However, it is not necessarily the machine made golden jewelleries have the better quality. Machine crafted golden jewelleries are often more brittle than the hand-made one, meaning they will be more difficult to be reshaped after made. With the decreasing number of professional craftmen in gold industry to hand craft the golden Dragon & Phoenix jewelleries, the price of hand-crafted Dragon & Phoenix jewelleries had became increasingly expensive.
Story of Dragon and Phoenix
Dragon and phoenix came from the totem of Chinese ancestors. Do you know, when they were first created, dragon belonged to yin, while phoenix belonged to yang. Why was dragon yin and phoenix yang? Why did their role changed in Fengshui?
The creation of dragon totem is based on the combination of snake, fish, crocodile, and other animals, as well as cloud, lightning, tornado and other nature or weather, to form a mythical beast. Most of these animals like cool and damp place, as well as the weather. Therefore, dragon was first deemed as yin (in other words, dragon was a female).
On the other hand, phoenix was derived from chicken, swallow, crow, peacock and other birds, and these birds like warm and light. Therefore, phoenix was first representing the “yang” (or male).
They were both created at the same time, which were during the early Neolithic. The first artefact that shows the combination of Dragon and Phoenix was estimated appeared during the Shang Dynasty (which is about 1600 to 1100 years ago). This was kept in a museum in ShanDong, Thai An, on "The Jade of Human with Dragon and Phoenix Crown" (“龙凤冠人形玉佩”), where the crown, with the dragon on the right and phoenix on the other side, is wore on a woman wearing a dress.
Dragon and Phoenix in Yin Yang
One more famous artwork is "The Silk Painting of a Lady, Phoenix and Dragon” (“龙凤人物帛画”). This artwork shows how ancient Chinese believed in Dragon and Phoenix.
龙凤人物帛画
龙凤冠人形玉佩
In the time where The State of Chu was the powerful state of Eastern Period, the status of phoenix was far higher than dragon. Phoenix at that time was the God’s ambassador, while the dragon was just a mount for phoenix.
The Time When They Switched Their Role in Fengshui
Around the time of Dynasty Qin and Han, the relationship between dragon and phoenix changed, where their roles in “yin” and “yang” exchanged. Dragon started to become a male, while phoenix started to become female.
During the Qin Dynasty, dragon symbolized the divinity of Monarch Emperor and grew increasingly stronger. In 259 – 210 A.D. Emperor Qin ShiHuang, called himself “The Ancestor of Dragon”. Since then, everyone who wished to be the emperor started imitating the same status. Many emperors also liked to call themselves “The Son of the True Dragon” (真龙天子), they believe that they could gain the power from the God (or tian), enabling them to connect to the God.As the emperors wanted to make dragon become male, they changed the image of dragon, by adding strong wings and sharp claws to the dragon, making it looks stronger.
In contrast, because phoenix looked more beautiful and adorable, it became the symbol of “yin”, which are closely related to female. So, the Empress and concubines started to relate themselves to phoenix. Since then, dragon got the higher position than phoenix, where the artists will draw it bigger and stronger. Then, dragon is now become “yang”, and phoenix become “yin”.
Phoenix or feng huang was first created with two genders, where feng is male, and huang is female. But as time travels, dragon dominated the symbol of male, and the phoenix became the symbol of female. So, when feng is paired with huang, it is a male, but when it paired with dragon, it became female.