White like jade

Unlike jade ornaments, made from precious stone, and carrying an intrinsic value, porcelain is valued not for the cost of the raw materials, but for the craftwork on display. Over the years, Jingdezhen porcelain has developed four special characteristics: It's white like jade, as bright as a mirror, as thin as paper and it chimes when struck softly.

Today, however, Jingdezhen's porcelain has a reputation for poor quality. The city's 4,000 individual workshops produce identikit goods of varying quality. Some inferior wares, branded "Made in Jingdezhen", have been sold at extortionate prices overseas, but that has sometimes resulted in countries refusing to grant entry visas to the city's merchants to discourage such trade.

The city's porcelain industry failed to develop after the Qing Dynasty and went into almost terminal decline in the 1990s, when its 10 State-owned factories closed during the national enterprise reforms, resulting in tens of thousands of artisans losing their jobs. A handful opened workshops, but most went out of business because the scale of production was so small. Without the continued practice, their skills were lost.

A man makes a cup at a ceramics workshop in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province. Known as China's "Capital of Porcelain", the city is now struggling to recapture its former glory. [Wang Hao / China Daily]

Wang Yansheng, a 76-year-old artisan who specializes in making bases, is one of the workers who experienced those changes. Wang represents the fifth generation of his family to be engaged in the industry, having started work at the Jianguo Porcelain Factory, the country's first State-owned porcelain factory, at age 16.

"The factory developed out of the old imperial kilns. When it opened in 1952, it was the city's largest porcelain works. Workers there were admired because they earned nearly twice the average wage of other industries. The porcelain we made was presented as gifts to foreign leaders at the time," recalled Wang proudly.

A lack of creativity, allied to a poor competitive edge, resulted in the factory going bankrupt in the late 1990s, with only one of every 10 workers remaining in the industry. "But a private workshop is a hard place to make a profit, because of the small scale of production. Most of the workers eventually turned to other jobs, and their skills simply weren't passed on," he said.

Wang took a job at the Ancient Kiln Customs Museum, showing visitors how to make clay into bases, usually for bowls. He earns about 2,000 yuan ($317) a month, roughly as much as the average middle-school teacher.

Like Wang, 10 or more other highly experienced artisans also make a living working at the museum, repeatedly demonstrating a single step in the production process to visitors. Their skills are now simply for show, rather being part of the delicate process of creating high-quality ceramics.

The skills involved in the production of porcelain are traditionally handed on through the master-apprentice system, but Wang has only three apprentices. His 15-year-old grandson is the youngest, but he spends most of his time in school rather than perfecting his skills.

Unlike European craftsmen, who used the same basic set of ingredients but added variations in terms of colors and shapes, most Chinese artisans make their wares using a closely guarded recipe, usually passed down through generations of the same family. Although Wang realizes that a lack of interested young people will mean his skills will eventually die, he is adamant that he will continue with the master-apprentice system.