A blue and white baluster vase, late Qing dynasty, 19th Century.

Pine and Cranes - A sybol of Longevity. For thousands of years, Chinese people have been fond of pine because it is evergreen, cold-resistant and long-lived. Even two thousand years ago, Confucius said that pine withers later than others in cold winter. Also, in many classic books, there were such sentences like “pine lives longer than any other trees”, “pine trees will be ever green when there is clean and wise politics”. There is also an interesting story. In the Jin Dynasty, behind a stone house grew a lonely pine of 1000 “zhang” (about 33.3m) high. There was once a couple who had lived there and enjoyed longevity of several hundred years. After their death, they turned into a pair of cranes and flew around the pine tree. Thus the pine trees and the crane are put together.