“You know, the Chinese have invented everything in the world and they’ll never let any of us forget it, either.” Uh, oh. My newly met seatmate from Korea wanted to talk geo-politics. And I thought I was prepared. What had
“You know, the Chinese have invented everything in the world and they’ll never let any of us forget it, either.”
Uh, oh. My newly met seatmate from Korea wanted to talk geo-politics.
And I thought I was prepared. What had I been thinking?
I had done a bit of research in preparation for this trip to China. But I guess I had glossed over the politics of the region, favoring the cultural aspects. This was a cultural exchange trip after all, wasn’t it?
Suzanne Wolfe, ceramics professor at University of Hawaii, had sent out an invitation to join her students for a trip to work with the master teapot makers in Yixing, Jiangsu Province, China.
Planning a trip to China is not simple, especially with a group. Visa forms must be completed and submitted with passports and visa fees. Travel insurance must be obtained and itineraries must be coordinated. Inoculations must be scheduled and preventative medical kids assembled. Warnings to never drink the tap water, or eat unpeeled fruit must be heeded. DEET, hand sanitizer and prescription antibiotic cream and anti-diarrheal remedies must be packed. Lots of details.
After the long flights through Seoul, arriving at night in Shanghai — where some 16 million people live — was shocking.
Brooding Art Nouveau Bund office blocks face off against the hi-tech LED and Neon lightshow spires of Pudong across the river. The streets were full of people strolling, partaking of corner food vendors’ offerings.
Enduring the bumpy bus ride from Pudong airport, we checked into the Nanking Hotel. Hotel rooms in China are different. It was assumed that we knew that the key-card must be placed in the slot just inside the door to enable the power in the room. And that what appears to be an old-style radio console between the beds controls everything.
The zigzag Shanghai taxi ride the next morning was exhilarating. The wide throughfares are jammed with cars, bicycles, mopeds, buses and pedestrians. Intersections and passing is perilously freeform. The noise and the crowding is nerve-wracking. Drivers use their horns constantly to notify others of their directional intentions.
We explored the International Market Place at the Yuan Gardens and had an elegant lunch at the famed “Very Distinguished Restaurant” floating in a huge koi-infested pond.
Red and gold decorated traditional architecture, upturned eaves festooned with strings of red garlic-clove shaped lanterns tilted overhead, obscured the hazy sky. Back out on the streets, rows of shops offered everything one would need, from cheap Chinese cigarettes to giant carved stone Buddhas.
We left Shanghai marveling at the huge apartment blocks draped with colorful drying laundry on every balcony and the mind-boggling skyscrapers under construction everywhere.
A six-lane freeway complete with Chinese-English signage led us to in-country Jiangsu Province. We stopped to tour the “Old City” of Suzhou west of Shanghai. We hired two-person bicycle rickshaws to peddle us around the narrow-laned restored traditional village.
Smoking incense temples, round moon doorways, clay-tiled roofed shops and homes offered us a glimpse of ancient Chinese town living. We discovered that the Chinese Postal system has been in operation for 3,000 years. Red ribbon-festooned lotus trees and bridged gondola canals enchanted us. Reboarding our bus, we continued on to our destination-Yixing.
Yixing is defined by the clay that is found there. Surrounded by farmer’s fields, pottery factories are everywhere.
Founded in 1998, GuMeiQun and her family operate a large pottery factory with employee housing on site. Each worker has a specific task in production of the pottery.
Carts loaded with production ware are wheeled from one work station to the next in the factory. Jiggered, trimmed, bisqued, slipped and finally glazed pieces are eventually loaded into the “push” kiln. Unfired pieces are stacked at the mouth of the kiln and then are literally conveyed through the 60-foot long brick kiln to emerge 24 hours later at the exit portal.
Only perfect pieces are presented to customers in the showroom. Rejects are thrown into the shard pile outside the back gate of the property.
MeiQun also has her private studio on site. This is where we would spend the next two weeks learning how to make Yixing teapots.
Here the traditional teapots are exclusively hand-built as they have been for 1,000 years. We learned the specialized hand-building techniques using the locally made tools and the Zisha “Purple Sand” clay mined in the area.
High-fired, the Yixing teapots are burnished. Some forms are smooth and tight, some incised, some round, some square, others appear to be a chunk of bamboo, a lotus leaf, a gourd. These pieces are highly sought after by collectors.
Although all of us are experienced potters, we found using unfamiliar tools and a new clay body to be quite challenging. In spite of long days in the studio, we had a grand time.
In the afternoons we would continue to work with instruction on our projects or just hang out around the tea table in the showroom. After dinner, we would be ferried back to the hotel, laughing and sharing old songs. One night MeiQun serenaded us with her version of a traditional Chinese lullaby. We were spoiled, for sure.
Field trips into downtown Yixing City brought us to the studios and showrooms of other noted Yixing potters, the Yixing Teapot Museum and the Dragon Kiln. There are yards full of stacked fired wares of all types everywhere along the way. Huge planters decorated with applied clay decoration, others glazed with a deep brown-black shiny glaze are stacked in the yards of the factories.
Some 100,000 people in the Yixing area are involved with pottery production. MeiQun is one of 60 potters recognized for their mastery of the traditional teapot, as well as the newer creative interpretations of the genre.
Our work was fired in a community kiln. We were all very pleased with the results, as was MeiQun. Her first cultural exchange was a huge success.
After two weeks in Yixing, we packed our pieces and our bags to depart for Nanjing.
The freeway was jammed with delivery trucks, sleeper buses, three-wheeled electric cars and American and European luxury cars. In Nanjing we boarded an overnight train for Jingdezhen in the Jiangxi Province.
The sleeper car was dormitory style, with open compartments, each with six bunks, three on each side and not enough baggage room.
The next morning we arrived in rainy Jingdezhen. Jingdezhen has been the center of porcelain production in China for over 1,000 years. Kilns are everywhere, the tall stacks spike up out of tangled rooftops. The story of fine Chinese porcelain and its export throughout the world is an important chapter in the history of China and a foundation of the world’s ceramic history. It is in Jingdezhen that all Chinese Imperial porcelain was made during the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.
Tiles as big as table tops, functional wares of every type and huge vessels, some 12 feet tall, are produced here.
Across the river a short but bumpy ride into the foothills above town took us to the San Bao Ceramic Art Institute. Owned and underwritten by the Korean government, San Bao is an idyllic pottery making center where ceramicists from all over the globe come to live and work.
After three weeks in southern China, we prepared to return to Hawai‘i. Getting out of China proved to be more difficult than getting in due to flight delays caused by a cyclone.
Would I go back? Absolutely. The Chinese people are warm and welcoming. They are urgently seeking acceptance into the global community. In this “new” China, MeiQun was allowed to host a cultural exchange with Westerners. She is allowed to travel all over the world to teach and show her work.
What did I learn? The Chinese have indeed invented everything in the world, including the warmest of hospitality. I miss China already.
