What is a viewing stone ?

At present, there are over three million people in China enjoy and collect the viewing stones.
You might want to know what is a viewing stone ?
A viewing stone is a natural art stone. There is a different viewing between Chinese and the
people in west countries : the Chinese like to enjoy and view the stones from the art viewing;
people in west countries like to collect the stones (minerals and fossils ) from the science
viewing.
6000 years ago ,the Chinese began to collect the beautiful stones ( Yu Hua stones--one kind
of colourful agate ).The top period is Tang and Song dynasty,when the emperors,officials and
scholars took part in stone collecting. Many schollars wrote poems for the viewing stones, as well
as the viewing stone theory.
After Song dynasty,the Japanese began to collect the viewing stones. At that time, people
put the viewing stones on some water pans,so the Japanese called it as suiseki (like Chinese
pronunciation "water-stone").Since then the Japanese developped the viewing stones to
southeast Asia and the world.
I'm very happy to see there are many viewing stone associations in America and Europe .
I hope more and more people would like to view and collect the viewing stones.
标签： suiseki