Share the experiences and fruitful results
Team work = Success
My name is Liwen, and I am a fifth grade student from the Gu-Cheng-Tai elementary school. I participated in the ‘Think-Quest’ contest.
Especially for people born and living in Qing Hai like us, we know a lot about ‘Kun Lun’ jade – the spirit of ‘Kun Lun’ mountains. Since ‘Kun Lun’ jade used as the medal material for the Beijing Olympics, more and more people know about it. We used the ‘Spirit of the Jade’ as the main goal of our activities to discover more about the ‘Kun Lun’ jade because it is from Qing Hua and we are proud of it!
It is not easy for us to reach our goal and deliver the results; actually we overcome a lot of road blockers. A good example is that we cannot agree upon on what should be the main goal of our activities initially among our team members. After went through team member’s careful consideration and thoughtful discussion, we reached agreement and defined it as the ‘Spirit of the Jade’. Another example is that we lost our direction and didn’t know what to do at one time; with the prompt instruction from our teachers, we were able to visit the ‘street of the jade and the gold’ in the city, we also visited the jade factory. As the result, we were able to enjoy each piece of processed jade and understood the quality and its value, meanwhile appreciated the original ‘Gun Lun’ jade prior to the process. Just like ‘Kun Lun’ jade cutting process, via all these real time, first hand experiences, we had gradually engaged into our main goal, as you can enjoy know, each photo we’ve taken, each description we added shown our understanding, love towards to the ‘Kun Lun’ jade.
My fellow classmates, we never yield to the difficulties we were facing; and we cheered up each other to work hard to reach our goal in this contest. As an old Chinese say ‘one chopstick can be broken easily; but on bunch of them cannot be broken’; we performed very well in the competition via team work. My deal classmates, please remember, working together is the power.
The celebration
Hello everyone,
My name is Yue, and I am a fifth grade student from the Gu-Cheng-Tai elementary school. I participated in the ‘Think-Quest’ contest. It is my great pleasure to be here, ‘Ma Fang elementary school’ to share my thoughts with you.
It was the 2008 Beijing Olympic shown the world first time the precious and mysterious ‘Kun Lun’ jade. It surprised the world because not too many people knew about it before the Olympics. The ‘Kun Lun’ jade gained people’s love because it is truly a treasure from the big mountains of ‘Kun Lun’. We study this jade to let people know more about it and show our proud to the world that the ‘Kun Lun’ jade is from our hometown Qing Hai.
After a certain period of study and research, we now understood the ‘Kun Lun’ jade. As the very first study case, we went to the ‘street of the jade and gold’. We then interviewed a senior technician from ‘Tian Nian Ge’. When we completed the investigation to the jade processes; we visited the Museum of the Geology. In the museum, we gained the further knowledge on the jade and its products. We felt the culture influence from the jade and its wide usage. We eventually realized that the jade is in our daily social life but we simply not paid enough attention. People may say it is jewelry to decorate and show people’s status; but more than that, its value and purity represents the characteristics of the Chinese people. It is a mirror of Chinese virtues.
Today, the ‘Kun Lun’ jade is in our daily life. However the excessive demand caused the excessive mining of the jade. Recently the productivity of the jade is reduced. We need to protect our source of the jade from the excessive mining to prevent this beautiful spirit disappear from us.
This is the conclusion of our study and I sincerely hope you can feel the spirit of the jade and be impressed by its magic power.
The speech
Hello Everyone,
It is my pleasure to be here. I am a fifth grade student from the Gu-Cheng-Tai elementary school. I participated in the ‘Think-Quest’ contest. My name is Mengjie.
Our activities in the contest were surrounding the ‘Kun Lun’ jade. It was our understanding that people do have idea about the ‘Kun Lun’ jade via 2008 Beijing Olympics. However, our efforts were focus on having a depth understanding of the ‘Kun Lun’ jade and hope spread ‘Kun Lun’ jade culture to the world.
We took part in a lot of activities including visiting the jade stores, factories and museum to know more about the jade. For example, we visited the ‘street of the jade and gold’ to know how jade was maintained; we knew better for the value of the jade via the conversations with the jade expert. We learnt a lot and I’d like to talk about why people so in love with the jade below.
From the ancient time, Chinese people liked the jade. Typically the jade was the symbol for the power, social status and fortune as Chinese old say ‘gold has its price but jade is priceless’.
People like the jade backed up by the scientific evidence. The jade was underground for so many thousand years to form and compose of many mineral elements. People like to talk about the benefits from the wearing the jade jewelry. You wear longer the jade looks brighter; and another popular thought is that wearing jade can help your health because of the mineral elements in the jade absorbed by the body after long time wearing. People also think that the jade can help people on their spiritual development. Some even think that the jade will help you to develop in your whole life if you wear the jade over three years.
Now we make ring, brace lace, neck lace and even tea cup with the jade. The ‘Kun Lun’ jade contributed to the big lift of Qing Hai’s travel industry because of the 2008 Olympic publicity. In conclusion, please try to understand our ‘Kun Lun’jade better; it’s the spirit of the great ‘Kun Lun’ mountain.
The visit to the Ma Fang Elementary School
Hello everyone,
How are you? I am a fifth grade student from the Gu-Cheng-Tai elementary school. I am honored to participate in the ‘Think-Quest’ contest. In the event, I was happy and confident that we accomplished our goal.
We visited a lot of places and reported news related to ‘Kun Lun’ jade as the little reporters. We learnt a lot about the jade, overcome difficulties with the help from our teachers. From the event, we deeply understood the value of the teamwork.
Typically we visited the ‘street of the jade and gold’. The jade there with different colors, green, white, purple and crystal impressed us. We learnt how ‘Kun Lun’ jade was cut and its technique from the visit to the jade factory located at the south of the city. Our eyes kept wide open to see how the jade was curve out from those big stones and impressed by their sophisticated techniques from the experts. Meanwhile we understood the truth of ‘no pain, no gain’.
In our long way to the conclusion of the project, we also visited the ‘Land and the Resource’ Museum of Qing Hai. We learnt the geographic information of the jade there. From the sand table in the museum, we learnt that the born place of the ‘Kun Lun’ jade -‘Kun Lun’ mountains located in the middle of the Qing Hai province. It is a beautiful place with beautiful flowers and forest. We learnt that we need to continue the production of the jade and protect our environment as well. We sincerely hope the jade will be available for our next generations without excess mining and damaged environment.
From each visit, each photo, each conversation and each report, we learnt more about this precious jade, and I like it even more. The jade with its own charming will last forever.
Thank you very much.
The celebration scene
| QA session of Ma Fang Elementary School. | Celebration. | Conversation. |
Presentation of the successful project (1)
Hello everyone,
The main purpose of this project was to learn ‘Kun Lun’ jade and further have a better understanding to our home Qing Hai. We visited a lot of places and collected a lot of related information in order for us to introduce the ‘Kun Lun’ jade to public in great details.
Our first visit is to the famous ‘street of the jade and gold’. We were mostly impressed by one jewelry shop ‘Yu Lin Long’. We had the first hand contact with the white, purple, black and green ‘Kun Lun’ jade. Even more we witnessed how experts maintain the jade. A very interesting encounter: we saw a very dark green jade and asked the expert about it. The lady smiled and talked to us: ‘it is a Russian jade. As matter of the fact, it is the same type of the jade as the ‘Kun Lun’ jade’. We were so puzzled why ‘Kun Lun’ jade and Russian jade are the same type, the lady answered our question: it is not about where it produced but whether the two jades are located on the same strip of the Jade mines. Unbelievable! How amazing!The next stop is very important. We paid a visit to the jade factory located at the south of the city. We were luck to meet an expert who studied the jade in his whole life. He patiently gave us a lesson for the jade category and history review. Based on this expert, there are four types of jade in China: He Tian; Kun Lun; Du Shan and He You. He also emphasized on the Kun Lun and He Tian Jade. These two are sister jades in the sense of they are produced from the same strip of the mines. In Xin Jiang province, it is called He Tian Jade; found in Qing Hai (our home) called Kun Lun jade. We were curious about the differences: the raw material. The stones of the He Tian jade are from the plain, mountain and the creek; the stones of the Kun Lun jade are from mountain only. This is the major difference from these two types of jade.
The expert showed us the top class of the He Tian Jade from the plain area.
Presentation of the successful project (2)
The expert also showed us his treasure collection of the jade to enhance our understanding on the jade. The expert is a true scholar and taught us in detail of the jade culture. From Chinese history, people described the virtue of people as the characteristics of the jade: pure and precious. The jade culture is indeed worth us to learn more. By the end, he encouraged us to continue our research on the Chinese jade culture and display the culture to the world.
We also took a tour on the jade process. One technician with mask carefully polished a jade stone. From the first look, the stone was neither smooth nor pretty. The technician told us that it was the very first step to the final beautiful jade. In between a lot of cut and polish steps would taken. Truly, without proper cut and polish, there would be no jade.
In this trip, we learnt not only the culture of the jade but also the procedures of the jade process. It’s really worth it!We also travelled to the ‘Land and the Resource’ Museum of Qing Hai Province. We checked out the sand table of the Qing Hai province; the fossil of the dinosaur and the crude…however, the jade was still the one to caught our eyes. We saw the raw material of the jade; in addition we also saw an exquisite piece of the jade with great details. The jade carried three different colors: white, green and brown. The expert mentioned to us that this type of jade is rare. As the by product of the visit, we also saw the gold of the dog head. Actually it has nothing to do with dog but because of its high purity. The history record shown that the first piece of high purity gold found in this area shaped like a dog head…you know the rest. Last but not the least, we also impressed by the fossils from the dinosaur and their eggs.
We appreciated all trips; and we took a lot of notes and photos as the fruitful results for our research.
I’d like to highlight one interview done with an expert of the ‘Kun Lun’ Jade.
Presentation of the successful project (3)
The expert gave us details on the jade history, culture, classification and naming convention. In his jade shop, we saw the whole spectrum of the ‘Kun Lun’ jade. He showed us one piece of jade with black color. We suspected whether it was a piece of the real jade. The expert then used a flashlight to highlight the jade. Amazingly, it is dark green! Expert proudly told us that it was the most expensive jade with darker color. He also made fun of us: he showed us one piece of jade without any defects; then showed us another piece with defects. The question was which is more expensive. We all answered that the one without defects was more expensive. Well, we were wrong. The one with defects is more expensive because it is the true ‘Kun Lun’ jade. Another one without defects is the jade from Afghanistan area and ease to be broken. We all so amazed and interested in! We also learnt that the jade is the symbol of the power and fortune from ancient times. You can see jade everywhere regardless from an old royal palace or a modern office. The jade is decorating people’s home, office, and more. Now the ‘Kun Lun’ jade is embedded in Chinese people’s life and culture. We symbolize the beautiful things with the jade. You can figure out the importance of the jade in Chinese daily life from it was the medal material for the 2008 Olympics. Finally the expert delivered his summary: ‘the ‘Kun Lun’ jade is lifting the travel industry in Qing Hai province; we should learn more about the jade, love the jade and further learn more about our home town and Qing Hai province. ‘Kun Lun’ jade is a mirror to reflect our people and our culture.
Through out the project life cycle, we did our best to overcome the burdens e.g. to consolidate team’s opinions; to organize the events more efficiently etc. We also improved our teamwork, built friendship with team members and most importantly; successfully delivered the project. In conclusion, mission accomplished!