My Stories of Chinese Porcelain China Plus

Despite China inventing porcelain and dominating worldwide production and trade for centuries, from the 19th century, due to the Western world's industrialization, the entire Chinese porcelain industry lagged far behind.

Traditionally, there are 72 steps involved in the making of one Chinese porcelain piece. Other traditional crafts, like weaving, blacksmithing or carpentry, usually take place in a small workshop with simple procedures. Why does porcelain making require so many processes?

Even though porcelain originated in China, only a few commercial brands were created there. Despite being 1,000 years behind, the European porcelain industry was soon developing its own porcelain brands. What happened?

Imari is a style of porcelain named after the Japanese port from which it was shipped to the West. At around the same period, the Chinese porcelain industry suddenly reached its peak and lost its glamorous appeal in the world market, replaced by this new Japanese porcelain.

Kraak ware has been popular in Europe for hundreds of years. However, it was not made in Europe but in China. To find out why this chinaware has a fancy Western name and how it looks, let's travel back in time to the Netherlands in 1602.

In Chinese pop singer Jay Chou's famous song "Blue and White Porcelain", he mistakenly suggests that the colors are a "light sky blue". In this episode, we find the truth about blue and white porcelain, as well as how it became a global obsession.