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Jade brings China and NZ together
By Julia Hollingsworth |
April 4, 2013, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
AN exhibition of traditional New Zealand treasures may sound like a strange event in a tiny town outside of Hangzhou, but a shared love for jade is drawing the two together.
The show, Kura Pounamu, opened on Monday in Liangzhu, and features sharp clubs, some half a meter long, intricately carved pendants and giant smooth spheres carved by Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand.
The exhibition was brought over by Te Papa, the museum of New Zealand, and runs through the end of June. This is the second stop in a five-city China tour that began in Beijing.
But Liangzhu showing is particularly significant as it marries China and New Zealand's love for jade.
Dougal Austin, the curator of the exhibition, says he has been humbled by the Chinese jade culture. While Liangzhu has been home to Chinese jade culture for 5,000 years, the Maori relationship to jade began some 900 years ago, when Maori first arrived in New Zealand.
New Zealand had no metals to make tools, so Maori began using the greenstone for weapons.
Over time, Maori began using the greenstone known as pounamu for a variety of different things, and carved pounamu became a valuable trade item. Nowadays, many people - both Maori and non-Maori - wear greenstone or pounamu necklaces to bring them good luck.
"It is an iconic treasure for New Zealand - for Maori particularly, but also more and more today greenstone is a New Zealand icon," Austin says.
Austin specializes in pounamu history, which he puts down to his own personal relationship to pounamu growing up in the South Island. As a child during the 1960s, his grandparents always had a large pounamu object in the house, which they used as a doorstop.
But the pounamu was no ordinary doorstep, Austin says. "The significance was much deeper. It's about the well-being of the whanau (family)."
Lisa Tumahai, a cultural adviser to Te Papa and a representative from the Ngai Tahu tribe, traveled from New Zealand to be at the show. The raw jade had all been sourced from Ngai Tahu's land in the South Island.
She too had been amazed by the Chinese relationship to jade.
"We saw some artifacts yesterday that were 5,000 years old. When you think about the Maori culture of working pounamu and living with pounamu, it's 900 years old," Tumahai says.
"It's been quite an overwhelming experience for us to experience not only seeing our taonga (treasures) here from New Zealand, but also seeing Chinese taonga."
She says the Chinese and Maori connection to jade are strikingly similar.
"There's a real spiritual connection, it has a life force of its own. It's got quite a spiritual meaning for us in New Zealand, the same way that it has in Chinese culture."
And, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Chinese reaction to the exhibition, which has already been seen by more than 40,000 people in China, has been good.
"The Chinese feel it, you know, because there's such a deep jade culture. The reaction happens at a deeper level than for other cultures," Austin says.
The exhibition runs through the end of June before visiting Guangzhou in Guangdong Province, Chongqing Municipality, and Xi'an in Shaanxi Province.
Date: Through June 30
Venue: Liangzhu Culture Museum, 1 Meilizhou Rd
Tel: (0571) 8877-3875
The show, Kura Pounamu, opened on Monday in Liangzhu, and features sharp clubs, some half a meter long, intricately carved pendants and giant smooth spheres carved by Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand.
The exhibition was brought over by Te Papa, the museum of New Zealand, and runs through the end of June. This is the second stop in a five-city China tour that began in Beijing.
But Liangzhu showing is particularly significant as it marries China and New Zealand's love for jade.
Dougal Austin, the curator of the exhibition, says he has been humbled by the Chinese jade culture. While Liangzhu has been home to Chinese jade culture for 5,000 years, the Maori relationship to jade began some 900 years ago, when Maori first arrived in New Zealand.
New Zealand had no metals to make tools, so Maori began using the greenstone for weapons.
Over time, Maori began using the greenstone known as pounamu for a variety of different things, and carved pounamu became a valuable trade item. Nowadays, many people - both Maori and non-Maori - wear greenstone or pounamu necklaces to bring them good luck.
"It is an iconic treasure for New Zealand - for Maori particularly, but also more and more today greenstone is a New Zealand icon," Austin says.
Austin specializes in pounamu history, which he puts down to his own personal relationship to pounamu growing up in the South Island. As a child during the 1960s, his grandparents always had a large pounamu object in the house, which they used as a doorstop.
But the pounamu was no ordinary doorstep, Austin says. "The significance was much deeper. It's about the well-being of the whanau (family)."
Lisa Tumahai, a cultural adviser to Te Papa and a representative from the Ngai Tahu tribe, traveled from New Zealand to be at the show. The raw jade had all been sourced from Ngai Tahu's land in the South Island.
She too had been amazed by the Chinese relationship to jade.
"We saw some artifacts yesterday that were 5,000 years old. When you think about the Maori culture of working pounamu and living with pounamu, it's 900 years old," Tumahai says.
"It's been quite an overwhelming experience for us to experience not only seeing our taonga (treasures) here from New Zealand, but also seeing Chinese taonga."
She says the Chinese and Maori connection to jade are strikingly similar.
"There's a real spiritual connection, it has a life force of its own. It's got quite a spiritual meaning for us in New Zealand, the same way that it has in Chinese culture."
And, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Chinese reaction to the exhibition, which has already been seen by more than 40,000 people in China, has been good.
"The Chinese feel it, you know, because there's such a deep jade culture. The reaction happens at a deeper level than for other cultures," Austin says.
The exhibition runs through the end of June before visiting Guangzhou in Guangdong Province, Chongqing Municipality, and Xi'an in Shaanxi Province.
Date: Through June 30
Venue: Liangzhu Culture Museum, 1 Meilizhou Rd
Tel: (0571) 8877-3875
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