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Jingdezhen is famous in China as the country's porcelain capital, where all the best and most beautiful porcelain is produced. Apparently there is more porcelain in Jingdezhen than in the rest of the country put together, although this could well be a rumour started to attract tourists. So far, sounding pretty good, but as our beloved Lonely Planet had described it as basically an ugly, industrial whole best avoided by most people, we didn't really know what to expect. Luckily Zoe and Julie were masterminding this outing, so we didn't have to worry about what we'd do there; all we had to do was step outside of our house and into the car they'd hired for the day, and they did everything else. Beautiful!
Admittedly the sunny weather was in its favour, but Jingdezhen as we arrived was much nicer than I expected. There were plenty of the construction areas and scruffy ramshackle parts we'd been warned about, but a lot of the architecture was much prettier than you see in most Chinese cities: stained cement tower-blocks are pretty much the norm in China, but in Jingdezhen many of these had been painted bright colours or made of red and yellow brick instead, and there were some of the most European-looking buildings I'd seen in months. Also, because the porcelain is such a big deal here, the people have gone out of their way to reference it at every available opportunity. Many of the lampposts have decorative porcelain bases, and a lot of the concrete supports of the overpasses are painted to mimic porcelain vases.
Our first stop was something like a porcelain theme park; a large area of parkland filled with both old and current pottery workshops, plus other bits and pieces, where we were able to stroll around watching people make all sorts of things from scratch. It was incredibly touristy, but it was really well done: the gardens were beautiful and so much care had been taken with everything down to the paths, which were inlaid with colourful shards of pottery in different shapes. At one point, as you walked through an area of woodland between workshops, there was even a woman in a silk robe playing a traditional stringed instrument (I don't know the name, sorry) from amongst the trees. All of the staff were dressed in immaculate white linen robes with decorative blue patterns (mimicking their most famous pottery) around the cuffs and collars. ome of the stuff they did was incredible: we watched one man paint the tiniest, most complicated scenery on one vase and another carve an elaborate dragon scene, both without ever putting down the cigarette in their second hand. The vases, plates and tea-sets on display in the workshop/gift-shop areas were stunning - I think anyone, however minimal their interest in pottery, could have happily spent over an hour browsing through it all. That, and learning to appreciate the true horror of the saying "a bull in a china shop"! You could also make your own bowls from scratch but, being a bit short on time, Nicole and I opted just to try the sculpting part of the process; the "most meaningful" as the old men running this part told Julie, but also, conveniently, the cheapest part.
After this, we were swept off to a banquet meal at a very fancy restaurant with some of Zoe's colleagues from the Jingezhen branch of the Education Bureau. Nicole and I couldn't really join in much with the conversation, so we chatted to Julie and concentrated (well, I did) on trying absolutely everything on the table. Julie kept a close eye on what we did and didn't like, and helped us eat more than our fair share by emptying the plates of foods she saw we liked into our bowls. She also helped me practice saying "pleased to meet you" so I could say at least one thing to the people who were paying for our meal!
We spent the afternoon visiting various ridiculously classy art galleries, where everything was mind-blowingly expensive and our Chinese guides (we'd somehow accumulated about three more by now) insisted on taking awkward photos of us with all of the most valuable pieces. "You can email your parents and tell them you bought it!" as we stood in front of an enormous painting worth £380,000 etc. On the other hand, I was looking at one vase that was so valuable it wasn't even for sale and noticed someone had dropped their cigarette butt in it so it seems attitudes towards art do vary quite drastically over here... We left the galleries with a few photos and enormously posh porcelain catalogues - just in case we happened to stumble across a small fortune and fancied blowing it on a plate or something - and headed off to find some things we could actually afford.
I won't go into detail about what we bought because most of it is stuff I'm planning to send home as presents, but I did find some little earrings for myself and a bracelet to add to my growing collection (most of the girl volunteers are trying to buy a bracelet in each city we visit - I'm currently at seven). Then we hurried back to Jiujiang to meet the other Jiangxi volunteers, who had come to stay for the rest of the week...
Will update on the Jiangxi reunion as soon as I can - right now I seem to be the last person left in any of the offices at school and all of the lights are going off, so I better go!
xxx
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Mei Xian Moshu 2012 was the last time I was in JDZ...the instrument was probably an ER HU (2 strings)