Hi there, I'm in China and just back from for me now a yearly trip to Hualin in Guanzhou (still got 5 more days to work here before going home.
This market never seizes to fascinate. Building one of four with about a thousand shops under one roof. Real, fake or manmade, ptetty much any bead you can imagine in here.
Amber seems to be still very popular, but ask for some of that stunning beautiful blue in the rough, and you are quickly shooed away (good guess that that stuff is not real. Hallo Ebay!). Also, Laimar seems to be just about everywhere. Did they find a way to manufacture that thing now?
After a quick look around for some chatoyant stuff I found here 3 years ago (and welcome air-condition to cool down), onwards to my real target of the day, the jade-markets for multicolored nephrite and agate.
Thousands of small shops. You better know what you are looking for, and all the tricks of the trade, before parting with money here.
Lets keep this post to the site today, and my haul to another post.
One thing I learned today is that the majority of agates here are from Madagascar. That includes, what I believed in the past to be my favorites of Montana agates. Not so, it turns out, all that stuff is Madagascar.
Tons of it, perfectly polished, and on the cheap.
Even at two inches with huge mosses in it, they barely cost 15$ without haggling.
As I was looking for two-tone jade and agates, naturally, I came across a fascinating array of carvings. The skills that are needed to work the layers that well is simply mind-boggling. To me at least.
Agate in front, nephrite in back (not soapstone, I checked)
Agates
Jaspers I thought the big one to be soapstone, but after looking at them close up, it must be jasper as the small one has exactly the same colour/texture but with agate underneath, so its not soapstone.
Lingered around specific shops for quite a while,.....
Not because they had something I would buy, but because of a smell that reminded me so much of my fathers workplace as we grew up. Sandalwood shops. Using sandalwood and other strong smelling wood for beads, carvings and incense.
One thing remaining: Wishlist for next visit, next year:
No clue what it is, but I want the rough version of that thing.
Thanks for looking, Kurt
