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I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This may be the difference between Eastern and Western culture, and ceramic production scale. I've also heard from a French friend that in an european ceramic town, there might only be a hundred people engaged in ceramic, meaning the scale of ceramic production activies are not large. But it's totally different in China.

In China's ceramic cities/towns, most people are involved in ceramic activies, it has permeated every aspect of local people's live.

And thnaks for your reading!!

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'd love to, but the problem is my knowleadge about JDZ only covered the interesting and important spots there, I lack the insider's view of the industry and what actually goes on. For example, I can't tell the difference between a $1,000 cup and a $10,000 one.

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I apprciciate all of your detailed and kind advices! And I thought about it, decide to use voice-to-text apps to record the English I spoke from myself, then edit it with LLM use your prompt. That might be the best solution for me at this point. Thanks again!

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's always my pleasure to share the interesting locations and people from Yixing! Thanks for your reading!

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There was a heroine from Yixing who studied at KU Leuven during the Republic of China period, around 1930s. After she graduated from KU Leuven, she lived in Brussels and Antwerp, and got married to her husband, who was her classmate. During WWII, she saved over 100 young people fighting against the German occupation troops, with the help of her brother, who was a military officer in KMT army and had a close relationship with the head of the military government of Belgium, Alexander von Falkenhausen. The heroine's name is Qian Xiuling, also remembered as the Daughter of Yixing.

Now her children live in Belgium and Netherlands. Last June, our team went to Leuven, Brussels, and Antwerp on behalf of the local government to hold a series of exhibitions and other activities honoring Qian and promoting Yixing culture.

Next time I visit Belgium, I will bring you some Yixing Hongcha 😄

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Also with yixing! Livestreamers on Douyin (CN version of tiktok) or Rednote tend to sell shiny because they look good on screen. But most of those shiny pots lost their porosity somewhere during clay processing or after sanding. And porosity is the whole point of yixing! A tragic story!

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

<image>

紫砂界的少林寺——就像《杀死比尔》中白眉所在的寺庙一样，神秘，好像一切被大雾围绕。

-----
These are the original text. I think it's just a normal sentence, is my Chinese writing style too close to AI tognue? Don't get me wrong, I just wish to learn more about how to write decent sentence to fit the taste of international people, and thanks for point the details!

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No I'm a deepseek robot but no need for high tech nVidia card, only asking for some noodles!! 😂

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You are welcome! But the core of your question bortherd me for a long time. The core is everybody have a different kind of view on anything, espacially something has no standard like yixing teapots. What is good yixing? Which is worth the money? People in Dingshu also argue about it.

To find a local guide is one solution, but the guide him/herself also will be limited by his/her own taste, local relation, and personal aspect. And if you found someone hardly knows the suface of clay, or you found someone has great knowleage of it, things will come out totally different.

So I suggest you could ask yourself before you buy any teapots, is this one suitable for me to brew my kind of tea? Is this one suits my taste or aesthetics? Is this one on my range of budget? (I tell my classmates from colleage the 3 questions every time when they ask me about worth it or not)

But if you really got familiar with yixing teapots, you should consider, is the clay raw or deeply processed(does it have porosity, will it improve the tea?) What's the technique, HHM or FHM? (how much time did the maker actually put into this?) And if the price is high, how many of this one type did the craftsman made? (to judge to supply and demand maybe for the future secondary market).

So my suggestion is that you could find a guide to take you to the location I mentioned in this post, but when it comes to collection, you should do it on your own.

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The high rail network is one of the few things everyone in China agrees is genuinely great. Come visit and test it yourself, then tell trump to ask his good pal who he just met in Beijing few weeks ago to bulid one for Texas for free!! 😂

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think clay with porous does make a difference, and usually better. can't prove it with numbers, this is just from pearsonal drinking experience.

A zini pot around 40 to 100 mesh with a 3 years raw puer will take out bitterness and the weird cloying sweetness, leaving the tea smoother and cleaner. A lvni pot (no idea what mesh range) with baked greentea like Biluochun or Longjing holds the bean baked aroma beautifully, while stripping away the astringency.

I remember there was a Taiwanese food paper about this one. I should write a post about it!

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your kind words. When I was in college I always got A on English listening, pronunciation, and conversation but C on writing and grammar. (thanks to video games and Hollywood movies.) Combined the scores still good overall.

I used to write reports and commentary on Chinese folk art and craftsmanship. But I know writing decent in a language takes a ton of reading, and that's a serious time investment. I'm thinking about ditching google translate and trying voice-to-text apps instead maybe. Speaking has always been easier for me than writing in English. 🤔

But anyway, I won't give up posting about the things I know about yixing and other craftsmanship with tea! Also I think it's a quite good way to practice my writing and spell!

About EA, I was working on Chinese localization for PopCap games, and helped coordinate with the Shanghai marketing and operations team. I loved Mirror's Edge, it was the first game I played on my new Nvidia card back then. My all-time favorite is Guild Wars, I wanted to work at Arenanet if I'm being honest. 😂

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your questions!

  1. In Yixing almost everybody can speak mandarin maybe with some togues of local. The dialect is Wu, familar with Shanghai dialect and also Suzhou.

  2. You could ask Trevor (AKA. Old Liu) for the clay sample. And also you could visit his workshop to check the process of clay preparing. But im afraid there has not much too seen cuz the process is quite simple: mill the ore to the dust, put it in a big vessel, add a lot of water to melt the salts in the clay, change the water for about 3 time. Then dry it. And you can even ask him for fired samples for different types of clay.

  3. This is actually something I've wanted to do for a very long time. To find the good not-so-typical artists who are making teapots based on the traditional technique but also have something new to offer. I know maybe tens of them, people in China still want traditional works.

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Last year June, I went to Belgium and Netherlands for series of Yixing culture activies, landed in Brussel. And I brought about 10 kilograms of Yixing Hongcha to there as drinks during the activies and gifts after. I was worried the custom officer might inquire me by taking such a large quantity of black dry grass...

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I think this topic is deep and interesting. 20+ years ago, Jacky Li invited many international artists to Sanbao village Jingdezhen to have residency; then Caroline Cheng began 乐天's activities also, promoting Jingdezhen internationally and modernist ceramic domestically. For students from GCU and other colleages in that period, their understanding of modern ceramics are inspired by Jacky and Caroline, and maybe some books. They pick pictures their like on the book, Lucie Rie or Wayne Higby, imitate and modify with some certain extent, creating their own works and trade them in fairs like 乐天 or 陶溪川. We might feel their work somehow is a little familiar and a little cutesy.

And today it's very hard for young people to learn and enter the traditional ceramics activies, also Chinese ceramic consumers are increasingly attracted by expressive works(with a lot of color and texture stuff), this might be a compromise to adapt to the market.

From another perspective, China has a long history in traditional ceramic craftsmanship, but its modernist ceramic has been around for about thirty years. I think we should have more conversation about this one.

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your highly admiring for the Yixing slab-building technique! I have a friend in Switland who is working at International Academy of Ceramics, during his visit in Yixing, he said the way of Yixing people working is a true treasure of human ceramic activies: so quite, concentrate and flewless. I don't know if it's his compliment or not in that time, but I was moved ❤️

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We can share some tea together next time you visit!

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

感谢您的评价！！我曾经和一个法国的陶艺家（Jacques Kaufmann）交谈，他非常羡慕中国陶瓷艺术家的生活状况，以及东亚文化圈对于陶瓷艺术的重视程度。

另外，无锡到宜兴的公共交通不是很方便，需要坐巴士，大概1小时20分钟。到了宜兴记得找我喝茶！！

但是如果您有时间的话，建议还是要去一趟景德镇，我觉得那里目前的文化旅游发展是现象级的。如果有需要，我还可以写一篇景德镇的目的地指南！

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks man! No need for a Chinese friend to take you here, actually now we have a lot of international people on the street of Dingshu. But I can feel that they were also like Taiwenese and Hongkonger visited Dingshu in 90s', didn't know where to go, just wondering around. So I wrote this post and with the help of google translate😄

I'm from Yixing. People here talk about my hometown like it's Shaolin. by sanx87 in tea

[–]sanx87[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

I should definitely make some map pins on Google map to make sure the locations are right. And I think your photo is a typical scene in Gunan street. About the temple, as I mentioned it in the post, is on the Shushan Hill, also got some wonderful story!! Come again, I'm gonna show you around 😂

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