Like most, Sun Lixin, the eldest child in the family-run businesses in Jingdezhen, east China's Jiangxi province, was born with a mission — succession.

The firstborn son was followed by a brother and a sister in a family that has made porcelain for four generations and was trained to inherit the family's ceramic making skills since he was a child.

His father, Sun Tongxin, has a masterly skill for blue and white painting on porcelain and was a trailblazer in splash ink painting on ceramic panels, blending the innovative contemporary high-temperature technique with the expressive methods of traditional Chinese blue and white ink painting. One of Sun Sr's pieces was collected by the Palace Museum in Beijing.

Ink color is one of the color painting decoration methods of ceramics. It refers to a kind of porcelain painting technique that uses thick or bright black as the main colorant to paint on ceramics, presenting a light-black ink effect. It has a strong literati charm and an artistic appeal, showing an elegant and simple, green and subtle aesthetic feeling.

"I grew up in an environment surrounded by ceramics and ceramists," Sun Lixin, 57, said.

He recalled that he did homework at the workshops where his parents worked when primary school finished. The three went home together after the adults got of work.

In 1976, then premier Zhou Enlai decreed the protection for traditional craftsmanship of porcelain production.

Thanks to the regulation, a group of teens in Jingdezhen was recruited by the local 10 state-owned porcelain factories to be trained in pottery-making techniques.

"Though being wet behind the ears, I was thrilled to be an apprentice in a state-owned factory," Sun Lixin said.

He was only 13.

"I liked to learn how to make ceramics, such as drawing, throwing and painting as many of my peers were also in the factory," he said.

Sun Lixin's teacher was his father, who was very strict with the naughty boy. Luckily, his peer apprentices, in his words, learned from their parents' friends, who were very friendly.

"I was always sniveling as my father bawled me out for doing things frolicsome with other children," Sun Lixin said. "One day, I ran away from home, saying to myself that I was damned if I was going to do pottery again."

However, he had no choice but to return home and continue his apprenticeship and his father had more teachers for the boy to sharpen his skill of Chinese painting.

Sun Lixin was a fast learner and became a skilled porcelain painter.

Time of change

But things turned bad in Jingdezhen in the late 1980s and early 90s as all the workers were laid of due to the restructuring of the state-owned factories. Sun Lixin and other potters had to do something else to make a living.

An entrepreneur from Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong province, invited Sun Lixin to work for him, offering a fat salary of more than 2,000 yuan ($275) a month.

"His offer is very impressive to me. You know, I earned a monthly income of only 300 yuan in Jingdezhen at that time," Sun said.

His parents were also among the massive layoffs, instead bringing home the bacon by drawing for some local people who were the first to run their own porcelain workshops.

Sun Lixin returned to Jingdezhen from Guangzhou when he was told that his grandfather was fatally ill.

"I am his firstborn grandson, whom the big family has great expectation on," Sun said.

He took with him all the money he had saved over several years in Guangzhou and rebuilt the kiln that the family had before 1949.

Most of the Sun family members are artisans. Sun Lixin's uncle has a mastery of porcelain pigments.

In January 1975, the Jingdezhen-based ceramic research institute affiliated to China's former ministry of light industry was assigned the special mission of making porcelain for Chairman Mao Zedong. More than 100 sets of porcelain, or nearly 10,000 pieces, which were coded as 7501, were produced in a year.

Sun Lixin's mother, who is specialized in underglaze polychrome enamels, was in the team for the important assignment.

"In my childhood, I saw my mom doing underglaze enameling on a very thin piece in the middle of night. There was a slight sound of cracking. I saw a tear rolling down her cheek," Sun Lixin recalled compassionately.

"Flaws make porcelain prices drop, so no single flaw is allowed on ceramic pieces," he said.

But Sun has kept piles of porcelain wares with flaws, which, in his words, remind him of the time and effort his parents invested.

"Hard work and dedication is the character of the Sun family to the core. I have a sense of purpose for making the family craftsmanship better," Sun Lixin said.

Family craftsmanship

He is devoted to making the Sun's kiln not only a workshop but also a place for doing research on ceramic making.

Sun Lixin's modern aesthetic perfectly complements the craftsmanship of the classic designs from Chinese ink painting.

His ceramic panels are widely collected by museums such as the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, as well as individuals. He is one of the inheritors of intangible cultural heritage conferred by the Jingdezhen authorities.

In 2006, the Jingdezhen ceramic hand-making technique was included in the first batch of traditional skills in China's national intangible cultural heritage list. There are 1,899 inheritors of Jingdezhen's intangible cultural heritage, more than 90 percent of whom are engaged in the inheritance of ceramic hand-making skills.

When Sun Lixin found that his son was not into the porcelain making, he and his wife decided to have one more child. They had a daughter when Sun Lixin was 41.

The girl's early interest in drawing gives her parents and grandparents pleasure. "It seems that drawing is in her bones. She is making sketches much better than I do," Sun Lixin said as he beamed with pride.

While his 24-year-old son was studying biological engineering in Dalian city in Northeast China's Liaoning province, his daughter, 16, is learning fine art in Beijing.

As the intangible cultural heritage inheritor, Sun Lixin is taking on six young people as his apprentices. They learn to draw the traditional Chinese patterns such as lotus, peony, peach, bat and persimmon.

"These flora and animals used as decorative motifs on porcelain pieces are symbols of traditional Chinese culture, which young people had better have a understanding of," Sun Lixin said.

The Bat, for example, represents good fortune, lotus stands for good luck and the peach means longevity.

"I am obliged to tell them what I know about traditional Chinese culture," he said.

Linglong ware

Lyu Yating, 31, is also the firstborn of a family that makes ceramics for five generations. She has a younger sister who does not find porcelain making appealing, as well as a younger brother who is still a middle school student.

Shortly after graduating from a university where she studied international business management in the United Kingdom in 2014, the 21-year-old Lyu returned to Jingdezhen to take over the family business. "My mother told me that my father, 62, was out of sorts as he always put his nose to the grindstone," she said.

Lyu's father started the Fuyu blue and white linglong ceramic company in the 1990s when the state-owned porcelain factories could not survive. He recruited all six of his brothers and sisters who were laid off from the factories, as well as other skilled artisans.

Jingdezhen is the only place where linglong porcelain is produced. Grain-sized holes are hollowed out in the thin roughcast and covered with several layers of glaze when ceramists make linglong porcelain, also known as a "porcelain inlaid with glass". It is famous for its exquisite carving patterns and glittering, translucent appeal. The process requires a high level of craftsmanship.

Linglong porcelain is one of the most famous types of ceramics Jingdezhen produces. The others include famille-rose porcelain, blue-white porcelain and color-glazed porcelain.

Like Sun Lixin, Lyu also grew up at the ceramic-making workshop.

At that time, she dreamed of doing something different from what her parents did. The young artisan said: "I wanted to be independent."

But she has no heart to let her parents down. The Lyu family has a formula for glaze handed down from her great-great-grandfather.

"After all, I am the eldest child and my father's technique should be passed on. Our family business is well established in Jingdezhen," Lyu said.

She feels a sense of pride when she sees Chinese porcelain, especially items made in Jingdezhen, exhibited in foreign museums.

Lyu started studying ceramic making comprehensively — the way to make the linglong glaze in particular — shortly after coming back to Jingdezhen.

"Though I had no experience for ceramic making at that time, I was of intellectual curiosity and thought outside the box," she said.

The family business produces daily use porcelain at its production lines. At the same time, Lyu has a team focusing on research and development.

She and her team have been experimenting with new media to achieve the best effects for linglong porcelain.

"I want to find a type of glaze that can make the linglong ceramic more beautiful and more translucent," Lyu said.

"Fortunately, the production of the daily use ceramics has increased significantly and made big profit so that investment in R&D is possible," Lyu said.

New ways forward

Now the young entrepreneur is dedicating herself to building brands as she knows that her production lines cannot churn out as much as the companies in Dehua, Fujian province, and Chaozhou, Guangdong province. The two places have a pile-it-high-and-sell-it-cheap strategy.

"I don't want to be an original equipment manufacturer. Instead, I want to sell our brands overseas," she said.

Lyu described herself as a well balanced person who is calm and reasonable and shows good judgment.

"I hope that products of intangible cultural heritage can be salable rather than merely a symbol. In so doing, people can understand what the charm of intangible cultural heritage is," Lyu said.

Lyu, also a designated inheritor of intangible cultural heritage in Jingdezhen, is ambitious to make ceramics that could be handed down from generation to generation.

"I am grateful to my father who has created such a wonderful company," she said.

Her company has four brands; one started by her father and the other three by her. She is pouring a lot of effort into developing products such as coffee and tea sets, jardinieres and copies of antique porcelain.

In Lyu's words, the spirit of artisans means their craftsmanship and pursuit of excellence.

Lyu received offers for graduate study from four foreign universities after her undergraduate education in the UK. When asked whether she regrets not undertaking graduate studies, Lyu said she had no choice but inherit the family business.

" Now I am having a great life, and I have no regrets," she said.

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