Traditionally, the word 玉 or Jade refers to two types of beautiful stone materials, either the Chinese historical Nephrite (calcium magnesium sillicates), known for its creamy, smooth and elegant texture, or the Burmese Jadeite (sodium aluminum silicates), reknown for its lovely green hues and icy translucencies. However today, the word玉/Jade is now applied to… [Read More…]
The Ancient Chinese Classifications of Aloeswood
Dating back to the Western Jin dynasty, and re-published in Song Dynasty and Ming dynasty records before it faded away, the ancient Chinese appeared to classify aloeswood by the following terms 蜜香, 沉香, 鸡骨香, 黄熟香, 栈香, 青桂香, 马蹄香, 鸡舌香. There are serious flaws in this ancient Chinese classification despite it being very commonly used… [Read More…]
History of Kyara
Kynam, qinan (奇楠), kyara. The esteemed names of a very precious fragrant material on earth that almost no one seem to truly know in the modern world today. Historically, the Vietnamese called it calambac, in Sanskrit, it was recorded as kala-nam. The chinese words for kynam can be found with two variations of the word qi (奇), of which the former refers to unique, amazing, special. Nan (楠) refers to a certain wood type with three categorical species, where xiang nan or fragrant nan is one of them.