For Chinese scholar Song Xiaoyu, "china" offers more than a wordplay on China. It provides a new entry point for exploring the connections between China and the wider world.
"If you have to pick an item that could serve as a witness to ancient globalization, ceramics might be a better choice," said Song, assistant professor of the Institute of China Studies at Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. She saw this as "a global history written in ceramics".
"This is also the beauty of China Studies," she added.
