Families fired up about ceramics

Linglong ware

Lyu Yating, 31, is also the firstborn of a family that makes ceramics for five generations. She has a younger sister who does not find porcelain making appealing, as well as a younger brother who is still a middle school student.

Shortly after graduating from a university where she studied international business management in the United Kingdom in 2014, the 21-year-old Lyu returned to Jingdezhen to take over the family business. "My mother told me that my father, 62, was out of sorts as he always put his nose to the grindstone," she said.

Lyu's father started the Fuyu blue and white linglong ceramic company in the 1990s when the state-owned porcelain factories could not survive. He recruited all six of his brothers and sisters who were laid off from the factories, as well as other skilled artisans.

Jingdezhen is the only place where linglong porcelain is produced. Grain-sized holes are hollowed out in the thin roughcast and covered with several layers of glaze when ceramists make linglong porcelain, also known as a "porcelain inlaid with glass". It is famous for its exquisite carving patterns and glittering, translucent appeal. The process requires a high level of craftsmanship.

Linglong porcelain is one of the most famous types of ceramics Jingdezhen produces. The others include famille-rose porcelain, blue-white porcelain and color-glazed porcelain.

Like Sun Lixin, Lyu also grew up at the ceramic-making workshop.

At that time, she dreamed of doing something different from what her parents did. The young artisan said: "I wanted to be independent."

But she has no heart to let her parents down. The Lyu family has a formula for glaze handed down from her great-great-grandfather.

"After all, I am the eldest child and my father's technique should be passed on. Our family business is well established in Jingdezhen," Lyu said.

She feels a sense of pride when she sees Chinese porcelain, especially items made in Jingdezhen, exhibited in foreign museums.

Lyu started studying ceramic making comprehensively — the way to make the linglong glaze in particular — shortly after coming back to Jingdezhen.

"Though I had no experience for ceramic making at that time, I was of intellectual curiosity and thought outside the box," she said.

The family business produces daily use porcelain at its production lines. At the same time, Lyu has a team focusing on research and development.

She and her team have been experimenting with new media to achieve the best effects for linglong porcelain.

"I want to find a type of glaze that can make the linglong ceramic more beautiful and more translucent," Lyu said.

"Fortunately, the production of the daily use ceramics has increased significantly and made big profit so that investment in R&D is possible," Lyu said.