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For over a thousand years one chinese city turned mud into gold crafting ceramics so exquisite that kings demanded them
Rivals tried to steal the recipe
And the very name of the material became a global shorthand for the country itself.
Now, that centuries-long run of mastery has just landed Jingdezhen on UNESCO's World Heritage List.
But beyond the prestige, this is a story of innovation and how a single industry shaped taste and trade across oceans.
We're live from our studios here in Beijing.
This is Roundtable.
I'm Steve Hatherly.
Thanks for being with us today.
And for the show, I'm with Yushan and Yushan.
First up.
When you hear the word China, what comes to mind?
For most people, it's either the country or the fine porcelain sitting in a display cabinet somewhere.
What's remarkable is that those two meanings are connected.
For centuries, China produced porcelain so beautiful, so durable and so difficult to copy
That in many parts of the world, the material itself simply became known as China.
And if there is one place that tells that story better than anywhere else, it's Jingdezhen.
Porcelain is an enduring emblem of Chinese civilization.
From Song Qingbai to Yuan Blue and White,
Ming Polychrome, and Qing Famil Rose, Jingdezhen scaled peak after peak in the history of ceramics.
With its kiln fire burning for a millennium without cease, Jingdezhen preserves the world's only handmade porcelain heritage of its kind.
Declare draft decision for the ACOM AB.16 adopted.
For more than 1,000 years, this city in Jiangxi province has been making porcelain.
Emperors commissioned it, merchants carried it across oceans, European kings collected it, entire industries were built trying to copy it.
Now, as you just heard, that extraordinary history has received one of the world's highest cultural honors.
On July 25th, UNESCO officially added the Jingdezhen Handcraft Porcelain Industry Sites to its World Heritage List, recognizing not just the city, but an industrial and cultural tradition that helped shape global trade today.
Technology, and artistic exchange for more than a millennium.
So today, let's explore how one Chinese city became the porcelain capital of the world and why its influence can still be found on dining tables, in museums, and even in the English language itself.
Yushan and Yushan, good afternoon to you both.
That clip we heard was from CGTN.
That was the actual announcement you heard at the very end.
And you heard the crowd clapping when it was accepted to UNESCO.
So a really cool story.
And it's so wonderful to see the art and the city get recognized.
Yeah, it's news that makes every Chinese so proud of.
And as we heard about it over the weekend, it was on July the 25th that was announced during the 48th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee held in Busan, South Korea, that Jingdezhen Handicraft Porcelain Industry site is added to the World Heritage List.
So this has a lot of significant meanings for it.
For one, it marks a major milestone as Jingdezhen became China's 61st World Heritage Site.
And also this inscription represents two major milestones in world heritage history.
First, it is the first time China has successfully nominated an industrial heritage site for World Heritage status.
And also, it is the first World Heritage site in the world themed specifically around porcelain.
That's pretty cool.
Yeah, I mean, we always hear about porcelain and perhaps a lot of us know that it originated in China.
Perhaps they also know it's in Jingdezhen, but now it's making its name even further.
Yeah, and there was kind of a gap.
On UNESCO's global roster, if you want to call it a roster of recognition.
And porcelain just wasn't on that list for a very long time, but now it is.
Yeah, it happened in Busan, South Korea.
I used to live there for a year and a half.
And there were a lot of people, important people that were there recognizing this.
Yeah,
Addressing the assembly following the vote, Rao Quan, who is a Chinese vice minister of culture and tourism and head of the National Cultural Heritage Administration, reaffirmed China's commitment.
To the World Heritage Convention, he pledged that China would continue to strengthen the integrated protection, conservation, and sustainable use of the sites while working alongside international partners to safeguard the shared heritage of humanity.
So it is becoming, I think, the treasure of the world now.
International recognition as well.
Representatives from around the world were there and they said it was a wonderful decision.
They called the inscription a great achievement, not only for China, but also for the global community as it becomes a shared cultural treasure.
So that was great to see as well.
All right.
Well, let's talk about more specifics then.
Why then or what exactly did UNESCO recognize here and why is this such a significant moment?
So 镇 in Chinese is a town.
So 景德镇 is literally 景德 town.
景德 town, okay.
Yeah, we're not... You didn't know that, Yusheng?
No.
It's just so common to me the three word is representing the city.
But it's not that the UNESCO is listing a town or one beautiful porcelain products.
It actually recognized an entire industrial heritage system that surrounds that town named Jingde.
And it's still operating continuously for more than a thousand years after it first opened.
Got its name and started operating the way it was and it is nowadays.
So the newly inscribed World Heritage Site includes Qion ruins, those from hundreds, thousands of years ago,
The kiln, that's the oven, right?
Yeah, the oven where the clay are put in, potted clay are put in to get fired and become porcelain.
And then there's also the raw material workshops, the mining areas, transportation facilities, ancient neighborhoods, and the imperial complex that once produced porcelain exclusively for China's emperors.
Wow.
You see, we grew up hearing about, well, this is more from Qing Dynasty legacies, that there is minyao, meaning the folk kions for grassroots, for normal people, for commoners.
And then there is the imperial kions just for royal emperors and royal families.
And I was just learning about how growing up, I was learning about how some collectors recognize so highly with the imperial ones, but the folk ones is the technique that has been lasting for over a thousand years.
It's pretty cool.
So this recognition isn't just the porcelain.
It's not just the city.
It's the porcelain in the city.
And also the cultural value it bears.
Yes.
So it's the design, it's the manufacturing, it's the transportation, it's the trade.
And it's how these artists have perfected this craft over hundreds of years.
And the fact that it's still...
Yeah, because it has a very significant meaning.
UNESCO praised Jingdezhen as an exceptional example of a city built around a single craft.
Rather than preserving one historic building or monument, the listing recognizes an entire urban landscape where every stage of porcelain production from digging clay out of the ground to firing the finished masterpieces became part of everyday life.
It described the city as demonstrating the
Quote unquote, outstanding universal value of a living industrial and cultural tradition that influenced ceramic production around the world.
So this is a whole culture of the city that it is reflecting to the world.
And it's amazing.
I said hundreds and hundreds of years.
I think I can put it better because it's actually more than 2000 years that they've been making ceramics in the city itself.
Yeah, about in Tang Dynasty even, that's almost 2000 years ago, or a little over 1000 years that there are already gatherings of crafts people, craftsmen working on making porcelain there.
And I was looking into the name Porcelain Capital of China.
That's one very important title that Jingdezhen has been carrying that's known by us and now by the world too.
And I was looking into that title.
Why?
Like what made it become this Porcelain Capital?
Yeah, what is it about the place?
Well, this place, this was made possible by a unique combination of natural advantages that surround Singdejian.
So first, it had abundant, high-quality porcelain stone and
Clay, that's one good resource for making porcelain.
And also, they have plentiful wood, I think it's pine tree, for Kion fuel.
And thirdly, they have convenient waterway along Changjiang or Chang River.
That means it's good for transportation all over China, even back in a few hundred years ago.
And last but not least, there's the favorable landscape and climate that support Qion construction, ventilation, and the high temperature firing.
Because any of these elements that I just mentioned,
The geographical landscape, the ventilation, the high temperature remained inside the kilns, any of these changed would cause a different result after the firing procedure is finished.
Yeah.
It's kind of like nature's perfect...
Everything to create this absolutely stunning porcelain.
And a long time ago during those dynasties, the Ming and the Qing dynasties,
Jingdezhen was the area that was known then too, I guess.
Right now we call it the porcelain capital of China and the porcelain capital of the world.
But even back during the Ming and Qing dynasties, that was the place where the craftsmen or the artists from different regions around the country, they would go there at that time too, right?
Yeah, skilled craftsmen from across the country gathered here to create exquisite porcelain production and ceramics for the royal court, establishing the whole city.
You mentioned before, some of the porcelain was just for people like you and I, but then there was an exclusive group of craftsmen that were making porcelain exclusively for the emperors.
That's starting from Yuan Dynasty before Ming.
So that's around the time when the feudal government started to build specific divisions on supervising local craftspeople in just making a group or a batch of porcelain products for people.
And they were saying that Jing Dezhen's porcelain is celebrated for being as white as jade, as smooth as a mirror, as thin as paper, and as clear as a bell.
Mm-hmm.
And these reasons and these masterpieces were not only treasured by Chinese emperors, but were also exported along the ancient Silk Road, becoming one of China's most recognizable cultural symbols around the world.
You were telling me before the show, Yushun, that...
It's difficult to do a topic like this on radio because the beauty of these porcelain pieces is so exquisite that you feel like it's a little unjust.
That we don't get to show what it looks like for people who have never seen it before.
Yeah, you kind of have to see it yourself in your eyes and to see all of the details that you can never imagine in these porcelains.
And even though I am saying this right now,
I really recommend people who may be getting to some official websites or get some pictures because you can totally see all of the details when you're checking out the colors that you're using.
And you can tell the temperature of the fire of the kiln and everything.
So it is just unimaginable.
I don't know if it, I'm going to assume it was from Jingdezhen when I went to the Forbidden City.
Yes, there were a lot.
I thought so.
I didn't know it at the time, but when you go to the Forbidden City, there's a section of it's like a museum or an exhibit, I guess.
And they have these beautiful old porcelain pieces on display there.
And I think the international audiences know about Ming vases and things like, because they're famous, right?
Around the world.
And I was looking at those pieces and I was thinking, this has gotta be it.
I've seen it in the news before.
I've heard people talk about it in movies or whatever about these beautiful ancient Chinese porcelain pieces.
And when I was looking at the Forbidden City, I thought this has to be what they're talking about.
I had never seen it.
And so I do agree with you now that I know what it was.
Yeah, you kind of have to see it in person.
So if you ever have the chance, go ahead.
Now, that was a long time ago.
You know, fast forward to today and it's still a place where young artists, you know, hundreds of years ago, artists were flocking to Jingdezhen to go and create the porcelain pieces there.
And that's still happening today, which is an amazing thing.
Yeah, that city is still where thousands if not dozens of thousands of young artists are gathering nowadays to try to create porcelain of their own modern design.
Nowadays, more than 60,000 young artists, designers, and entrepreneurs from across China and around the world are gathering to Jingdezhen, and that action of gathering there is known as Jingpiao.
So literally people who drift to Jingdezhen as a way of migrating there and starting to build a career there from... And even though they're not even originally from there.
Because you call people who are living in and migrating to Beijing...
What was that word again?
Bei Piao?
Yes.
Bei Piao.
Yeah.
And then they call people who live in Jingdezhen Jing Piao.
Oh, the people who just kind of naturally migrate there.
Exactly.
That's pretty cool.
Yeah.
Yeah, it is, I think, now the new reflection of the porcelain culture and the designing culture because they are innovating their own contemporary skills and techniques into these century-old porcelain techniques.
They're giving kind of new life to the city, some ceramic heritage, and also ensuring that the stories of Jingdezhen continues for generations to come.
That kind of answers how Jingdezhen became the porcelain capital of China.
But it doesn't answer the question about its place on the world stage.
And that started a long time ago as well, right?
Yeah, we can kind of assume that Jingdezhen became famous because it made beautiful porcelain.
But beauty alone doesn't explain why its influence spread so vast across continents.
So the real story is that Jingdezhen arrived at exactly the right moment in history.
So from the Song Dynasty onward, China's expanding maritime trade routes, including the Maritime Silk Road, allowed porcelain to travel far beyond its border to other countries.
And during the Ming Dynasty, especially under the voyages of Zheng He,
Chinese ceramics reached Southeast Asia, South Asia and Middle East and East Africa in unprecedented quantities.
But at that time,
You can imagine how pricey those porcelain would be for those recipient countries because along the way there's got to be collateral damage, there's got to be broken pieces.
But even though it got there, and later European trading companies, particularly the Portuguese and the Dutch East India Company, they began shipping Jingdezhen porcelain back to Europe, where demand exploded and people across Europe started to appreciate this kind of product.
People absolutely loved it.
So then there was the 17th and 18th centuries.
They call it the white gold era.
And you had all of these, I mean, millions of pieces of Chinese porcelain were being exported overseas every single year.
And it became one of the most valuable export products.
That the country had.
You had silk and you had tea, but porcelain was right there with it.
And that's why they called it white gold at the time, because of the fact that people wanted it so badly.
And it was so valuable as well.
So the richest of families, they put it up as kind of a status symbol, like, oh, look what I got, this one of the most beautiful things.
Pieces in the world and then european monarchs too
They filled their palace rooms with it with these um they made they started their own collections and that's kind of how it became or at least that's where it started to become the porcelain capital as well of the world as well
Just FYI, the white and blue flowered porcelain is not the only type of porcelain China was exporting around the world, starting from Ming Dynasty.
We also have, I think that's also in eastern China, perhaps not too far away from Jiangxi province where Jingdezhen is located.
That's in Fujian in an area called Longquan.
Where they produce Longquan qingzi, which is a green porcelain.
They also get batches and batches outside to perhaps not so much in European countries, but in southern area in the global south that we call today.
That's also part of our heritage here.
But also for porcelain, when people mention it, it's the white gold that got its name famous first, I believe.
So what is, I mean, after that in Europe, they spent hundreds of years trying to copy it.
They thought this is amazing.
Oh.
We want to make it ourselves as well.
But they had a very difficult time doing that.
So what was it about the porcelain coming from Jingdezhen that made it so difficult to copy and replicate?
Yeah, because back then no one outside China knew how to make it right.
And I think that thanks to the very, very strict standard back then when
People started to make maybe the imperial standard or from the imperial uh kilns and then because there are actually historical records and now uh from the museums we can see that
Even the slightest flaw could lead to a piece being just rejected or destroyed.
The emperors were kind of famous for that, right?
If it wasn't perfect, they would have it smashed.
Yeah, and then archaeologists have since uncovered large pits filled with broken imperial porcelain.
Because they were imperfect.
Exactly.
What a waste, huh?
What is interesting is that many of these discarded pieces would be considered museum-quality masterpieces today.
For us today, of course.
I think that is one of the reflections that's telling people how exquisite, how hard it could be when you want to have...
A perfect, that kind of perfect sports thing that you can get.
Without any flaws at all.
Just completely flawless.
And the replication is also made hard because, yeah, you mentioned earlier, Yusheng, that it's so complex to make.
I heard that just gathering raw materials and putting it into shape and putting it into the Keon and everything else, adding up together, there are more than 70 separate steps.
And that's like a streamlined flow of work done by dozens of staff or craftspeople.
And also those techniques, they only...
Leave as a legacy from generation to generation.
And I heard that even some families do it under their only family lineage and only to the male partners of their family, stuff like that.
So there are all kinds of rules like that.
It's not something that you can replicate easily.
And you mentioned that the location and geographical reasons is also one of the reasons that Jingdezhen is getting so suitable and popular for making porcelain.
Kaolin?
Is that the name for the clay?
Yeah.
And also, I think the techniques that you have hundreds and thousands of years ago,
That you can never imagine,
Okay, people back then can have that kind of techniques because they need to fire the kiln and mix with porcelain stone and fire it at temperatures of around 1,300 degrees Celsius.
Very specific.
Yeah.
And wow, that that kind of I think we can call it technology now even because you need to fire up and make the fire so hot at this temperature.
And the result was something the world had rarely seen before.
The porcelain that was remarkably thin and also strong.
And also white and almost translucent when held up to the light.
The famous color is the blue, right?
So you've got the white vase and then that cobalt blue color, I think is one.
It's not the only one, right?
But it's just one of the most recognized.
I mean, when people see that color combination, they know, ah, that's from Jingdezhen, which is pretty cool.
And then, you know, you think over the years of talking about quality, they've been doing this for 2000 years.
Think of all the lessons that were passed down from one artist in one generation to the next group of artists in the next generation to the next, to the next, to the next, to the next.
And then it just keeps getting better and better and better.
So good, as a matter of fact, that it can command millions of dollars at international auctions.
That's, I think, when I saw this first news.
And this was a long time ago.
This is years ago.
Yeah, there's one antique Jingdezhen porcelain commands that's immense prestigious on the international market due to its absolute rarity.
That's for sure.
And also there's historical provenance and unmatched craftsmanship.
So one famous testament to this incredible demand occurred in 2014.
I think I believe this is the case.
Yeah, a 500-year-old Ming Dynasty chenghua chicken cup.
A small wine cup crafted for the emperor.
It's sold at Sotheby's in Hong Kong.
Sotheby's is the auction house.
That's what it is.
And it's sold for a record-breaking 36 million U.S. dollars.
Crazy, right?
For one cup.
Yeah, it's unbelievable.
Yeah, so it sells on the international.
And that's not, you know, that common, right?
It's not like every piece coming out of Jingdezhen is going to cost you $36 million.
No.
They have tons of affordable pieces, too.
And that's how they do it today, right?
We talk about live streaming, e-commerce on the show a lot, and that's included in Jingdejian's porcelain sales.
Yeah, they are kind of also using this whole city and the whole culture to make it also a contemporary industry because the whole city is transformed into a thriving market connecting historic craftsmanship with global shoppers as well.
So local studios and also artists and artisans sell ceramics nationwide and internationally through these e-commerce platforms and live streaming shopping events on social media.
You can go to the live stream.
I actually saw some of these live streaming rooms.
I guess you get in.
They will just exactly show you because it's not like, okay, they have so many same cups in the shopping cart.
You can just choose and buy one.
They specifically select this cup and show you.
This piece, this particular piece.
Exactly.
If you want it, you buy it.
And then this product is gone.
So it is also kind of...
It's not like shopping at Ikea.
Well, the uniqueness of that is each and every product is different.
It's handmade.
So even though it's a draw of the same pattern, it can turn out very differently.
And that's why tourists love it, too, because if you visit Jingdezhen and you want to take a piece of that white gold back home with you, it's really easy now.
A lot easier considering global shipping and things like that.
A lot of the local workshops or the local markets or factories, they'll...
They'll offer you door-to-door international express shipping services.
Isn't that amazing?
So you visit this town on your vacation, you see a piece that you want, and then you just give your address and it's maybe there waiting for you when you get back from your trip.
That's pretty amazing.
Well, there are tips on red notes saying that don't window shop whatever porcelain that you believe is what they say it is.
Sometimes it can be sold at a higher price.
And with you being a tourist, being tricked in that game, you know, just like everywhere else that's known for tourism.
So, yeah, be careful when you're traveling there, when you're bringing back souvenirs.
It's, yeah, talking about tourists and the international crowd, but it's not just people who go and visit and then leave because a lot of international artists will go to Jingdezhen as a hub because if they're interested, if they're an artist in that craft, then that's the place to go.
You know, one of the biggest misconceptions about world heritage sites is that they are frozen in time.
And Jingdezhen is the opposite because it is still a working city where porcelain is made every day.
And it is a new contemporary industry right now.
Thousands of artists work.
Craftsmen, designers, and entrepreneurs continue to experiment with new techniques, as I said, while drawing inspiration from traditions that stretch back more than a millennium.
So UNESCO's recognition is therefore not simply about protecting old kilns, it is also about protecting a living craft that continues to evolve.
Live and breathe as we speak today.
And I guess that's what makes this UNESCO heritage recognition so meaningful because I think a lot of the time, you know, a city might become famous because of a great moment in history.
And that's a wonderful thing, too, to be recognized for that.
But this is very unique because Jingdezhen became famous thousands of years ago.
And then generation after generation after generation just kept improving the same craft.
So for more than...
A couple of millennia, these people, who also, and we didn't even get to any personal stories today, right?
Which I, you know, hopefully at some point in the future we'll get to learn about some of these artists from the past too.
But you can just imagine all of the stories that came out of Jingdezhen.
And the people who are still moving there today to learn the craft and make it better and share it with the international community.
It's just a really meaningful thing.
