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A pile of crock.....4 (village edition) Date: May 29, 2016 10:06AM |
Jingdezhen, roof of a pottery workshop....
A modern Chinese south central village. Unlike walled and gated villages in the north, these are quite open. New housing, some interior shots later ....
After a breakfast in the university cafeteria, with the grad students, it was decided to go on a digging expedition. We are heading to the village area where in the past centuries the porcelain production was concentrated.
We parked our minivan by this peasant's house.
That is another big difference, in some countries there is really no restrictions on walking on somebody's private property. You cannot pick their fruits, but you can traipse through without a question....
We are borrowing this peasant's tools....
...heading towards the sandy clay cliff behind the village where the old kilns were working....
the berm of shards, the detritus of hundreds years of pottery production....
Kaolinite, the magic stuff that made porcelain possible....
The "archeological" expedition, these guys know their pottery, what they are digging up, they can recognize each specific shape and the era from which it comes. This is very exiting and everybody, but me, all are busy digging and discussing each piece they have uncovered....
Of course, every other grad student before them have done exactly the same dig, in the very same place, so these enormous pottery waste piles are just that, but I have no intention of being negative and mention my opinion. However while we are stuck in the waste pits below the cliffs, I noticed being watched by a local, busily working on top of them. I presumed he was harvesting the local flora. I was wrong, he was also digging. Eventually he came down, and he had a bag full of good stuff. He is the one on the left...
We bought his stuff for about 300 yuan.
After our peasant unloaded today's harvest on the city slickers, he mentioned he might have a bit more, back in his village.
Would we be interested?
Absolutely!
We followed his tricycle to the next village....
the typical wide village road, built to accommodate two motorized three wheelers, too narrow for one of our cars to pass another. The older roads were even narrower, but all the ones built lately in the last ten years, are of excellent quality, concrete, not blacktop....
...where we realized what a bunch of amateur suckers we have been....
This was his old house, now his father's. Obviously business was good, he has acquired a new house (the one on the extreme left with the stainless steel ballustrade)....
a new wife....
... and a couple kids...
As we were doing some major business, we got invited into the new house,
living room....
dining room, you can see kitchen in the background....
master bedroom...
Although the oldest one was quite an extrovert....
the youngest was bit cautious, "WTF"?....
However while the adults were doing business, we became friends and he dragged in a gift for me....
During the negotiations, hearing of having a foreigner in the village, a constant procession of neighbors managed to drop by, with one excuse or another. We spend an additional 3000 yuan on the 500 year broken crockery. I was told we got a bargain...
While my party was doing deals in the old crockery, a traveling village peddler came up a set up the shop....
Also the local water authority was busy laying water pipe, using the most efficient pipe laying equipment possible. A pipe pulling tractor coming up the main drag....
the guy in the very back steers the pipe, the guys in the double cab are the brute labor....
...the pipe wrangler in the back of the pick up, holding the sole rope tied to the pipe ....
...disengaged pipe is now steered towards its final install....
...taking a well deserved cigarette and beer break on a way back for another segment.
They were back, repeating the cycle in less than 15 minutes....
A modern Chinese south central village. Unlike walled and gated villages in the north, these are quite open. New housing, some interior shots later ....
After a breakfast in the university cafeteria, with the grad students, it was decided to go on a digging expedition. We are heading to the village area where in the past centuries the porcelain production was concentrated.
We parked our minivan by this peasant's house.
That is another big difference, in some countries there is really no restrictions on walking on somebody's private property. You cannot pick their fruits, but you can traipse through without a question....
We are borrowing this peasant's tools....
...heading towards the sandy clay cliff behind the village where the old kilns were working....
the berm of shards, the detritus of hundreds years of pottery production....
Kaolinite, the magic stuff that made porcelain possible....
The "archeological" expedition, these guys know their pottery, what they are digging up, they can recognize each specific shape and the era from which it comes. This is very exiting and everybody, but me, all are busy digging and discussing each piece they have uncovered....
Of course, every other grad student before them have done exactly the same dig, in the very same place, so these enormous pottery waste piles are just that, but I have no intention of being negative and mention my opinion. However while we are stuck in the waste pits below the cliffs, I noticed being watched by a local, busily working on top of them. I presumed he was harvesting the local flora. I was wrong, he was also digging. Eventually he came down, and he had a bag full of good stuff. He is the one on the left...
We bought his stuff for about 300 yuan.
After our peasant unloaded today's harvest on the city slickers, he mentioned he might have a bit more, back in his village.
Would we be interested?
Absolutely!
We followed his tricycle to the next village....
the typical wide village road, built to accommodate two motorized three wheelers, too narrow for one of our cars to pass another. The older roads were even narrower, but all the ones built lately in the last ten years, are of excellent quality, concrete, not blacktop....
...where we realized what a bunch of amateur suckers we have been....
This was his old house, now his father's. Obviously business was good, he has acquired a new house (the one on the extreme left with the stainless steel ballustrade)....
a new wife....
... and a couple kids...
As we were doing some major business, we got invited into the new house,
living room....
dining room, you can see kitchen in the background....
master bedroom...
Although the oldest one was quite an extrovert....
the youngest was bit cautious, "WTF"?....
However while the adults were doing business, we became friends and he dragged in a gift for me....
During the negotiations, hearing of having a foreigner in the village, a constant procession of neighbors managed to drop by, with one excuse or another. We spend an additional 3000 yuan on the 500 year broken crockery. I was told we got a bargain...
While my party was doing deals in the old crockery, a traveling village peddler came up a set up the shop....
Also the local water authority was busy laying water pipe, using the most efficient pipe laying equipment possible. A pipe pulling tractor coming up the main drag....
the guy in the very back steers the pipe, the guys in the double cab are the brute labor....
...the pipe wrangler in the back of the pick up, holding the sole rope tied to the pipe ....
...disengaged pipe is now steered towards its final install....
...taking a well deserved cigarette and beer break on a way back for another segment.
They were back, repeating the cycle in less than 15 minutes....
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