Dali Marble

Dali Marble is named after its place of productionDali. It is refined in texture, wonderful in patterns and brilliant in colors. Its ming can be traced back to the Nanzhao Period of the Tang Dynasty. The tributes paid to the South Song royal court by the Dali Kingdom included marble articles. During the Ming Dynasty, a great deal of marble was used in building the Imperial Palace and the Ming Tombs in Beijing.

Dali Marble is classified into "caihua" (colored flowers), 'yunhui" (grey clouds), "moshi' and "baishi* (white jade). Among them "caihua" is the most valuable. Having been polished, "caihua" presents beautiful pictures such as mountains, rivers, pine trees, waterfalls, clouds, etc, which are known as natural Chinese wash paint-ings. "Caihua" is mainly used as decorations, either hung on the wall or embedded in a big screen placed in the middle of the hall. When he was travelling in Dali, Xu Xiake, a famous Ming traveler, made several .references to "caihua" in his diary. He wrote, "'Caihua' can dwarf all the wash paintings. In this sense, all the galleries should be closed." "Baishi", also called "hanbaiyu", will impress you with its flawlessness and solemnity.

The relief sculptures and fence of the Monumnent to the People' s Heroes and the statue of Mao Zedong in the Memorial Hall of Chairman Mao in Beijing , and the statue of Nie Er in front of his tomb on the Western Hill in Kunming are all inscribed in "hanbaiyu". "Yunhui" is called "chushi" by the Bai people. "Chushi" means "foundation stone". As it has a great reserve, it is a fine building material and is usually made into handicrafts.

Dali Marble can be seen everywhere, in hotels and restaurants, and on ornaments and fur-niture. At the entrance of Yunnan Provincial Government at Wuhuashan in Kunming stands a marble wall with a big picture entidcd "the Red Army Men Fear No Difficulty in the Long March". It looks magnificent and is regarded as a masterpiece of marble - craft. In tourist souvenir stores and stalls in Dali and other places in Yunnan , a large variety of marble products such as framed narrow pieces of marble as decorations, pen containers, paperweights, vases and marble mortars are on sale. Well - known at home and abroad, Dali Marble, as a chief export of Yunnan , has been sold to many countries in Asia ant Africa .