Chinese archeologists are now playing a massive "jigsaw puzzle" game with porcelain shards in Jingdezhen, trying to revive the city's fragmentary glory once enjoyed only by the royal family.
For the past 1,000 years, Jingdezhen City of east China's Jiangxi Province has been known as China's porcelain capital, exporting to Europe, and renowned for the marvelous craftsmanship of its china.
Since the establishment of the imperial kiln by the Great Kublai Khan, who reigned from 1260-1294 of the Yuan Dynasty, Jingdezhen served as the center of China's porcelain industry until the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
Much of the legacy of fine porcelain has been buried for some 700 years.
"It is hard to estimate how much those broken shards were worth, as they were smashed deliberately to ensure the emperors' monopoly," said Li Yiping, deputy director of Jingdezhen Ceramic Archaeological Research Institute.
The institute is responsible for digging out ceramic fragments from the imperial kiln site in downtown areas of Jingdezhen.
To date, more than 3,000 porcelain items, including jars, bowls and vases dating back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) have been repaired from over 10 tons of ceramic pieces unearthed from the relics site, including 160 fine porcelain products of the Yongle Period (1403-1424). The exploration of the imperial kiln site began in October 2002.
However, Li said the work was not easy and many more pieces were waiting to be reassembled.
"Our preliminary research shows the fine porcelain pieces buried in the imperial kiln site were piled up to over eight meters," he said, pointing to numerous ceramic fragments still packed in the institute.
In fact, to repair such fragmentary history was just part of Jingdezhen's ambition to reclaim its past glory as the city in northeastern Jiangxi celebrates 1,000 years of porcelain in 2004.
Local officials said the millennium celebration would definitely push the porcelain city out of its decline towards the end of Qing Dynasty.
"The millennium celebration provides us a rare opportunity to reclaim past glory," said Xu Aimin, mayor of Jingdezhen City, "we will re-emerge as a new porcelain capital."
"We have traditionally skillful artisans, high and new technologies, and low-cost labor," he said.
To prepare for the millennium celebration, the city has already invested some 3.6 billion yuan (US$434 million) in some 30 key projects like a porcelain museum, an imperial kiln museum and a porcelain industrial park, according to the celebration planning office.
Jingdezhen (Ching-Teh-Chen), or "Jingde Town", was changed to its present name from "Changnan Town" in 1004 when the Northern Song Dynasty Emperor Jingde (reigned 998-1021) decreed to make fine porcelain in the town for royal use only.
Some even hold that the English word for the country, "China", evolved from the pronunciation of "Changnan" (South of Chang).
An outstanding maker of exquisite china for the past centuries, Jingdezhen yielded its world dominance first to Europe's large-scale industrial production in the 18th century when French missionary Pere D'Entrecolles stole the city's secret Kaolin clay out of Jingdezhen for the Europeans.
And the following century was highlighted by the country's continuous wars, chaos and revolutions that threw Jingdezhen porcelain into a decline.
In its heyday, some 3 million pieces of Jingdezhen porcelain reached Europe between 1602 and 1657, according to Professor Michael Dillon's study on the porcelain history in his paper "Jingdezhen as a Ming Dynasty Industrial Center".
"We rose as the porcelain capital in China or even the world in the past due to our fine ceramic products but we won't just confine ourselves to the porcelain industry," said Xu.
Xu said the development of other industries like biological engineering, chemicals, and food and beverages are also on the city's economic blueprint while the porcelain industry accounts for less than 10 percent of Jingdezhen's 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) GDP in 2002.
Some local artists and artisans, however, said the tradition to reproduce classic works passed down from generations was their trump card when facing increasing competition as China's reform and opening up drive since 1980s has finished off most of the state-owned porcelain factories in the city during the past two decades.
Some 80,000 porcelain workers and artisans, accounting for over 40 percent of the city's urban population, are now working at making, painting or selling porcelain in some 4,500 small porcelain workshops which mushroomed from the old planned economy.
"It is a miracle for the ancient porcelain industry to maintain its vitality here for nearly a millennium," said Huang Kangming, director of Jingdezhen City Porcelain Bureau.
"It is a critical period for Jingdezhen now as it desperately needs to pick up from its decline," Huang said, "ancient porcelain culture must be combined with modern industrial civilization."
Though officials believe the industrial restructuring was expected to pay off as high-tech porcelain products like bullet-proof materials begin to replace the traditional fine pottery as the stimulus for the industry, some still prefer to mold a mix of fine white kaolin clay and bake them in their kilns, the same way their ancestors did for generations.
Hu Zhiqiang, a former accountant in a state-owned porcelain factory and now owner of a private reproduction antique porcelain factory, said men like him hold the key to the porcelain capital’s revival.
At Hu's Hutian Imitated Antique Porcelain Factory, more than 50 workers are busy molding and painting 5-meter-tall vases, which Hu said will take at least two months to just paint one vase.
"I'm planning to expand my business as orders for my big authentic vases pour in," said Hu, 33.
Local officials said their confidence to revive Jingdezhen porcelain was on the increase as positive signs had been shown in the first eight months of 2003 with its porcelain exports reaching US$60 million while one-third of the city's foreign investment was in the porcelain industry.
Despite government optimism, artists are still guarded about the future of porcelain in Jingdezhen.
"I don't want to see Jingdezhen lose its tradition and fade away in the modern life," said Professor Li Jianshen with Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, which attracted more than 100 foreign visiting artists with its traditional timber-burning kilns, an old way that has succumbed to the use of natural gas.
Susan Collett, a visiting artist in Jingdezhen Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute, who has her own handmade ceramic tile business in Toronto, Canada, said, "I came here for the special products and the special talent."
"I will feel sad if such traditions change," she said.
(Xinhua News Agency October 30, 2003)
