Pottery Capital of South China

On the weekend Deanna and I visited Nanfeng Ancient kiln in Shiwan District, actually Deanna’s school is located in Shiwan District, and the kiln is a 5 minute walk from her place. The 500 year old kiln has been making and manufacturing ceramics for all types of purposes such as building materials like bricks and roof tiles, utensils, household items like sinks and toilets, murals, art works and handicrafts. There are two identical kilns located on this site and are said to be shaped like dragons that are climbing up a small hill. Both kilns have been repaired several times over the past hundred years in order to keep them in working condition. They say that the fire in the kiln has never gone out and they are still producing ceramics on a daily basis. The kiln is 34.5 meters long and has 29 lines of fire holes. A fire is built at the lower end of the kiln in the firing box and the heat and smoke travels up the tunnel to the top of the kiln and then out the chimney. Inside the tunnel the pottery is free standing and often stacked upon itself. I was able to peak inside the unused kiln. It was quite interesting to walk through the pottery workshops, studio village, dry storage area, and inside the kilns. The kiln workers wear woven grass slippers to protect their feet from the heat of the kiln and to help them from slipping on the slanted kiln surface. The pottery business has made Shiwan area famous attracting many artisans and visitors. If you take away the ticket booth, gift shop, the modern stairway with manicured bushes, and tourists direction signs, I really felt like I was walking through an ancient Chinese pottery village from many years ago.

Deanna and I decided to try our hand at the pottery wheel. We spent about an hour shaping our clay into vases. The only difficult part was trying to ask the attendant, who knew very little English, to take our cameras out of our camera bags and take a picture of us and our drying crusty clay hands.