First published 2004 by RKLOG Press
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX 14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright 2004 by Sarah Milledge Nelson
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2004096601
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Nelson, Sarah Milledge
Jade Dragon
Fiction
1. Fiction
2. China Fiction
3. Archaeology Fiction
Cover by Marilynn Kreft
Book design by Mary Kay Gadd
ISBN 13: 978-0-9675798-2-5 (pbk)
For my sister Eleanor Decker,
my best critic since she was two
and laughed at the stories
I made up to entertain her.
Other books by Sarah Milledge Nelson
FICTION
Spirit Bird Journey
NON-FICTION
The Archaeology of Northeast China
The Archaeology of Korea
Ancestors for the Pigs
Gender in Archaeology
Denver: An Archaeological History
Ancient Queens
In Pursuit of Gender
Equity Issues for Women in Archaeology
Powers of Observation
Han River Chulmuntogi
Studies in Bella Bella Prehistory
Reviews of Spirit Bird Journey,
the first Clara Alden book
This is a delightful book, whimsical yet based on solid scholarship. Bibliophilos, James G. Patterson
Nelson has given us a creative and full-of-life set of images, a truly peopled past. American Antiquity, Margaret Conkey.
This is a lyrical novel, which both entertains and informs without being self-indulgent. Asian Perspectives, Brian Fagan
Nelsons story is a multi-layered, complex study of identity, gender, archaeology, and adoptee issues The story is seamless and well paced. Korean Quarterly, Andrea Lee
Dr. Nelson produces a more rounded sense of life than other [prehistoric] experiments. Antiquity, Nicholas James
This is a good read Would that there were more such books in English. Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, Gertrude K Ferrar
a marvelous read superbly crafted.
C. Leon McGahee, M.D.
I was absolutely unable to put it down completely absorbing.
William Dolen, M.D.
I just finished your book and I really like it a lot!! The book haunted me for several days after I finished it.
Sociologist and poet Prof. Anne Rankin Mahoney
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks to Marilynn Kreft, who painted the cover based on a photograph of Pig Mountain, and kept urging me to finish the book to display her painting. Mary Kay Gadd was of exceptional help designing the book and dealing with technical details. My colleagues at the University of Denver, Prof. Robert E. Stencel and Prof. Lawrence Conyers read the parts of the story that pertain to their professional expertise astronomy and ground-penetrating radar, respectively, but they are not to be blamed for any remaining errors. My other readers, Eleanor Decker and Christina Kreps, made useful suggestions. Most especially a big, warm hug to Mitch Allen, who slogged through the first two drafts and made enough criticisms to turn the manuscript into this story. Thanks also to Hal, who kept asking when I would be finished writing this book, thus hurrying along the process. Clearly, it cut into our time together.
Funding for several expeditions to China came from The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and National Geographic Societys Fund for Exploration, for which I am grateful, although they didnt fund the novel. Co-explorers over the years are too numerous to mention, but Guo Dashun and Sun Shuodao were the first excavators, who showed me the site in the first place. Yangjin Pak and Hung-jen Niu have been good co-workers throughout our years of exploring the Hongshan culture. Im also grateful to my companions on the trip in 1987 when I first met the Hongshan people: my graduate students Ardith Hunter and Mingming Shan, who have been friends ever since.
Prologue
I dont think of myself as an adventurous person, although I enjoy foreign travel and meeting people of other cultures. I might have turned down this adventure if I could have seen the future, but maybe not. There were pluses and minuses.
It began with a phone call from my partners father. I was just back from a year doing archaeology in Korea, and Ed and I were experimenting with living together. So I was surprised and intrigued, but not overwhelmed, to be invited to lunch by Mr. Howland. I assumed Ed would be there too, but I was wrong.
Mr. Howland is an intellectual properties lawyer, meaning copyrights and such. Hes medium height and slender, with a lot of wavy gray hair. If Ed looks like him in twenty-five or thirty years, I wont mind. We met at his office, and his secretary brought chicken salads and iced tea for both of us into his conference room. He put me at ease with a friendly smile.
Im hoping you can help me, he began. I understand youre extraordinarily good at languages.
When I began to say something modest, he held up his hand to stop me. You learned Korean in a year, both speaking and reading, correct?
Not with native fluency in either case, I answered honestly. But sufficiently for my purposes, yes.
Have you ever thought of learning Chinese?
It would be useful for understand Korean archaeology to be able to read Chinese. Otherwise, no.
How about adding Chinese to your studies?
Why? Mr. Howlands interest in my linguistic abilities made no sense at all.
Theres someone I want you to meet. She works for a national committee and her job is returning stolen Chinese artifacts.. She has a proposal for you. Would you like to meet her?
I put down my cloth napkin and left my half-eaten chicken salad behind, as we pushed back our chairs and went into Mr. Howlands office. On the way in he made a hand flick at his secretary, and within seconds a buxom woman in an expensive suit and lots of gold jewelry was ushered in.
Sandra Wold, Clara Alden, Mr. Howland introduced us. We shook hands. I regretted wearing jeans and a cotton sweater. I felt it put me at a definite disadvantage.
Sandra, Clara is an archaeology student who picked up in a year what the U.S. Army classifies as the most difficult language in the world. With some study she can certainly handle the language side of your project. Tell her about it.