In the jade mining pits of the high mountains of Hualien in eastern Taiwan, located at elevations of around 1,000 meters, the air remains a cool 26 degrees, due to the natural air conditioning processed by the jade.
Starting out from the bridge over the Lao Creek on Provincial Highway 9's C branch, a four-wheel drive vehicle can run along the Baibao River valley moving upwards to an elevation of 700 meters, arriving at a ridge that can be followed toward the east leading to the East Rift Valley. In this area is the community of Fengtian, notable for the streets laid out in even lines like a chessboard. This was originally a village of immigrants, laid out by the Japanese imperial government during the period of Japanese occupation.
The mines at Lixin are reached after another 10 kilometers of travel on a road build in 1975 for transporting mountain-sourced products. Prior to this time, whenever anyone working in the mountains wanted to move materials, such as the Japanese taking asbestos or others opening up the jade mines prior to the 1960s, they had to rely on human power only, moving the ore in containers hanging from steel cables.
At the Lixin Mining Company, general manager Chuang Ching-cheng first prepares visitors for what they will see, requiring everyone to don a hard hat and rain shoes. He also constantly exhorts visitors not to disturb the stone walls of the mine after entering it, to avoid dislodging chunks of stone.
Before anyone takes a piece of jade, they must first examine the area carefully with a flashlight to make sure there are no snakes hiding in cracks next to it. Mines abandoned for over two decades are humid, with lots of moisture, and crevices are home to bats and frogs, which in turn are food for poisonous snakes.
At a distance a little more than 10 minutes' walk from the office, after crossing several mountain creeks, one can see large chunks of raw Taiwanese jade, washed for years on end in the waters of the creeks. The stones shine with a clear green color. When one approaches the mine, even at the entrance, the cool air wafts out of the mines, suddenly dissipating the sun's heat and lowering the temperature by five degrees.
After one enters the mines, the little tunnels are no higher than the height of a man, but can fit four or five people abreast. The temperatures here are 25-26 degrees, and a flashlight reveals that the very floors are made of precious stones.
Tsai Wan-yi, chair of the Taiwan Jade Culture Association, demonstrates how to identify real Taiwanese jade right on site. He says that not every green stone is jade. To identify the stones and separate the genuine from the false, Tsai shines the beam of a flashlight on their surface. If the stone has a transparent quality, or lets light through it, it is jade; outside the confines of the mine, the test can be done using sunlight.
Although the mines are disused, there are still plenty of traces of the activities of old. The tracks used by the Japanese carts can still be seen, as can traces of firewood from the fires built by those who illegally took jade from the mines in earlier days. These were called "mountain mice" in Chinese, and were really residents of the villages who would come out in the middle of the night to glean pieces of jade from the mines. In those days, many people relied on this extra income to eke out a living.
Employees of the Lixin Mine say that the mine was opened up using explosives in the early days. There are about 80 jade mines in the mountains, all of which have been lying unworked for many years. There is great potential to open up these mines for tourists to explore and seek jade in, and the company is optimistic about its future prospects.
Tsai believes that turning abandoned mines into tourist areas is well illustrated by what has been done at Jinguashi, with the museum of the gold industry. He hopes that the government will revise the laws concerning mines, and allow the combination of mining and ecology, bringing together the Taiwan Jade Culture Hall, the Cuishanzhuang Jade Wall, and the historical Fengtian Japanese Immigrant Village.
In this way, more people can come to know this period in history, and the guiding, transportation and food and lodging associated with the visits will spur the local economy and provide jobs.
(This article originally appeared in The Liberty Times July 26.)