What 20 years of working with jade taught me about the changing Singaporean family

It was a generous gesture, but I could not use them. My company works only with Type A jadeite, which is untreated, and her bangles did not meet that standard.

We found another meaningful purpose for them instead, incorporating the pieces into our educational workshops as samples for customers to understand the different treatments and qualities of jadeite.

For my grandmother, the technical classification of the bangles was beside the point. 

She belonged to a generation for whom jade represented security. Jade pieces equated to wealth that could be worn on the body and, when necessary, sold to buy something useful.

Asking me to sell her bangles was one of my grandmother’s clearest expressions of love.

To her, their value ultimately lay in what they could do for her granddaughter. 

In Singapore, conversations about inheritance tend to centre on property, savings and how assets should be divided.

Yet families pass down much more than financial wealth. We inherit objects, expectations and ideas about what is valuable.