From daybreak until sunset, the banks of the Jade Dragon Kashgar River in Hotan are lined with people looking to get rich. Young and old, male and female, they scour the river, turning over stone after stone in search of the creamy white jade that is washed down from the Kunlun Mountains and is more precious than gold.
Hotan, which is known to the Han Chinese as Hetian, has been associated with jade for thousands of years. Jade artefacts from as far back as 5,000BC have been found in and around this former Silk Road trading hub in the far south of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. But in recent years, the desire for Hotan jade among the mainland's newly rich has sparked an unprecedented jade rush that has resulted in prices rising at a phenomenal rate. The finest Hotan jade, known as 'mutton fat jade' for its white marbled quality, now sells for US$3,000 an ounce, more than double the price of gold.
'You can be lucky and make your fortune in a day, or you can spend 10 years by the river without finding anything,' says Mohammed Ali, who has been selling Hotan jade for seven years. Standing in front of a metal tray of stones submerged in water at the Jade Market that lines one side of the Jade Dragon Kashgar River, Ali is one of the many locals who have abandoned working on the land in the hope of cashing in on the demand for jade.
But while a few of the former farmers strike it lucky, Hotan's jade trade has mostly benefited the Han Chinese, who make up less than 10 per cent of the city's population. As such, the jade rush has come to symbolise the differing economic fortunes of the Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uygur minority and the Han migrants who have flooded into the restive region in recent decades.
Like most of the people panning the river for jade and working at the market, Ali is a Uygur. 'My friends find the jade and I buy it from them. Then I sell it on for 20 per cent more,' he says. His customers are overwhelmingly Han. 'They know Hotan jade is the best and they come from all over China, from as far away as Beijing and Shanghai. They can make far more money than me because they know how to make it into jewellery,' Ali says.
While the jade stones found in the river are valuable in themselves, it is when they are fashioned into the accessories that are a status symbol in the mainland's booming eastern cities that the real money is made.