{"id":16740,"date":"2026-05-10T08:52:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T03:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eng.dragonmedia.com.np\/?p=16740"},"modified":"2026-05-10T08:52:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T03:07:25","slug":"new-wave-of-ceramic-toys-in-the-porcelain-capital-jingdezhen-an-experiment-to-bring-an-ancient-craft-to-the-global-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eng.dragonmedia.com.np\/?p=16740","title":{"rendered":"New Wave of Ceramic Toys in the Porcelain Capital Jingdezhen, an Experiment to Bring an Ancient Craft to the Global Market<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jingdezhen (China). One of the newest landmarks in Jingdezhen, a city long known as China’s “porcelain capital,” is a giant white “bowl,” appearing almost as if it has emerged directly from a kiln. Located in Changnanli, a ceramic trendy-toy district in this eastern Chinese city, the building is reimagining a porcelain tradition spanning more than 1,700 years for a new global audience.<\/p>\n

On the walls are familiar characters from some of the world’s most well-known animation intellectual properties, including Nezha from China, Transformers from the United States, and One Piece from Japan. At the center of one exhibition hall stands Miffy, the Dutch cartoon rabbit once familiar to many Chinese children from school supplies, now dressed in a blue-and-white porcelain pattern. This is part of Jingdezhen’s first co-branded ceramic trendy toy created with the Miffy brand. Small, cute, and highly collectible, it also points to a larger experiment in how a city built on imperial kilns and export porcelain is learning to speak the language of contemporary pop culture.<\/p>\n

“Ceramic itself has unique beauty in material and craftsmanship,” said Yang Mingjun, curator of the Jingdezhen Youjian Dongfang trend art IP center. “It is not only an artifact, but also a carrier of culture.” Unlike most trendy toys on the market, which are typically made of plastic or resin, ceramic toys rely more heavily on material, firing techniques, handcrafting, and finishing, Yang explained, noting that their appeal lies not only in their cuteness or collectability, but also in their tactile quality, craftsmanship, and cultural depth.<\/p>\n

For Jingdezhen, the shift is not simply about putting cartoon characters on porcelain. It is about steering an old industrial and cultural system toward a new market. Huang Hu, president and artistic director of the company operating Changnanli World Ceramic Trendy Toys Town, said Jingdezhen holds an advantage that is difficult to replicate, thanks to its more than 1,000-year-old porcelain-making traditions, a complete industrial chain, and a living system of craft innovation.
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Porcelain-making in Jingdezhen is known for its precision and complexity. The traditional process is often described as involving 72 procedures, and generations of accumulated knowledge. That devotion to craft helped make Jingdezhen porcelain a “world commodity” centuries before the phrase existed. Li Jing, who is in charge of the city’s Export Porcelain Museum, said, “It shows that Jingdezhen artisans were already responding directly to international demand. With superb craftsmanship and an open attitude, they produced global commodities for the age of world trade and even helped shape European tastes at the time.”<\/p>\n

From the porcelain found in Tang Dynasty-era shipwrecks, to the widely traded Kraak porcelain smuggled by a Portuguese merchant ship in the Ming Dynasty, to Qing Dynasty pieces customized for European markets, Jingdezhen porcelain has traveled abroad for more than a thousand years, reaching Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. In that sense, today’s ceramic toys are less a break from history than a continuation of an old tradition, adapting Chinese porcelain to the tastes and demands of a global audience.<\/p>\n

In recent years, Jingdezhen has built a creative design hub with the Center for International Economic and Technological Cooperation of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as well as a ceramic trendy town with China Animation Group Corporation. A mature business model, from matching demand to creative designs and launching products on the market, has been established, benefiting over 5,000 ceramic artists and hundreds of ceramic enterprises.<\/p>\n

Chentian Ceramics, based in Jingdezhen’s Changnan New Area, is Chinese toy brand Pop Mart’s only ceramic co-branded partner. When a ceramic version of Molly, one of Pop Mart’s best-known characters, went online, 40,000 orders were snapped up in just two seconds. Yet the crossover has not been easy. One limited-edition Molly figure, made with a traditional Jingdezhen brocaded decoration technique and priced at 14,000 yuan (about 2,044 U.S. dollars), created serious technical problems. With a heavy head and a lighter body, it was prone to collapsing during high-temperature firing. Out of 2,000 pieces attempted, only about 10 percent survived as finished products.<\/p>\n

Xu Wan, general manager of Chentian Ceramics, who comes from a family of porcelain makers, said, “The cost of this collaboration was very high.” The project took two years of experimentation and more than 20 rounds of sampling, she added. Xu said she did not charge any upfront fees for the early development work, stating, “I hope more people can get to know Jingdezhen through new ways.”<\/p>\n

Jingdezhen is now home to more than 3,400 inheritors of intangible cultural heritage, the largest number in China in the ceramic category. More than 100,000 young creators have come here to start businesses or pursue artistic work, while tens of thousands of ceramic enthusiasts from more than 50 countries have also arrived, forming a community often described in Chinese as “Jingpiao,” or Jingdezhen drifters.<\/p>\n

For Yang, even the name of his center, Youjian Dongfang, or “encountering the East through glaze,” reflects an ambition. “We hope to present a new future for Jingdezhen,” he said. In the past, Jingdezhen’s export porcelain helped carry Chinese culture to Europe. Today, Yang said, ceramic trendy toys are another attempt to let Chinese culture “go global” in a contemporary form.<\/p>\n

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