Prosaic

It may not be poetry, but it is engraved beautifully on a jade tablet. Everything here is green; I squat on a mossy rock, next to a cool green brook. In this forest are fish, and deer, and foxes, but most of all, green.

I have chosen not to write poetry, but prose. Look at the mineral complexity, the crystal clarity of the stone! Look at how it suppresses reflection but glows in the light! It is like water locked in time, but not frozen.

Brightness and levity, held down by gravity. Why do we not see such things when they are passing by? Are we so old now?

Jade and Gold

Sometimes, you go past things that used to be part of your life and they surprise you because these things, now no longer part of your life, are still part of your memory. I remember the idea of jade and gold as a very wise lady once explained it to me; these things were precious and fine and beautiful, also resilient and tough, also symbols of culture, richness, depth. To be associated with these things was to be associated with the excellence of a world that was passing, and yet still remained.

Since that chat with the dancer who must now be in her late 70s (!) I have learnt more and more to appreciate those who are associated with such ideals. Many of them are (or were) dancers; many of them have the finest minds and the best manners of all the people I know. The thing is that these two substances are emblematic of a particular breed of overseas Chinese, a strand which left the country early and yet retained an stronger sense of heritage than those who left later.

As a chemist, I've come to appreciate these substances for their material properties as well as for their cultural significance.

Jade is beautiful, but also very hard and tough. The ancient Chinese used it for axeheads and armour; it is as hard as quartz, but its interlocking microcrystalline matrix makes it tough enough to turn a spearpoint. It was the kevlar of its age. The range of colour from green to red to brown to purple comes from the presence of transition metal ions, mainly iron(II) and iron(III).

Gold is beautiful, but also the most flexible, ductile, malleable and conductive of all metals. It can be spun into thread or flattened into foil, drawn into wire or used as paint. It is nearly incorruptible, and not dissolved by anything in nature at normal temperatures. It does form alloys with other metals over a longer period of time; these alloys are valuable for other reasons.

Passing by the Palace of Jade and Gold, I remember when it was on the Emerald Hill. I learnt many things in those years, and I realise that I still feel sad for what has passed away forever.