Jingdezhen: Travel tips to China’s porcelain capital for pottery lover

Jingdezhen is a small city compared to other major cities in China (population: around 1.6 million). Its importance, however, is huge – both historically and as a source of wealth in Jiangxi province. There is evidence that porcelain has been made here for at least 1,800 years, and the city had imperial kilns under several dynasties.

Even the motorway toll booths around Jingdezhen give you a hint of what’s to come. The city overflows with Chinese ceramic culture: for example, the streetlights are made of ceramics, there are clay sculptures on roundabouts, and so on.

We really recommend visiting this cradle of porcelain. In the past, Jingdezhen didn’t have a high-speed train station, but now you can get there from Shanghai in about 3 hours and 15 minutes. Another option is to fly from Shanghai or another city, as there is also an airport.

It’s not the kind of place you can just cover on foot, like another ceramics cradle such as Mashiko in Japan. In Jingdezhen, the interesting spots are quite spread out. A typical day might be: visit one place, then take a taxi 20 minutes to the next. Another option is to book a bus tour, which will take you to 4 or 5 key sites in one day. For example, you might start with an imperial kiln and the adjacent market, then have some free time, and later be taken to another point of interest – very similar to an organised group trip.

We recommend staying about two nights in Jingdezhen to be able to enjoy the city calmly. You could easily spend a week there, though: there are ceramics courses on offer, and they also organise excursions to nearby villages.

The ceramics museum is highly recommended. Entry is free, but tickets are limited per day, and on peak dates they tend to run out. On those days, there are often people who “resell” the free tickets for a small fee – some locals deliberately book up tickets on dates they know will be busy. On our second visit to Jingdezhen, we went back to the museum and had to “buy” tickets this way.

There are lots of markets, entire streets full of pottery shops, and even multi-storey shopping centres dedicated entirely to selling ceramics.

Haggling is normal everywhere – both in street markets and in shopping centres. If they see you’re interested in a particular piece, the sellers themselves will usually offer you a better price than the one on the label.

One of the best things about Jingdezhen is that you can go to factory areas and watch how they make plaster moulds and ceramic pieces. You can also walk into almost any workshop and see how they throw on the wheel or glaze their work… They really let you immerse yourself in the everyday life of craftspeople as well as volume producers, so you can see and learn the techniques they’re using. Just ask for permission to go in and watch – in the vast majority of cases they’ll gladly say yes.