Puff and sweat revive imperial glaze tradition

Standing by a furnace burning at over 1,300 C, Sun Yunyi's face is beaded with sweat. While watching the colored glaze bulge on one end of a long, hollow iron pipe, he blows air through the other.

Sun, 52, is a household name in the city of Zibo, in eastern China's Shandong province, due to his skill in producing Boshan "chicken-fat yellow" glaze, and his work was presented to guests from all over the world during the two-day Qingdao summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in June.

China's colored glaze has a global reputation, and Boshan is the place it originated during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Production of Boshan colored glaze started to boom in the early Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and peaked during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).