Thousand Years old traditional Chinese Porcelain Making (turn on the subtitles!) | EP13, S2

And it's really hard to control the temperature inside this tanokyo, and therefore the successful rate is not as high. Many of the pieces, they got broken during the firing process, and that's another reason why potilin can be so expensive. Good morning internet! Today I am in another potilin city of China, Dehua. Last time I made an episode about Jingdezhen, so Jingdezhen and Dehua both are called potilin city, yet they are very different. To put it simply, Jingdezhen is very famous for its imperial gifts. It produced potilin and ceramic for the emperors, and it's famous for its white and blue potilin as well as potilin painting. But very differently, Dehua is known for its folk kills, which means it has been producing ceramic and potilin for everyday households for ordinary people. And also it's known in the west for its sculpture ceramic. In France, they call it Blanc de Chine, which means China white, because ceramic produced in Dehua has a very beautiful white ivory color. Anyway, I will show you Dehua in the coming episodes, but in this first episode, I want to show you how potilin is made traditionally by using the firewood kills. There used to be a lot of historical firewood kills in Dehua, but now very few are still in use. So today I'm going to take you to visit a kiln that is over 1,000 years old, Taiping Gongyao, and I was quite lucky because now it is in the firing process. And this kiln is right after, right behind that residential building, and it's not so, it's not easy to know this. This is the whole kiln, so this is the starting point, you see. And you also see a burner, that's for the jaw sticks, because there is an opening ceremony before they start the burning, the firing process. Look. And on both sides, we see workers, they are putting firewood into it. So even at night, they will still be working. They start firing process from down below, and then they go gradually uphills. And now he's drilling one of the holes. So apparently, there is a lot of techniques, there is a lot of experience inside. I don't know what's happening, but you know, look at here. The further I go now, since it's not zilled, I can feel the heat coming out. Let's come to the end of this kiln. See the smoke. Wow. Wow. And you see those clays, it's wet because it's all newly zilled. They are going to burn all those wood, and it's very costly to start the fire process once. And there is an old kiosk right next to that one, this one. This is quite incredible, especially when you see this, the surface of the inner side of this kiosk, it's turning ceramic-like. It's because of years and years of firing. Abo and I, we took a long ride to the suburban area of Dehuan, and here in those rural villages, there are a lot of chaiyao, and they are owned by young people. And they form the pieces, art pieces by hand, and then also they fire their work. This is the firewood kiosk, and they are using the pine wood. And they told me that this is because after burning the pine wood, pine wood oil, and this gives the ceramic a special texture, as if it is glazed. A very nice courtyard in a quiet place. So cool, I like it. The reason why many artisans chose to work in villages, I guess it's because, firstly, the rent is pretty cheap, and also it's quiet, and there are plenty of wood. I'm going to have a tour by myself and discover their works. So it seems that they have one specific style, this one. It looks very rustic and also very unpredictable. There isn't two pieces that look the same. Everyone is unique. Wow, I like it. So it's mainly the teapot and cups. Oh. So you see everything in this workshop, it's simple and it's very organic. It's not so sophisticated. In the beginning, I thought all the Gaoling clay are exported, but then I realized that Dehua is also very rich in Gaoling resources. Although now it's kind of protected, but you can always get the clays from this region. And now we're moving to the firewood kiln and to see how those pieces are fired. We use local firewood. For example, the firewood from Dehua, Jingdezhen, or Taiwan, how do we distinguish their characteristics? It's their local clay, the firewood they use, it's probably their local stuff. So they have their own unique style. This is just incredible. You see the glaze on this board. Those boards are used to separate different pieces. So in this kiln, they don't use the sacker instead. They use those boards. But depending on the position of the board, depending on the temperature, you see the color of the glaze is different. This one is more green. This one more bluish. This one's more bluish. It's very, very beautiful. Oh. It's still here. Look at the bottom, it's all burnt. It's all useless. Oh. Because this is the fire entrance. The fire comes in from here. The fire is the widest part. Oh, the fire comes in from here. So the three layers below are very difficult to burn. Yes. They are all used for fire protection. The things we put underneath are not very high-tech. This kiln is roughly the size of me. And at the bottom you can see those are the felled pieces. And those are the clays. But it's all natural. Wow. You see now the artisan starts removing the bricks. And as he removes now you can already see the potting land inside. Those are all the small teapots and teacups. And there's already broken pieces. It's still lukewarm. And he told me this is because the clay on the top of the kiln falls down and then got sticky in high temperature. And that's why this piece is defective. You know those are also the ones that are felled. They have to, in that part the handle needs to stand up. But because of the high temperature it melts down. This is one of those broken pieces. It's very beautiful. But you see here there is a crack. There are cracks here and also from here. So yeah. So this piece is totally wasted. Oh. Every artisan is examining their work with excitement. All of the ceramics are placed in Nassagar, especially the white potting land. Oh. And because of the protection of the Nassagar they are pretty good. And it's still warm. Oh. So you see this one is a good piece because it has a shiny oily surface. And this is a lucky one. Oh. The artisans they are so excited. They said the reason why you see their head is colored it's because the face is unglazed whereas the rest of the statue is glazed. So since the flame came from one direction so when this side is burned then it has a shiny surface and there is a backside that is not burned. Sometimes you have to repeat the same process two times, three times. Sometimes four times. And that's why it's so expensive because it takes a lot of time, a lot of work. That's all for today. I hope you enjoy watching this video. And that's China's traditional firewood kiosk. And for the next episode we're going to further explore the potting land industry in Dehua because Dehua is also known as having China's largest or perhaps the world's largest ceramic manufacturing industry. For the next episode we're going to visit some artisans as well as some big factories. Thanks for watching and see you next time.