the faint glow of jade, the warmth of wood, the clarity of mountains and waters, and the gentle grace of women—aiming for a state of profound stability, serene calmness, and peaceful tranquility. This resonates with our way of life. The Chinese nation has long lived at a leisurely pace, following the natural order of the four seasons: rising with the sun and resting at dusk, content with just enough to sustain life yet eschewing extravagance. In contrast, the nomadic peoples of the West yearn for dynamic beauty, for the thrill of movement and motion—a personality that is bold, passionate, and unrestrained.

　Finally, Cang Yu would like to emphasize that traditional culture needs to be passed down—let’s safeguard our jade culture!