In all honesty, Myanmar was a country where you could dig up gemstones from the ground—literally, a land "overflowing with treasures." Yet Myanmar was poor. Urban workers earned barely over 1,000 RMB per month. How could such a treasure-rich country remain so impoverished, its people so poor?
But come to think of it, almost every country where you could casually dig up gemstones suffered the same fate. African diamond-producing nations, Colombia with its emeralds, Myanmar with its jade. It seemed that when wealth came too easily, warlords and conglomerates would sprout from the land, bringing instability. Meanwhile, the true wealth from the gem mines never reached the ordinary people.
I was lost in these thoughts while Uncle Harvey wasn't exactly focused on the stones either. Inside the emporium, it seemed like everyone was his acquaintance. As he walked, he greeted people left and right. Three steps, a stop: "Ah! Long time no see. Did you come from Jieyang?" Another three steps: "My god, brother, last time I went to Guangzhou, you weren't home!"
Uncle Harvey seemed to know people from Guangzhou, Pingzhou, Sihe, Jieyang, Tengchong, and Ruili—everywhere.
I followed alongside, nodding and bowing at each introduction, while secretly observing that most of the buyers at the Myanmar emporium were Chinese. When no one was greeting us, I teased Uncle Harvey: "You have so many friends. Must be exhausting."
Uncle Harvey smiled back. "Sorry, too many acquaintances. But..."
"But what?"
"But most of the people in this venue, I wouldn't call friends. You can't let your guard down around them."
"Guard? Worried they'll peek at your bid forms and outbid you by one?"
"Absolutely. Secrets are crucial." Uncle Harvey said this mysteriously.
In the inner hall, jade was displayed on tables inside individual rooms, much more presentably. Green carpet, white tablecloths, tables arranged in circles with staff inside. Each lot had a dedicated staff member watching it closely. Outside the tables, a ring of bidders shone flashlights at every detail of each jade piece.
Uncle Harvey examined the stones here very carefully, offering occasional explanations about the merits of various materials, how to select them, and how to estimate their value. I learned that jade valuation required mentally disassembling the stone into finished products—how many bangles, cabochons, or plaques the raw material could yield—then estimating market value for each component based on its texture, transparency, and color. For example, if a bangle averaged 100,000 yuan, a cabochon 10,000, and a plaque 20,000, and a stone could yield one of each, that was 130,000 in potential revenue. After subtracting some costs for offcuts and labor, the investment value of the raw stone became clear.
So when bosses submitted bids, one person might estimate 130,000 in revenue and bid up to 120,000—no higher. But another buyer with a different strategy might realize that cutting all plaques instead of a single bangle would yield nine plaques worth 180,000, and therefore bid 170,000 for the raw material. Or perhaps another boss, still selling one bangle, one cabochon, and one plaque, but selling them to his own clients at double the price, would see 260,000 in revenue from the same stone, making even the first person's 120,000 bid uncompetitive.
And clear stones still carried gambling risk. How jade behaves inside was endlessly unpredictable. Wealth alone wasn't enough—you needed discerning eyes, and even with discerning eyes, you needed courage. This was truly a contest where eight immortals crossed the sea, each showing their particular skill.
The emporium's open warfare and covert intrigue played out on all these fronts simultaneously.
A few more steps, and we came upon a massive stone surrounded by people.
Uncle Harvey leaned in and whispered, "This one is extremely impressive. It could become the top lot. Go take a look."
The top lot was the highest-priced single stone at the entire emporium. Who would claim that title was still unknown.
I squeezed through to the edge of the crowd. Inside this perfectly squared material ran a deep, rich imperial green band, exceptionally wide and thick, running all the way through. This wasn't a thin color line you'd see on a gambling stone—even someone with my limited experience knew that a band this wide meant full-color bangles were possible. And this stone's color line was high-ice-grade imperial green. A single bangle like this, if the color was perfect, would be worth tens of millions of RMB—tens of millions with no exaggeration.
I returned to Uncle Harvey. "That's incredible! This one has to be worth tens of millions!"
Uncle Harvey didn't respond, instead asking, "What's the lot number?"
"5959."
"Good. For this kind of material, you just need a good eye. I think tens of millions might not even be enough."
Viewing stones at the emporium was a repetitive process: walk up to a lot, examine it carefully, take notes, move to the next. But I noticed something: every time Uncle Harvey paused for an extended look at a stone, once he moved on, the people behind him would study that same stone with particular intensity. And if he briefly glanced and moved on, those stones were mostly ignored.
I figured Uncle Harvey was being followed—his reputation had attracted watchers—but there was nothing we could do about it. Uncle Harvey himself seemed entirely unbothered, carrying on as if nothing was amiss.
By afternoon, we'd made a full circuit and had a general understanding of the landscape. Uncle Harvey said, "Let's go buy bid forms!"
"Buy? They charge for bid forms?"
"Yes, 5,000 kyat for ten sheets. You have to register your identity to buy."
"That's about 2.5 RMB per sheet. What a racket!"
"Haha, they were forced into this by necessity, to prevent waste."
"Why forced?"
Uncle Harvey lowered his voice. "In earlier years, the emporium's systems weren't mature, and there were loopholes to exploit. For example, someone would take a huge stack of bid forms and write the minimum starting bid on every single lot—tens of thousands of forms, all at the opening price."
"So all the unsold lots would go to them."
"Right. But they obviously wouldn't have the funds to purchase all the winning bids. So they'd cherry-pick the quality lots and default on the rest."
"And the organizing committee was okay with that?"
"Of course not. So they instituted a rule: additional deposits. To bid on lots totaling 2 million euros, you had to put down 200,000 in deposit. The initial deposit was 20,000 euros, so you'd need to add 180,000 more. That way, if you defaulted, they'd have your deposit as compensation."
"That seems fair."
"There's more trickery than that!"
---
We bought 20 bid forms for 10,000 kyat. Uncle Harvey and I found a table, sat down, and started filling them out. Uncle Harvey wrote with practiced ease. I'd spotted a fully green stone with a low starting price and wanted to submit an opening bid, hoping to get lucky. But I'd never filled out these forms before and was thoroughly unfamiliar with the process. Every line I wrote, I had a question, and Uncle Harvey answered each one patiently. When I got to the price, I finally made a mistake.
Uncle Harvey leaned over and said, "If you make a mistake, throw it away."
"I can't cross it out?"
"No. Otherwise they can't tell whether the real bidder wrote it or someone else tampered with it."
I was crumbling my ruined form into a ball when Uncle Harvey gave a resigned smile, set down his pen, and said, "I was too busy chatting with you—I made a mistake too. Let's throw both away."
He stood up, motioned for me to hand over my trash, and walked to the nearest bin. He casually crumpled the forms and dropped them in.
Uncle Harvey returned and said, "It's too easy for people to peek here. We still have a whole stack of blank forms. Let's go back to the hotel and fill them out."
At the exit, near the ruby and pearl stalls, a thought struck me: if someone found the bid forms in the trash, wouldn't our bids be exposed? I quickly told Uncle Harvey, "I need to go back for something!" and sprinted back.
In just two or three minutes, when I reached the bin and looked inside, the trash had already been cleared and replaced with a fresh black bag.
I rushed back to Uncle Harvey at the entrance and blurted out, "The bid forms have been stolen!"
People around us gave me odd looks. Uncle Harvey said, "Calm down. What happened?"
I realized I'd been too loud. In a hushed voice, I said, "I just went back and checked the bin. Our discarded bid forms are gone. Do you think someone took them?"
Uncle Harvey looked thoroughly unconcerned. "Oh please. Zane, if I'd known you were going back to retrieve them, I wouldn't have let you go."
---
The next day was another full day of stone-viewing, followed by bid-writing in the afternoon.
Uncle Harvey gave me a task: go look at the lots starting with 8, inspect them, and submit bids in my name. He would handle the lots starting with 6. I figured this was because we'd been followed yesterday.
By 3 PM in Naypyidaw, every T-shirt or shirt had a massive sweat stain on the back. Some of the older gentlemen who'd been looking at lots in the morning had already disappeared, probably unable to take the sun and retreated to their hotels.
The section with lots starting with 8 was indeed less crowded. I held my umbrella steady and examined the stones in peace. After a while, my phone buzzed—a message from Uncle Harvey:
"Zane, how's it going?"
"I've gone through the section. Isn't lot 81303 quite good?" I sent him a photo.
"Nice! Come back and get the bid forms when you're ready."
Lot 81303 was a de-sanded open-cut stone. One side had a thin cut revealing fine glutinous texture with no color. Because the sand had been removed, other angles were partly visible, though you couldn't be certain whether the entire stone had this quality inside or if there were impurities. I noted these features and a few other lots, then, seeing it was getting late, headed back to find Uncle Harvey.
Uncle Harvey wasn't sitting at a table—he was standing in the aisle waiting for me. When he saw me, he walked over, holding several bid forms. He handed them to me and said, "Go fill them out over there. I need to make another round."
I took the forms and sat down. I'd barely finished filling in my personal information and was pondering how much to bid for 81303 when Uncle Harvey came slinking over and asked, "How much are you planning to bid?"
"I was thinking of starting at 5,000 euros—the opening price?"
"Add a bit."
"How much?"
Uncle Harvey asked, "What's your lucky number?"
"Three."
"Perfect. Add that." And with a mischievous look, he was gone again.