Shanghai and Zhuji

We made a final stop on our Far East pearl tour in China, which has vastly overtaken Japan's market share in the pearl industry. We flew into Shanghai and stayed at the St. Regis Shanghai, a luxuriously beautiful hotel in the heart of the metropolitan Pudong District. It was the most luxurious hotel stay experienced; the rooms boasted of sweet, fresh fruits, a huge marble bathroom with frosted doors, and down pillows and comforters to ensure a much-needed relaxed sleep.

Over 200 miles to the southwest was our destination, Zhuji. China is best known for an overabundance of freshwater pearls. The country is taking active steps to shift the pearl exposition capital from its current Hong Kong to this southern province, primarily through advances in mass farming and competitive pricing. While visiting a Japanese pearl farm, technicians there told us that, in the past, Japan retained its market share by emphasizing the brand and quality of their Akoya saltwater pearls. As it turns out, the Chinese have learned techniques to increase the luster in their freshwater varieties such that the naked eye finds it difficult to discern a difference. That enhancement, coupled with production that easily exceeds the Japanese by ten-fold, has strongly turned the market toward Zhuji.


Unlike South Sea and Akoya oysters that can yield only one or two pearls at a time, these freshwater mussels offer between eight and fourteen pieces easily. How many can you find in the photograph below?



Freshwater mussels are much more durable than their saltwater relatives. Chinese landowners enrich their freshwater sources with nitrogen to yield higher volumes. The most cost-effective way to introduce nitrogen into water is to, well, dump tons of fertilizer directly into the source. We are not exaggerating. Take a guess regarding the pervasive smells lingering at any given pearl farm.



Despite the great productivity this affords the pearl manufacturers in Zhuji, the surrounding townships and property take that much more an environmental beating. Air quality is just shy of horrible, and inhabitants litter their streets with trash and debris. Poor and/or absent regulation standards result in dilapidated buildings and unsuitable housing, unsafe products, and increased health risks. Juxtaposed against the government-controlled images of a bustling, vibrant, and beautiful commercial city, our experiences touring Zhuji left us quite unsettled.

Above the smell and the pollution stretches this $360 million complex, four hundred eighty million square feet called the Chinese Pearl and Jewelry City.

Although much of the Pearl City remains virtual, government officials offer premiere and attractive luxuries to lure in business investments. There is plenty of room for high-rise apartment complexes, manufacturing factories, retail avenues, and multi-purpose office condominiums.

This is the entrance to the exposition center. Through these doors, visitors can shop at over 5,000 pearl vendors.



There was no way we could peruse all the vendors, even in the small block of the exposition center we toured. We still managed to get a few photos to show just how many pearls were available for purchase. Millions!



If the natural shades don't do it for you, manufacturers can dye them in many different colors.



Bored with conventional strands of pearls worn about the neck? Maybe you have room in your house for something like this.



We toured a couple of factories in the Pearl City complex. The workers sat in long rows and crouched over a small work space, oftentimes extracting, sorting, and conducting quality analysis checks on pearls. Unlike their Japanese counterparts, the workers' eyes were fixed to their stations. Fingers picking, moving, and counting at incomprehensible speeds, they did not look up a single moment as we walked past them.



Looking up, it seems, results in getting one's pay docked. Bathrooms carried the same stench familiar to us in the Zhuji provincial streets far, far away from this pearl paradise. When asked what happens if workers get hurt from sitting in such a tense and compacted position for many hours a day, a supervisor curtly responded, "Our workers don't get hurt."

Before returning home, we took a final stop in Hong Kong. Hong Kong still ranks as the top gateway in East Asia for pearls though, as we have discussed earlier, Zhuji is in great shape to overtake them. Here is a photo of the exposition center.



We recognize that freshwater pearls are beautiful and much less expensive than the saltwater variety, and we also recognize that if people really want pearls that they have the right to purchase them. We also saw first-hand in China that a lack of regulation principles and an insistence that business prosperity trumps consumer safety and environmental quality has been a major contributor to China's growth in the pearl industry. It asks the age old question, "at what cost?", will businesses work to boost their profits.

We also recognize that here, at Krikawa, we are in a privileged retailing position. Being a small independent company, we can simply work on crafting beautiful jewelry that satisfies and surpasses our customers' expectations. Our customers generally have enough disposable income to shop for Akoya and South Sea pearls, whether it is an issue of taste or social responsibility or both. Simply put, we can worry less about some ubiquitous bottom line than knowing that our stones, gems, and metals come from places that do not exploit their workers, subject them to degrading conditions, or put communities in undue harm's way.