Jingdezhen hails strategic guidance

At a museum on the outskirts of Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province, children from nearby villages and visitors from across the country alike stand mesmerized as they witness the wonders of porcelain clay and ceramics in a spacious, brightly lit exhibition hall. Not too far away, unbroken stretches of lush forests thrive, hiding within them well-preserved ancient porcelain-stone mining sites.

"The new museums and well-protected ancient sites are all the result of our efforts over the last few years while applying for World Heritage status," said Zhan Xinghua, deputy director of the Jingdezhen Municipal Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism Bureau.

Zhan spent more than a decade working on the city's bid for a World Heritage listing. In July, the city, known as China's porcelain capital, succeeded in getting the Jingdezhen Handicraft Porcelain Industry Sites inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List.

Zhan said the successful application for World Heritage listing could not have been achieved without President Xi Jinping's sustained attention to the city's ceramic culture.

On Oct 11, 2023, Xi visited museums and ancient kiln sites in Jingdezhen. During the visit he emphasized on further growing and strengthening the ceramics sector to burnish the brilliant reputation of this "millennia-old porcelain capital" to an even greater luster.

For Zhan, this was not an ordinary expectation. "It was Xi's sustained care and planning that allowed Jingdezhen to build up strength and succeed in making it to the World Heritage List, thereby filling the gap of a porcelain theme on the World Heritage list," he said.

The decade-long bid process resulted in deep and comprehensive changes. Today, 196 ancient kiln sites are well protected, 108 historic alleys retain their original appearance, and 1,000-year-old porcelain-making skills continue to be passed down in an orderly manner.

"From heritage protection to strategic empowerment, the president mapped out a clear growth path for Jingdezhen's World Heritage bid," said Zhan.

In 2015, three experts wrote reports about the difficulties that lay in the path of protecting a large number of porcelain shards unearthed at the Imperial Kiln site in Jingdezhen.

Within one year, Xi made two important instructions on protecting the site. He required that "we must protect, study and make good use of the Imperial Kiln ruins, this treasure of Chinese civilization". The principle of "rescue first" was then adopted.

"While we were already protecting ancient kiln sites and historic neighborhoods, Xi's instructions formally launched a path of inheritance and protection aimed at World Heritage status," Zhan said.

In July 2016, Xi commented on a proposal by cultural and museum experts on Liangzhu's World Heritage application. He said: "World Heritage applications should help highlight the historical and cultural value of Chinese civilization, embody the spiritual pursuits of the Chinese nation, and present to the world a full and authentic picture of ancient and modern China."

These three principles became the overarching guide for China's cultural heritage applications and directly guided the entire process of Jingdezhen's bid.

In a 2019 trip to Jiangxi, Xi proposed building a Jingdezhen National Ceramic Culture Inheritance and Innovation Pilot Zone and creating a new platform for international cultural exchanges. This upgraded Jingdezhen's bid from basic relic protection to a systematic project integrating heritage inheritance, industrial upgrading, talent gathering and international exchange.

In Zhan's view, from the 2015 instruction on protecting the Imperial Kiln site to the 2023 field visit, the top-level guidance has been consistent and progressive, providing confidence for the city's World Heritage bid.

Living inheritance of cultural heritage forms the core foundation of the successful bid, something Xi has also repeatedly stressed.

In 2023, Xi visited the Taoyangli historical and cultural district in Jingdezhen and explored ancient kiln sites. While talking with inheritors of the intangible cultural heritage of porcelain making, he said that "the fine traditional culture passed down by our ancestors must remain firmly in our hands. We should keep pace with the times and carry it forward".

Yu Yin, 36, comes from a porcelain-making family; his father and grandfather both worked in the trade. He watched Xi's inspection tour on television and was deeply impressed. Now, to attract more young people to the craft, he is trying to combine ceramics with popular culture.

"In Jingdezhen, porcelain inheritance has never been the persistence of a few; it is the passion and pursuit of a whole group of people," he said.

Unlike some other traditional intangible cultural heritage projects that face a decline in the number of practitioners and a lack of successors, Jingdezhen attracts young artists and craftspeople from across China and the world, who settle in the city and devote themselves to traditional skills and ceramic innovation.

The city is now home to more than 3,400 inheritors of intangible cultural heritage, over 100,000 young creative entrepreneurs, and more than 6,000 "foreign Jingdezhen drifters" from other nations, who have come drawn by the city's reputation.

Xie Dongxi, 35, who holds a PhD in ceramic design, came to the city as a university student and has since rooted herself there, researching and creating ceramic art. In her eyes, the World Heritage inscription is not an end point but a new starting point for Jingdezhen.

"The World Heritage status has put a thousand-year-old ceramic culture on the world stage. It has not only raised the city's popularity but also built a golden bridge for ceramic cultural exchange and mutual learning between China and the world," Xie said.

Xie is currently collaborating with an artist from Ghana on a co-creation that blends traditional Chinese ceramic aesthetics and porcelain-making techniques with overseas artistic concepts, allowing them to integrate and flourish together, thereby promoting ceramic culture beyond China and on the world stage.

dengzhangyu@chinadaily.com.cn