Jewelry in East and Southeast Asia followed different paths from European traditions. In China, jade outranked gold for most of history, and court ornaments used shimmering kingfisher feathers. Japan wore very little body jewelry for centuries and put its decorative effort into hair ornaments and small carved toggles. In Thailand and Myanmar, gold and local gems such as ruby and sapphire covered royal regalia and gifts to temples.
China: jade before gold
Jade has been the most respected material in China since the Neolithic. Chinese jade was nephrite for most of history, and Confucian writers compared its qualities with those of a gentleman: warm, smooth, hard to break and quiet in tone. People wore jade pendants, belt hooks, hair pins and bangles, and carved pieces were buried with the dead. Our Chinese imperial jade page covers this history more fully, and the jade profile explains the two minerals sold under the name.
Gold and silver jewelry existed in China from early times, but jade carried more prestige. By the Tang dynasty (7th to 10th centuries AD), contact along the Silk Road brought Central Asian and Persian goldwork styles, and Chinese goldsmiths made hair ornaments with filigree and granulation, set with pearls and colored stones.
Hair ornaments in China
Chinese women and men wore their hair up, so hair pins and combs were the main jewelry. Pins could be simple jade or bone, or elaborate gold pieces with moving parts that swayed when the wearer walked. Ming and Qing court women wore headdresses built on a frame and covered with gold, pearls, coral and kingfisher feathers. Empresses wore phoenix crowns for formal occasions, and the Ming tombs near Beijing yielded several, set with thousands of pearls and many rubies and sapphires.
Kingfisher feather work
Tian-tsui, literally "dotting with kingfishers," was a Chinese technique of gluing the brilliant blue feathers of kingfishers onto gilded silver or copper. Artisans cut the feathers into small shapes and laid them into cells, a bit like cloisonne with feathers in place of enamel. The color comes from the microscopic structure of the feather, so it shifts with the light and does not fade like dye.
Feather work was used for hairpins, headdresses and crowns from early times and peaked in the Qing dynasty. The demand for feathers was so great that birds were hunted heavily across southern China and Southeast Asia. The practice largely died out in the early 20th century as fashions changed, and kingfishers are now protected in many places. Antique pieces survive in museums and private collections, and some show losses where feathers have flaked away.
Other Chinese materials
Chinese jewelers also used pearls from freshwater and saltwater sources, red coral (largely imported in later periods), turquoise, lapis lazuli and tourmaline. Qing court officials wore a rank system that included hat finials, with different stones and colors marking each grade, along with long court necklaces of 108 beads modeled on Buddhist prayer beads. Pink and red tourmaline from mines in southern California reached China in the late Qing period and was popular at court.
Japan: restraint and the hair
Japan is unusual in jewelry history. From roughly the 8th century until the Meiji era in the late 19th century, Japanese people wore almost no rings, necklaces, bracelets or earrings. Earlier periods had them: Kofun-era tombs held curved magatama beads of jade, jasper and glass, and gilt bronze crowns and earrings. But during the long medieval and Edo periods, decoration moved to clothing, hair and accessories.
Kanzashi
Kanzashi are Japanese hair ornaments. Women of the Edo period (1603 to 1868) wore their hair in sculpted styles held with combs (kushi) and pins. Kanzashi were made in lacquer, tortoiseshell, wood, silver, gold, coral, jade and later celluloid. Designs changed with the seasons, with plum blossoms in early spring, cherry blossoms in spring and chrysanthemums in autumn. Maiko, apprentice geisha in Kyoto, still wear seasonal kanzashi today.
The Tokugawa shogunate issued sumptuary rules limiting luxury in townspeople's dress and hair ornaments, which encouraged fine work in less obvious materials.
Netsuke and inro
Kimono have no pockets. Men carried small containers, including tiered lacquer boxes called inro, on cords hung from the sash. A small carved toggle, the netsuke, held the cord in place above the sash. Netsuke were carved in ivory, boxwood, horn and other materials as animals, people and mythical creatures, and the best carvers signed their work.
Netsuke were functional accessories more than jewelry, but they carried the same role of personal ornament. Western collectors began buying them after Japan opened to trade in the 19th century, and many fine examples left the country. Most antique ivory netsuke now fall under ivory trade rules, explained on our ivory in jewelry page.
Thailand: gold and temple jewels
Thai jewelry draws on Indian, Khmer and Chinese influences. Gold is central. Thai goldsmiths worked high-karat gold into chains, bracelets, rings and pendants, and Thai women traditionally held part of their savings as gold jewelry, sold by weight. Royal regalia and costumes for classical dance used gold crowns, armlets, collars and belts set with stones and colored glass.
Thailand had its own gem deposits. The ruby and sapphire mines around Chanthaburi and Trat in the east supplied the markets, and Chanthaburi grew into one of the world's busiest colored gem trading towns. The navaratna, a nine-gem jewel from Indian tradition, became a Thai royal order and a popular amulet design.
Myanmar: Burmese gold and rubies
Burma, now Myanmar, has supplied fine rubies for centuries from the Mogok Stone Tract in the north. Burmese kings claimed the right to the largest stones, and the court used rubies, spinels, sapphires and pearls in regalia. The Burmese royal treasure included jeweled crowns, slippers, betel boxes and swords. The British took much of it when they deposed the last king, Thibaw, in 1885, and part of the regalia was later returned to Burma in the 1960s.
Burmese goldsmiths made filigree, repousse and heavy bangles. Gold leaf is still applied to Buddha images and pagodas by worshippers. The Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon has a crowning ornament set with thousands of diamonds, rubies and sapphires. The Mogok ruby page explains why Burmese rubies became the standard others are measured against, and Burmese jadeite from Kachin State is covered in our jade profile.
Wider Southeast Asia
Across Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam, jewelry traditions mixed local styles with Indian, Chinese and later Islamic and European influences. The Philippines had a strong tradition of goldwork in the centuries before Spanish colonization, with heavy chains and ornaments found in burials. Borneo supplied alluvial diamonds, covered on the Borneo diamond mines page. The traditional and tribal jewelry page looks at other community traditions in the Pacific.
Frequently asked questions
Why was jade more valued than gold in China?
Chinese tradition linked jade with moral qualities such as integrity and endurance, and with rank and ritual. That cultural meaning gave fine nephrite, and later jadeite, a prestige gold did not match for most of Chinese history.
What is kingfisher feather jewelry?
It is a Chinese technique called tian-tsui in which the blue feathers of kingfishers are cut and glued into gilded metal settings. It was used for hairpins and headdresses and peaked under the Qing dynasty.
What are kanzashi?
Kanzashi are Japanese hair ornaments such as pins and combs. They were the main form of personal adornment for Japanese women during the Edo period, and seasonal designs are still worn by maiko in Kyoto.
Where do Burmese rubies come from?
Most fine Burmese rubies come from the Mogok Stone Tract in northern Myanmar, where they form in marble. Mong Hsu is another Burmese source that rose to importance in the 1990s.