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The Atlas Obscura Podcast

Jadeite Cabbage (Classic)

The Atlas Obscura Podcast

SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura

Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.61.6K Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2024

⏱️ 14 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This tiny stone cabbage has a big backstory stretching from the rich, treasure-laden halls of Beijing’s Forbidden City...through a harrowing wartime escape...to its prized place at the National palace museum in Taipei, Taiwan. This tiny stone cabbage has a big backstory stretching from the rich, treasure-laden halls of Beijing’s Forbidden City...through a harrowing wartime escape...to its prized place at the National palace museum in Taipei, Taiwan. READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/jade-cabbage

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

We're in Taipei, Taiwan, in the halls of the National Palace Museum.

0:08.0

There's people all around us holding their audio tour headsets up to their faces. But the crowd all seems to be moving in one direction

0:17.9

towards this one gallery. In fact we're going to have to wait in this line before we can go inside.

0:24.6

The line's all bunched up around one particular case. People are standing shoulder to shoulder,

0:30.8

holding their phones above each other's heads, all just trying to get a good picture.

0:35.0

Finally, we get to the front and in the middle of this glass case is a cabbage cabbage

0:46.0

but this cabbage is incredible.

0:50.0

It's carved from a piece of jadite,

0:52.0

a white and green stone. It has this long white stalk and these

0:56.0

frilly green leaves and it is so shiny and so translucent. The cabbage looks like it's glowing from the inside. I am going to go out on a limb here and say

1:07.0

this is the most beautiful cabbage in the world.

1:18.0

I'm Doolinthearis and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

1:22.0

In this tiny stone cabbage has a huge backstory.

1:27.0

Today, we follow it from the treasure-laden halls of Beijing's forbidden city

1:32.0

through a harrowing wartime escape to its prize place at the National

1:37.1

Palace Museum in Taiwan.

1:40.3

We take that journey after this. This piece definitely one of the most popular pieces in our museum and for us is quite unusual

2:09.0

not only because it's the most popular piece but also because the material is so unusual in Chinese culture.

2:18.6

This is Dr. Shoyyouin U. She's an Antiquities expert at the National Palace Museum in Taiwan.

2:25.0

When we talk to Shaoyen, she had this PowerPoint,

2:28.0

ready with slides of the cabbage from all different angles.

2:32.0

She points out how the artist has taken advantage of the

...

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