Jiegao Jade City

　　    Jiegao Jade City is located within the Jiegao Border Trade Zone, covering an area of over 10 acres with more than 60 shops. It primarily deals in the wholesale of raw jade materials and the sale of petrified wood jade. The busiest time at the jade market is every morning from 8 to 10 a.m., when people gather here to buy and sell raw jade. Jewelry carvers often come during this period to “hunt” for rough stones, which they then take back to resell or carve. If you’re not a professional, it’s hard to imagine how these unassuming pieces of rough stone can be transformed into exquisite jade artworks—only skilled designers can carve seemingly ordinary stones into high-quality pieces. As the saying goes, jade must be carved to become a treasure. There was once a carver who bought a piece of material for just a few dozen yuan, carved it into a lion mid-fight, and eventually auctioned it off for one hundred and sixty thousand U.S. dollars. So, what determines the price of a jade artwork may not be the quality of the stone, but rather the craftsmanship of the carving.

　　    Another highlight of the jade city is petrified wood jade. The petrified wood jade at Jiegao Jade City comes in all shapes and sizes, ranging from small pieces no bigger than a pen holder to massive ones as tall as four or five meters.