OUR STORY
Morning mist curls around the jade mines of Xiuyan, Liaoning. When Lin Shen first touched that piece of Xiuyu jade, he was drawn to its soft, pale cyan hue — like moonlight trapped in stone, glowing gently in his palm. It was the late autumn of 1988; he’d wandered into this northeastern mountain town to seek samples of “Eastern soft jade,” never expecting to encounter the very soul of what would later become Cloud Jadecraft.
In a weathered craftsman’s workshop at the foot of the hills, 72-year-old Master Li was running a carving knife over a piece of raw Xiuyu jade: “This jade is forged from Xiuyan’s mist and clouds, steeped in the mountain’s freshness. Carving a lotus means ‘tranquility’; shaping plum branches holds the spirit of ‘resilience.’ You have to work with its natural grain, not against it.”
That day, Lin watched quietly as Master Li turned an amber-streaked Xiuyu stone into a lotus-petal hairpin — its petals curled slightly, as if they’d just caught a mountain breeze. The knife marks held the crispness of Xiuyan’s morning dew; the jade’s hue seeped with the valley’s soft moisture; even the dangling tassel seemed to carry the quiet wind of the mountain town.
On the workshop’s wooden shelf, piles of Xiuyu scraps from three generations held unfinished stories: a half-carved plum blossom, a bracelet blank worn smooth by time. “Xiuyu isn’t as cold as hard jade,” Master Li said. “It’s soft and gentle, just like the temperament of northeastern folks. You need slow, careful work to awaken its spirit.”
When Cloud Jadecraft launched, Lin wrote this on the homepage: “Every piece of Xiuyu holds the mist and clouds of Xiuyan; every carving bears the delicate care of a craftsman. We turn the clouds and meanings of Eastern mountains and wilds into tokens you can pin in your hair or wear on your wrist — this soft beauty from the East is tangible, right at your fingertips.”
Today, every Cloud Jadecraft hairpin, bracelet, ring, and earring carries Xiuyan’s natural grain and the warm care of craftsmen: Lotus-patterned rings symbolize “peace and smooth fortune”; plum-branch earrings stand for “elegance and resilience”; and those amber-streaked Xiuyu pieces seem to hold Xiuyan’s autumn sunlight captive forever — gentle yet full of strength.
