China Daily - 22.08.2019

LIFE

CHINA DAILY Thursday, August 22, 2019 | 19

Seeing change up close

A documentary, dedicated to the 70th anniversary of New China, follows three

US TV hosts as they visit nine far-flung villages, Xu Fan reports.

C

hris Bashinelli, a television

host from New York,

recently caught a glimpse

of life in rural China

through a Chinese documentary.

During his journey to Niujiaos-

han, a village of more than 1,

people in the mountainous region

of Hunan province in Central Chi-

na, he was “assigned” to pick leaves

from tea plants. Joining him there

were the mostly female villagers,

where the best pickers among

them often earn up to 500 yuan

($70.9) a day. Bashinelli received 10

yuan after an exhausting day of

work. But despite the somewhat

frustratingly low payment, he had a

wonderful stay in the village, which

is a tourist attraction and home to

more than 300 ethnic Miao fami-

lies.

Taking part in a series of activi-

ties from attending a local wedding

to learning about Miao jewelry,

Bashinelli, 32, had the chance to see

how people in rural China are striv-

ing for a better life.

His tour featured in one episode

of Homestay China, a three-part

documentary that has been run-

ning on Chinese streaming plat-

form Youku since July 1. Translated

into 43 languages, the program has

also been broadcast on the Nation-

al Geographic Channel since July

13. The documentary’s trailers have
    been released on several overseas
    streaming platforms such as You-
    Tube, and were watched more than
    500,000 times across Asia, North
    America, Europe and Africa,
    according to the producers.
    Produced by the China Intercon-
    tinental Communication Center, a
    government-backed agency, and
    the two broadcasting platforms,
    the documentary invited three US
    TV hosts — Bashinelli, Kimi Wern-
    er and Dennis Nieh — to travel to
    nine far-flung villages across eight
    Chinese provinces, including
    Shanxi and Fujian. Their trips
    ranged from a visit to a herder’s
    tent on the grasslands of the Inner
    Mongolia autonomous region to an
    ethnic Nu village in Yunnan prov-
    ince to a primary school in rural
    Guizhou province. The documenta-
    ry was made to mark the 70th anni-
    versary this year of the founding of
    the People’s Republic of China.
    Every episode starts with a voice-
    over stating that China has lifted
    more than 700 million people in
    rural areas out of poverty since
    1978, and is targeting the remain-
    ing poor families in an effort to
    wipe out extreme poverty by 2020.

“China has made remarkable

progress in fighting poverty, but

there are only a few documenta-

ries that have featured the theme.

So we wanted to make one that

reflects the country’s latest

efforts,” says Wang Yuanyuan, the

executive producer of the docu-

mentary.

But it proved a major challenge

to translate government policy ini-

tiatives on poverty alleviation into

human interest stories that could

cater to the international audi-

ence. So, the crew reached out to

the three US TV hosts, in the hope

that following their journeys on

camera would appeal to Western

viewers.

“Werner was born in Hawaii.

She is a skilled diver, fisher, cook

and an artist. She loves nature and

knows how to make friends with

those that live close to nature,” says

Wang, who is also head of the film

and TV division of the China Inter-

continental Communication Cen-

ter, as she introduces the US TV

hosts in the documentary.

“Bashinelli is an explorer and

actor, who is interested in different

cultures and lifestyles,” Wang adds.

“Nieh, a Chinese American, told

us that this was his first visit to the

land of his forefathers, and that he

felt proud to see the transforma-

tion of his ancestral hometown,”

Wang continues.

In the third episode of the docu-

mentary, Nieh is shown during his

homestay in rural Chongqing,

where his mother’s family origi-

nated from. While having dinner

with the local host family, the spicy

flavor of chili peppers reminded

him of his childhood when his

mother cooked for him back home

in the United States.

“My mum and my grandma

would always tell me stories about

what it was like back in the day

when they were living here, and it’s

always been a little difficult (for

me) to imagine, but this time com-

ing here and seeing really made me

realize this is where all those sto-

ries came from,” Nieh says in the

documentary.

Zhang Yanli, secretary-general

of Doc China, an industry alliance

of the country’s top documentary

production companies, says Home-

stay China employs a fresh angle to

explore rural China, which is an

effective way for Chinese docu-

mentaries to travel abroad.

Contact the writer at

[email protected]

sils, the fine art of blanc de Chine

porcelain production gradually

waned, as craftsmen turned to the

mass production of blue-and-white

porcelain utensils for export,”

explains Chen.

The Tek Sing ceramics are evi-

dence of those mass exports, he says.

Revival

In the 1960s, ceramic craftsmen

at Dehua researched and resumed

the traditional sintering method of

blanc de Chine porcelain.

Chen has stuck to blanc de Chine

art porcelain making in Dehua, not-

ing that it is necessary to combine

traditional techniques to create

works suitable for contemporary

aesthetics in order that the porce-

lain craft can be revived to its

former glory.

The only remaining ancient kiln

in Dehua is the Yueji Kiln, which

Top: Four pieces of blue-and-white porcelain found on the

shipwreck of the Tek Sing are among the 195 pieces donated to the

National Museum of China on Aug 13. Above: Zheng Changlai (cen-

ter) introduces donated Dehua porcelain pieces at a ceremony in

the museum in Beijing. PHOTOS BY JIANG DONG / CHINA DAILY

Scenes in the documentary Homestay China feature three American hosts. Chris Bashinelli (top), a TV host from New York, picks tea leaves

with a villager in Niujiaoshan, Hunan province. Kimi Werner (above left), a skilled diver and artist born in Hawaii, receives a gift — boiled

eggs wrapped in straw — during her visit to a boarding school in Zhaitou village nestled in the hills of Guizhou province. Dennis Nieh (above

right), a Chinese American, sells peppers with a local in a market in Chongqing. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

BEIJING — On Aug 13, the

National Museum of China received

a donation of 195 pieces of ancient

porcelain recovered from the wreck

of the Tek Sing, an important record

of the prosperity of China’s Maritime

Silk Road.

In 1822, the Tek Sing, loaded with

silk and porcelain from China, sank

in waters off the coast of Indonesia.

The sunken ship was salvaged by a

commercial team in 1999, and the

artifacts were then auctioned off.

Zheng Changlai, chair of Water-

side Culture Group, a private Chi-

nese firm which donated the relics to

the museum, said that the ship’s car-

go of blue-and-white porcelain was

manufactured at the Dehua kilns in

East China’s Fujian province during

the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). In

2018, the company purchased more

than 100,000 pieces from a British

company.

Zheng said he hopes the donation

to the national museum will attract

more people to participate in the

protection, inheritance and innova-

tion of Chinese ceramic culture.

Geng Dongsheng, director of the

Ceramics Institute of the Academy of

the National Museum of China, says

the shipwreck’s treasure, with its

clear chronology and final resting

place are of great significance and

value to the study of China’s mari-

time trade in the 19th century and

the route of the Maritime Silk Road

as well as the porcelain making his-

tory of Dehua.

The sintering techniques of Dehua

porcelain have been inscribed on the

list of China’s national intangible

cultural heritage.

Archaeological findings show

that, with the rise of Quanzhou port

in Fujian as the largest port in the

East during the Song (960-1279) and

Yuan (1271-1368) dynasties, Dehua

ceramics became bulk commodities

on the ancient Maritime Silk Road.

Rise and fall

The small county has basked in

the rise and wallowed in the fall of

the ceramics industry.

Chen Mingliang, a Chinese arts

and crafts master and national

inheritor of the Dehua ceramics

technique, says that, during the

Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the tech-

niques used to create Dehua ceram-

ics reached a peak with porcelain

being produced as white as cream.

“That was why the French named

Dehua-made, ivory white porcelain

‘Blanc de Chine’ 300 years ago, a title

that is still used today,” says Chen.

Highly-coveted by European nobles,

Dehua white porcelain sparked the

production of porcelain in Europe.

“Then, during the Qing Dynasty,

because of the huge overseas

demand for Chinese porcelain uten-

has been burning continuously for

more than 400 years.

It still churns out four batches of

pottery a year and the production

attracts ceramic makers and visi-

tors from all over the world.

Lin Zeyang, a 27-year-old local in

Dehua, rents two small houses near

the kiln as her ceramics workshop.

She explains that, while people

nowadays use electric kilns to make

ceramics that are convenient and

easy to operate, in the ancient

wood-burning kilns, each ceramic

piece takes on a unique shape

because of the uneven heat.

“This imperfection creates an

individuality that cannot be repli-

cated by today’s modern machinery,

a quality which, in recent years, has

been gaining in popularity among

consumers both at home and

abroad,” she says.

She adds that artists can rent

space in the Yueji Kiln to create

their own work. Last year, demand

for her porcelain from the kiln far

outweighed production and she

was unable to keep up with incom-

ing orders.

To this day, Dehua remains Chi-

na’s largest production and export

base of ceramic handicrafts.

By the end of 2018, there were

more than 3,000 ceramic enterpris-

es in Dehua, employing more than

100,000 people, with an annual

turnover of 32.85 billion yuan

($4.65 billion), and the products

were sold and exported to 190 coun-

tries and regions.

However, while once upon a time,

the most popular exports were por-

celain figures and utensils, these

days Western craft porcelain fills

the cargo holds of ships leaving Chi-

na.

Whether it’s the porcelain souve-

nirs sold at Universal Studios and

the world’s Disneyland theme

parks, the best-selling ceramic cups

in Starbucks, or small porcelain

models found in European and

American gardens — even seasonal

porcelain for Christmas and Easter

— most of them come from this one

small county in southern China.

Zheng Pengfei, manager of Shun-

mei Ceramic Cultural Enterprise,

one of the largest ceramic exporters

in Dehua, says the company has

earned international bargaining

power through its exports. Its

household porcelain products can

now be found on the shelves of Wal-

mart and other major international

retailers.

He adds that Dehua porcelain

needs to continue to impress the

world, not only with its considerable

production output, but also through

its innovation and technique.

XINH UA

Tek Sing ceramics showcase a rich history in porcelain