Though mutual othering may typify the interactions of some cultural signifiers, jade jewelry is an exception. Rather than poorly informed, outside observers of jade jewelry are staggeringly uninformed of its cultural significance. Consider the traditional 玉璧 (pinyin: yù bì), or annulus pendant, whose inception hearkens back to dynastic China, where the jade wheel was first revered for its symbolic representations of heaven and divinity.3 Though ritual in origin, Bi jade is now sported ubiquitously as a fashion accessory among the Chinese. Despite its enormous popularity in this cultural sphere, jade fever has spread very little to the rest of the world. Through interactions involving my own Bi jade pendant, indications of jade’s cultural isolation
