My friend was much taken with some small and pretty pieces carved into shapes such as koru and tiki, and branded "Mountain Jade". While she browsed the selection I chatted to the saleswoman, who mistakenly concluded I was a tour guide. I had a niggly doubt about the provenance of the stone, especially as much of it was labelled "genuine nephrite jade". When a shop feels the need to advertise genuineness, I find it unsettling.
Fiona had chosen a couple of pieces and I asked a younger member of the sales staff whether it was local pounamu. She wasn't sure, and went off to check. The answer when she returned was no - it is imported from China.
So - they import jade from China, carve it into Maori designs in the shop, and label it Mountain Jade - with the backbone of the South Island, the Southern Alps, visible from the shop, to add verisimilitude. Tourists, most of whom are delivered to the door by tour guides who have a cosy relationship with the shop, buy these pieces in the innocent belief that they are buying West Coast pounamu.
What a rip-off.
I asked the older saleswoman whether they had any New Zealand pounamu in affordable pieces. No, she said as she eyed me admiring the affordable rings and bracelets on the counter. Then she did that horrible thing people do when they assume you'll think the same way they do. She said, "It's the government's fault. They gave all the greenstone back to the Maoris." Boom-flash! I suddenly understood! I "thanked" the fraudster and took my friend straight along the road to the reasonably new Maori-owned and run cultural centre. I had not realised the significance of this place previously; however this day we went in and had a ball - talking to the saleswoman and choosing beautiful pieces which originated in the Arahura River valley. Oh we do import some, this woman explained. Sometimes we get some pounamu from Greymouth.
The Jade Factory in Hokitika is one of many such dubious tourist-tricking enterprises in New Zealand and we should not tolerate them polluting our country's brand with their lies of omission.
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| And here's some proof that people are being cheated. |
