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

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 towards this one gallery.

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

The lines all bunched up around one particular case.

People are standing shoulder to shoulder, holding their phones above each other's heads,

all just trying to get a good picture.

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

But this cabbage is incredible.

It's carved from a piece of jadeite, a white and green stone.

It has this long white stalk and these 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 this is the most beautiful cabbage in the

world.

I'm Dylan Thoris and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

and wondrous places.

And this tiny stone cabbage has a huge backstory.

Today, we follow it from the treasure laid in halls of Beijing's Forbidden City through

a harrowing wartime escape to its prized place at the National Palace Museum in Taiwan.

We take that journey after this.

This piece definitely one of the most popular pieces in our museum.

...