The Stories Of Old Jades (古玉的故事)

The Chinese are crazy about jades more than any other ethnics else in this world. In old days, they even brought their beloved jade into their graves in the hope to preserve them forever. However, not many burial jades can remain rest in peace as their masters. For many times these precious stones will be dug out either by grave raiders who hoped to earn a fortune; or the graves may be dug out by the descendants of the deceased for some reasons.

If a piece of jade is buried together with a corpse, then people believe that the souls of the deceased will be attached onto the jade. It is said that jades have a special property that they can absorb the energy and blood of the corpses; hence another special trade mark of knowing if a piece of jade is buried is to look carefully at the color of the jade. A new piece of jade would be greenish in color but after a piece of jade has absorbed the essence of a corpse, there would be some sort of reddish light being reflected back from the surface.

Of course if a burial jade is kept by the descendent of a deceased, then no harm shall be come to him/her because they are of the same bloodline. However, if an heirloom jade is stolen and kept by a stranger; then bad things would happen to the possessor. Having said so, these types of heirloom jades are very difficult to come by for common folks like you and me because many of these old jades are only being circulated in high end antique markets.

My friend Matthew has a very old heirloom jade given to him when his grandfather’s grave was dug. He kept this jade in his house but one day a burglar broke into his house and stole his jade amongst other things.

Although Matthew has lodged a police report, the only item that he wanted to get back was the old jade. So while waiting for the police’s news, he consulted an old medium and the below conversations were from Matthew’s mouth:

Matthew: “Ah mah, can you help to find my stolen jade?”

Medium: “Let me check with your earth deity (地主公) first.”

(After the medium sang some cryptic song and kept shook her head…)

Medium: “Are you the earth deity of Matthew’s house?

(The medium nodded and continued to speak…)

Medium: “How can you be so negligent as to let strangers into the house? Can you help to find the heirloom jade?”

(The medium continued to shake her head and then said…)

Medium: “The house earth deity said he will ask the earth deity of the next door…)

(And so on and so forth, the medium asked the earth deity of the house, estate, town… The process continued for about half an hour and finally…)

Medium: “Boss, you can go to the pawn shop situated at the Main Street downtown to claim back your jade… But go there fast!”

After hearing the words, Matthew obliged although he wasn’t too convince what the medium told him. Well, there is no harm trying.

True enough, Matthew retrieved his old heirloom jade as instructed by the medium. And a week later, the police identified the culprit from the pawnshop’s CCTV and the thief was subsequently being arrested.

That was a bizarre story about old jade that has come back to its owner. I have another story about a friend who purchased a burial jade and being tormented until she threw the jade away. Perhaps I will just keep the story for later…