Porcelain Capital Of The World - JingDeZhen 景德镇
Posted On Thursday, November 5, 2009 at at 12:20 AM by Alvin
Be careful where you walk in this city - JingDeZhen City (景德镇市) had been the Porcelain Capital Of The World for over a thousand years ! When we arrived in town, we were greeted with endless specialist shops selling the most delicate and beautiful porcelain ware I had ever seen. All different shapes, sizes, colors, usages and the lighting and displays on offer in these shops were so dazzling that I really had to be careful not to knock over a few of these lovely handicrafts. We stayed right at the centre of JingDeZhen City near the People's Square and just a few minutes walk to the various interesting museums dedicated to the culture, history, manufacturing and painting of these highly prized porcelains. We visited the Traditional Kiln Halls (古窯區) located about 3km outside town. The Halls consisted of dedicated kilns (in use today) for the production of specific porcelain wares as well as working areas where we observed the porcelains being moulded and painted by experienced masters of their crafts. One really had to hold on to their wallets here as there were numerous beautiful items on sale such as pots, plates, bowls, chopsticks, cutlery, traditional Chinese face masks, vases all made and painted with the utmost delicate touches.This was also a very educational visit as we learnt the difference between earthenware and porcelain wares and how JingDeZhen earned its worldwide fame ! An interesting fact that we had learnt was that the porcelains which didn't make the Royal Court selection were all scattered to pieces on purpose, in case they were re-introduced by mistake or re-sold as being "marketed" as "almost made the Royal Court" - a photo below shows those porcelains which didn't make the cut and had been dug up as ancient artifacts. A truly worthwhile stop on our itinerary in the Province of Jiangxi (江西省) !
