White Copper Antique Double Fish Bagua Pendant

The double fish and the bagua are two separate sets of symbols. The fish come from the Buddhist eight auspicious symbols, a pair of golden fish meaning ease; the bagua is Daoist, qian dui li zhen xun kan gen kun, arranged in an earlier-heaven or a later-heaven order. Folk ornaments often put the two sets together, wanting auspicious sayings stacked, which does not hold up as scholarship and does not trouble the people who wear them. The eight symbols come as a set, so taking only the fish is an ornament's habit; on Tibetan cushions and door hangings the eight appear whole. Reading a bagua means telling broken lines from unbroken.

On the aged copper the hollows go black while the raised scales and trigram lines stay bright. The scales are fine and closely set, the relief low, so a finger passing over finds a shallow corrugation that does not catch. The bagua rings the outside, and the length and spacing of its lines is the only rule it has. After aging the short lines can blur, so you have to lean in to tell qian from kun. The curve of the fish tails should mirror left and right; asymmetry looks wrong after a while. Dark hollows, bright highs, and the pattern comes up.

Two options, the pendant alone or with a Chopin chain. The Chopin chain is fine, link on link, and soft, and against a plaque of this thickness it does not look top-heavy. A round plaque turns over less often than a square one, which is easier to live with. The diameter is modest, so it sits right at the chest and shows above a crew neck. The rim carries a fine raised edge, a round line under the finger rather than a burr. The back is flat and does not press in.

In folk usage the double fish gets mixed up with surplus year after year, since fish sounds like surplus, and that is the most familiar layer of meaning in the Chinese heartland. The pair in the eight symbols came from somewhere else and means ease and release; the two got told as one story. Knowing the derivation makes it harder for a seller to talk you in circles. The eight have a fixed order, wheel, conch, umbrella, canopy, lotus, vase, fish, endless knot, with the fish just before the knot.

White copper in its own colour, unplated. The aged layer fears wiping, so no toothpaste and no polishing cloth: the dark goes bright and looks out of place. Take it off for showers. Sweat eventually cakes in the scale grooves, and a dry soft brush lifts it out. It contains nickel, so sensitive skin should try half a day rather than all day against the body. The inside of the round plaque is slightly concave and does not feel stuffy. An aged plaque fears water; one soaking and the dark goes a shade lighter.