chinese culture 瓷器 Porcelain Ware

Traditional Chinese tableware (餐具 cān jù ) and clothes (服装 fú zhuāng) at the welcome banquet for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in Beijing drew wide scale attention, with experts attributing the surge of interest to their evocation of public nostalgia for traditional Chinese culture.

Enamel-coated porcelain, widely used in the court of Qing dynasty (1644-1911), was used to decorate the tableware in the banquet held at the National Aquatics Center on Monday night.

瓷器 (cí qì) Porcelain Ware

China was the birthplace of porcelain ware. It is an exquisite creation that China has presented to the world. Its beauty lies in its shape and designs. From pots to jars to cups and bottles, everything seems to be included. The lines are simple but rounded, vigorous and elegant. When it comes to colors, porcelain ware used to be natural-colored with no flowery designs before the Ming Dynasty(1368-1644). After the Ming Dynasty, colorful porcelain ware with bright and graceful colors and pictures, appeared, making them high-valued as collectable items. For instance, blue-and-white porcelain pieces (青花瓷qīng huā cí) can only be produced when their glazed colors mature at the exact moment that the sky turns from being rainy to sunny. Such items are extremely precious. Among all the blue-and-white porcelain products, the most exquisite ones are produced in Jingdezhen, China's City of Porcelain Ware (瓷都 cí dū) .

[qīng huā cí ]青花瓷 blue-and-white porcelain ware
[yǔ guò tiān qíng] 雨过天晴 The rain stops and the sky clears up.
[táng sān cǎi ]唐三彩 Tricolor glazed pottery from the Tang Dynasty
[sī chóu zhī lù] 丝绸之路 Silk Road

Tricolor glazed pottery (唐三彩 táng sān cǎi ) from the Tang Dynasty (618-907), also known as Tang tricolor, is another type of Chinese porcelain ware that has been well-received by the world. The three basic glazed colors are yellow, white and green. The Tang tricolor products have organic colors and smooth, flowery lines that display a gorgeous and graceful aura. Take the Tang tricolor camel as an example. The camel looks up and utters long wheezing cries. It holds silk products or a band on its back, as though it was walking along the Silk Road. Chinese porcelain products were taken to the outside world via the Silk Road (丝绸之路sī chóu zhī lù). British merchants were the first to use the word "china", meaning porcelain ware, to refer to the country that exported the products. Later, that country was officially called China in English.