Thein Tun at 47 years old and already 29 years of experience in the Jade as a salesman in the market of Mandalay. He tried other trades but still came back to the Jade. He has six children and some also work on the Mandalay market, as his son I met who is a Jade tailor.
His average monthly income is about $ 500. It is not too much to take care of his family and to deal with the unexpected. I asked him how long he expected to work and he replied: until he is no longer enough faithful eyes to recognize the good of the bad pieces of Jade. Mandalay is the hub for the sale of Jade in the region.
His average monthly income is about $ 500. It is not too much to take care of his family and to deal with the unexpected. I asked him how long he expected to work and he replied: until he is no longer enough faithful eyes to recognize the good of the bad pieces of Jade. Mandalay is the hub for the sale of Jade in the region.
The Chinese for whom jade is a stone anchored in art, culture and history are particularly interested. The worst memory of Thein Tun in his career is surely the day he was abused by a Burmese intermediary at the Sino-Burmese border where he was traveling about every two months for trying to do business.
This intermediary took her stones to show them to Chinese, but she never came back. He was robbed of more than $ 600. He works daily on the market from 8h to 10h30 and from 14h30 to 15h30, except on days of full moon or Buddhist festivals during which the market is closed.
He shows me all his pieces on a white cotton fabric sitting on the wooden stool as for every day of work. Each batch comes out of a simple plastic bag. The whole of its “stock” which it regularly renews represents approximately $ 1,000. His best memory, in fact it is the years that he is living, because he now sees his children enter a similar career in jade and besides, he has a solid experience that allows him to ” Avoid youthful mistakes. But his most cherished wish for the future is to be able to see his children return to the monastery to be monks and nuns novices … for a time.
The market of mandalay jade stones.
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