Diamonds may be Carol Channing's best friend, but I'm not one of her girls. I'm not a big jewelry fan at all, really, much preferring a trip around the world to a bauble or a trinket.
Yet a few years ago I got an eyeful of stunning jewelry in Xiahe, aka Labrang, a town built around the most important Tibetan Buddhist monastery outside of Lhasa. This town on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau in Gansu province is busy hosting a steady stream of handsome pilgrims from Tibet, most , both female and male, wearing their distinctive clothing and the traditional red coral and/or turquoise necklaces and earrings. Let me share some with you. You'll see the belts are very unique and special too. [Click images to enlarge for better view.]
Xiahe/Labrang, 2007
And it's the local Muslim or Chinese vendors who sell the jewelry to the visitors. I'm no expert in coral or turquoise, but I do know that at least some of what was in the stores were polyresin reproductions.
This is my J for Jewelry for ABC Wednesday. The link will take you to many other creative takes on the letter J.