BY ROGER WATSON
Mention the Jade Cabbage to a Taiwanese Chinese person, their eyes will be lowered in reverence and a look of awe will come over their faces. The Jade Cabbage, also known as The Green Jade Cabbage, is the finest exemplar of a jadeite cabbage and it is Taiwan’s most revered artefact. It is housed in the National Palace Museum in Taipei and is the apotheosis of a tour through the museum, located in a glass case in its own room just before you exit the museum. This exhibit, which I saw on one of my earlier visits to Taiwan, nearly got me into a great deal of trouble and demonstrated to me how, when one gets into trouble in a land instilled by Chinese culture, one is on one’s own.
Some facts about the Jade Cabbage are that it is, indeed, a jade cabbage but not as we know one. It is a bokchoy carved from jade. Bokchoy, more commonly known as pak choi or Chinese cabbage in Cantonese, is very common in Chinese cooking and is now quite commonly available in the UK. The Jade Cabbage was one of the treasures liberated from Mainland China by Chiang Kai-shek when he left China for Taiwan in 1949 after a long preparation beginning in 1948 during which time he amassed vast amounts of Chinese treasures to fund his new venture. A great many of these are still housed in the National Palace Museum.
It is well worth a visit, and you quickly realise one of the many reasons why the Communist Chinese were less than happy with him.
The artefact itself is quite small, approximately seven and a half by three and a half inches and sits on its own carved wooden stand. The cabbage was carved in the nineteenth century and was once housed in the Eternal Harmony Palace in the Forbidden City, Beijing and belonged to the Concubine of Emperor Guangxu, Lady Jin, of the Qing Dynasty. It is carved from a piece of jade that is both white and green matching the respective areas of a bokchoy, carved to incorporate the natural flaws in the jade. It has a locust carved on it. Like a great many Chinese artefacts, it has no religious significance and according to the National Palace Museum website:
“the whiteness of the cabbage is inferred to signify the chastity of the bride; the locust and the katydid at the leaf tips symbolize fertility.”
Having seen some excellent paintings, furniture and ornaments in the museum and learnt a great deal about Chinese culture along the way, excitement was mounting about the Jade Cabbage. I was especially taken by the paintings of Giuseppe Castiglione SJ, an Italian Roman Catholic Priest who lived in China during the Qing dynasty, I learned about how cooking pots with three legs indicated the period they were in use (13th to 17th Centuries) and, of course, the importance of jade/jadeite to the Chinese. But the prospect of the Jade Cabbage overshadowed my time, and I could hardly bear the delayed gratification any longer. At last, the time arrived, and I entered the final room where, housed in its glass case, was the revered Jade Cabbage.
My first reaction was to stifle a titter and it was all I could do not to say: ‘Is that it?’
I was somewhat underwhelmed. But I showed the cabbage due reverence, viewed it for a while and nodded sagely as my Chinese student helpers pointed out the features and made their own appreciative sounds. I asked if I could photograph it and was assured by the students that I could. I had a very early Nokia mobile phone with a camera in which the flash was automatic depending on the ambient lighting. I checked with the students if I could use flash and one assured me that I could. Hardly had my eyes recovered from the reflected flash from the glass case than I was being pinioned by a couple of guards. I cried out for help and turned round to see my student helpers fast disappearing out of the door.
I shook of the guards off quite easily and threatened them with a bruising if they laid another hand on me. It is hard to know what was going through my mind, but it worked. They stepped back. Eventually, one by one, my timid little helpers returned and came over to me. I simply pointed to the exit and told them to follow me. I will not repeat what I said to them outside the museum, at very high volume, but I was lucky not to be restrained again. Without fail, whenever I am in Taipei I am asked if I have seen the Jade Cabbage.
“Been there, done that” is my reply.
The thought of that cabbage still makes me shudder.
Roger Watson is a Registered Nurse and Editor-in-Chief of Nurse Education in Practice.