A Family of Celadon Masters in Longquan

By Zhao Zheng, our staff reporter

Longquan Celadon, a fine porcelain tradition of Zhejiang Province, was inscribed by UNESCO on the list of world cultural heritage on September 30, 2009.

Lai Jianping, a master of celadon in Longquan, was overjoyed over the news. He felt that the honor was long overdue. This is understandable, for his is a family of celadon masters that started making celadon in 1810 in Longquan, a rural county in southern Zhejiang.

In 1810, Lai Yongchen and his wife decided to move to Longquan from Dehua County in Fujian Province south to Zhejiang Province. The young couple came at the invitation of their relatives in southern Zhejiang. They wanted to make a living out of celadon making.

The day the young couple decided to settle down in a small village of Mudai in Longquan was an epoch-making day in the history of porcelain making of Longquan. He came with a fellow porcelain maker surnamed Zeng. The annals of Longquan made an entry of their historical arrival in the county and their enterprising endeavor.

The porcelain industry in Longquan had seen its heyday. According to some experts, celadon pieces made in kilns of Longquan were tributes to the royal house in the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279). But it had deteriorated long before the arrival of the two savors. The government levied heavy tax on celadon. Moreover, foreign trade was officially banned from the last years of the Ming Dynasty up to the Qing Dynasty. Shrunken demand and heavy taxes killed the celadon industry. Long before the arrival Lai and his friend, the celadon industry in Longquan had been in ruins.

They spotted a rich source of porcelain soil near Mudai Village and decided to build a kiln there. The kiln was called Lai Yongshun. The kiln prospered. It was the beginning of the renaissance of celadon making in Longquan. Many more kilns started nearby.

When the war against the Japanese invasion in China broke out, the Lai family of celadon masters in Longquan came to the 7th-generation descendent Lai Ziqiang. The kiln, more than 100 years old at that time, was leveled because a military highway was to be made through the kiln site. Lai Ziqiang agreed to let the family property go, for the war efforts were more important.

Lai Ziqiang headed the technical department at the Longquan Celadon Plant founded in 1957. In addition to various technical development and innovation that he helped bring about, he played a key part in two important changes. First, he invented a way to use coal as fuel for celadon firing. For hundreds of years, celadon firing consumed large quantities of wood. As wood burning outpaced wood growth in the rural county, it had to be stopped. Later he invented a kiln that burned oil fuel. Second, Lai Ziqiang reformed and improved the whole procedure of celadon making. For these reasons, Lai Ziqiang is known as the founding father of the modern celadon making in Longquan.

Lai Jianping, the eighth-generation celadon master of the Lai family in Longquan, came to run a celadon sales business in Hangzhou in 1993. It was a two-way window: the world looks at celadon through this window and celadon reaches out to the world through this window too.

But selling celadon is not the whole of his endeavors. A turning point in his life took place one day in a bookstore. He ran into a magazine called Cultural Relics, a national monthly that focuses on the past splendors of the Chinese civilization. That issue gave him an eye-opening discussion about one detail in the history of celadon making in Longquan. The author insisted that in the Longquan celadon making history, there existed Guan Kilns or government kilns in the county. Government Kilns were a phenomenon in the history of porcelain making in ancient China. If a kiln was able to produce porcelain utensils and artworks of finest quality, the government would commission a kiln to produce things for a royal house only. Nothing produced in that kiln would be sold anywhere. In the history of porcelain making, the system was widely used in different dynasties and in different schools of porcelain-making kilns.

Lai Jianping was inspired. He first thought of registering a trade brand using the character Guan. Then he thought of making celadon pieces that were up to the standard of ancient Guan porcelains. It did not matter whether kilns in ancient Longquan made tributes for royal houses. He wanted to make history happen today and he wanted his celadon to be government-favored products.

He consulted experts on ancient government-sponsored kilns and made a thorough study of the ancient skills. He organized his technicians to develop a procedure to produce quality celadon. He brought questions to veteran kiln workers for solutions. He researched and experimented. Finally, he produced celadon whose quality was up to ancient government kiln standard, as verified by modern experts. The new celadon pieces he produced have enabled him to receive honors and certificates.

In 2004, a big business in Beijing placed an order for 350 Guan Kiln celadon pieces. Lai Jianping produced 2,300 pieces. He chose 350 piece by piece and destroyed the rest to make sure there was no single similar thing in the world. The buyer admired his celadon and his adherence to the ancient industrial practice.

The Ministry of Finance contacted Lai Jianping for 300 sets of celadon gifts in celebration of the upcoming 60th anniversary of the Peoples Republic in 2009. Lai Jianping presented four sets of samples. Three were chosen. Lai Jianping produced more than 1,000 sets. He handpicked 250 out of the 1,000 that were up to his strict quality requirement. He delivered only 250 sets.

Nowadays, he is a regular supplier of Longquan Celadon cultural gifts to the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Finance and the Zhejiang Provincial Government. His celadon masterpieces are used by the Chinese government as gifts for foreign VIPs.

In the first half of 2008, he hit upon the idea of setting up a celadon museum in Longquan. So he presented an application to the local government for approval. The approval came finally in 2009. Now the preparations for the museum are underway. He wishes to carry Longquan celadon tradition into future.

Making celadon as fine as ancient Guan kiln products is one step; running a museum to keep the finest celadon masterpieces is another. He is ready to take all necessary steps to carry the tradition on. After all, he is the 8th-generation descendent of a family of celadon masters that settled down in Longquan in 1810 and brought the dying tradition back to life and prosperity. □