Huan HsuCritiques

So, my enjoyment of this memoir comes from a weird point of view. Yes, I enjoy the history of an heirloom, the journey to track it down, and the historical background that surrounds it. I had really liked The Hare With The Amber Eyes. But also, as someone who has read a bit of Sci-fi and also loves to watch Sci-fi- this was great. In a lot of Sci-fi China is a big part of the environment. Its borders have stretched and it encompasses a large part of the world. The culture is prominent in many of these fictional future Earths. That being the case, it was fascinating to read Huan Hsu's experience in that country. His descriptions of the crowded cities and the even smaller areas of the country mirrored many of the worldsI have read/watched. There were just so many factors to make this book a great read.
Huan Hsu chronicles his journey to unearth his family's porcelain, said to have been buried during WW2. The treasure was then lost during China's Cultural Revolution. Although the surviving family members can't agree to what was owned and what became of the porcelain, Huan Hsu'S journey to for the truth has given him some great stories.
He learns his family's history and discovers a China he was completely unprepared for.

This is a personal story but also a rendering of thousands of years of the history of China. I learned a lot about porcelain making and the Chinese dynasties and also the more recent history of China as it affected this one family.
Huan Hsu is an ABC, that is an American-Born Chinese. His parents grew up in Taiwan but moved to the USA to pursue post-secondary schooling and stayed to work in Utah which is where Huan grew up. Huan’s grandmother stayed in Taiwan and then moved to Shanghai with Huan’s uncle Richard who owned a company that made computer chips. One day in the US Huan saw an exhibit of Chinese porcelain and was fascinated by it. He mentioned it to his father who said that Huan’s mother’s family used to have a big collection of porcelain before the Communist takeover. He learned that his great-great grandfather had been a scholar and landlord in Xingang. During the Second World War his grandfather had to flee from the approaching Japanese soldiers with only what he and the family with him could carry. They buried the porcelain and a great deal of silver deep in the ground. Although the family returned after the Japanese were defeated there was such turmoil between the Republicans, lead by Chiang Kai-Shek, and the Communists, led by Mao, that it never seemed safe to unearth the buried treasure. The great-great grandfather was 80 years old when the Communists took control of China. As a landlord he was persecuted and stripped of all his landholdings. He continued to live in a small outbuilding on the land but died soon after. The people who knew about the porcelain never had a chance to return or it was never safe to do so. Huan’s grandmother was quite elderly when Huan started his investigation but he decided to move to Shanghai to be able to talk to her about her grandfather’s home and porcelain collection. To do this he had to take a job in his uncle’s business and learn to speak Mandarin. Little by little he accumulated information as he talked to elderly relatives and travelled to places in China and Taiwan. This is the story of his search and what he found.
Although I found the book fascinating there were a few things I would have changed if I was an editor. Firstly, there were several stories that were repeated throughout the book. Once would have been enough to hear about the glaze makers’ attempts to make a deep red glaze. Also, some pictures would have been nice.

An informative mix of travelogue, history, and memoir by a Chinese man, born in the US, looking for the fine porcelain that his great grandfather was said to have buried when the Japanese army invaded China in 1938.

Huan Hsu was the son of Chinese parents who had migrated to the United States. After working for a time as a journalist, he became interested in family stories about his great great grandfather, a wealthy landowner in China, who had buried his collection of valuable porcelain in his garden as the Japanese advanced into his country. Although Hsu had not previous been interested in his Chinese heritage, he decided to accept a job with a rich uncle who owned a large factory near Shanghai in order to search for the porcelain. For three years, he worked in China, traveling around the country interviewing relatives and others whom he hoped would help in his quest. In the process, he learned about China’s history and the present social conditions there.

The Porcelain Thief is an enjoyable, rambling account of Hsu’s time in China and what he learned about the country’s past and present. He uses his journalistic skills to weave together various elements of the story; his own search for information, his family’s personal experiences during World War II and the Communist era, and basic history of China in the twentieth century. He makes generalizations about the Chinese language and how and why being Chinese continues to carry weight for him. In addition, he relates his growing knowledge of history of Chinese porcelain, the museums where he saw it, and the disrupted fields where he and others collected its shards. He goes to live in Jingdezhen, the city on central China that was the center of porcelain production.

Hsu provides solid, relatively neutral historical information about Chinese history. Knowing little about the subject, I appreciated his account 0f major historical events and how they affected ordinary people in a variety of ways. He seems to present basic historical scholarship, although his dismal assessment of Cixi, the last empress of China, contradicts the more positive recent biography of her by Jung Chang. (See my review) Like his great great grandfather, Hsu felt no allegiance to the traditional emperors, the Nationalists of Chaing Kai-Shek, or Communists. At the local level, he observes that whoever ruled created chaos and destruction for those they ruled. Although he discusses economic change, his book is not framed by the conflicting views of communism and capitalism.

As Hsu traveled around China, he observed the cities and countryside, writing brief sharp accounts of what he saw. Often he supplements these with information about the changes brought by recent government policies. Recent building has meant the destruction of historical sites. In addition, the stories of his relatives and the individuals he happened to meet, he reveals how varied the experiences of World War II, Civil War, and Communist rule had been. Visiting Taiwan, he notes its particular mix of high regard for China’s traditional culture and westernization. Individuals experienced national events differently, often randomly, because of where they were at the time.

Looking for the buried porcelain and collecting porcelain shards leads Hsu to think about history and how it is preserved. He gradually moves beyond a simple desire to own his great grandfather’s porcelain to appreciate its larger meaning. '"Corporeal beings eventually leave the world. Places persist under the capricious rule of the bulldozer. Stories—of my family, of bygone China—don’t have to die. Even their fragments can be reassembled."

That is exactly what Hsu does in this book.

What a fascinating memoir involving a family myth resulting in the quest to ascertain the legitimacy of that myth. Along the journey, author, Huan Hsu, discovers his family's history through the memories of aging relatives. He explores Chinese culture through living, working and traveling within China and through conversations with many who have endured the myriad of revolutions encountered over the last few generations.
Hsu, is a gifted writer whose vivid descriptions of the lanscape and his encounters place the reader directly alongside him. The historic detail of the Chinese porcelain trade is thorough and fascinating. The recounting of the Japanese invasion and the actions of corrupt leaders through various revolutions was factual and yet, disturbing.
The presumed vast treasures of the family's buried porcelain and coin were highly valued by Hsu's great-great-grandfather and represented his tangible legacy for his family. However, it appears that education is an equally important legacy of Hsu's great-great-grandfather as he made sure that daughters were as well educated as sons. Sadly, the cultural revolution, as noted in the story, penalized those who were educated and the gift was deemed a curse and could often threatened one's existence. Survival seemed all that mattered.
I am grateful to author, Huam Hsu, and LibraryThing Early Reviewers for having provided a free copy of an uncorrected proof of this book and hope that the abrupt ending was somehow eased before final publication.½

This is a wonderful, comprehensive history of the author's family as well as that of China. It encompasses not only the royal dynasties but also the strive of the Japanese invasion of China and the country's subsequent civil war. The book was a well-written engrossing tale of one man's quest to recover his family's personal and physical history.½

At first, I was really taken with this book and the adventure it promised. Then I started reading it and the constant racial diatribes became boring. Complaint after complaint, sprinkled with irritating, obstructionist and downright rude relatives. Then I skimmed another review that reveals no porcelain was ever recovered by our intrepid narrator and I lost interest. It will be only my second DNF for the Early Review program. Sorry.

The author, who is an ABC (American Born Chinese) recounts his travels to China to discover where his great great grandfather buried the family’s valuable porcelain collection just before the Japanese invasion.

The book includes lots of information about the history and politics of China. I’ve spent a little bit of time in China, so many of the cultural aspects brought back memories. I had to laugh at Hsu’s description of crotchless pants worn by little children and how the Chinese people seem to have no concept of waiting in a line, something I experienced and had a hard time getting used to. The history of porcelain making and its importance in Chinese culture, particularly the information about counterfeiting or faking, was interesting.

However, I found the book hard to follow at times and it seemed to lack continuity. Its abrupt ending was also disconcerting, enough to make me wonder if the last chapter had been misplaced.

The intriguing history of the author's family creates the backdrop for this memoir. In the middle of war, Huang Hsu's great-great grandfather was forced to bury all of the family's valuables in their backyard including a large amount of porcelain. As the author explores the history of this story, he travels to Shanghai and works for his wealthy uncle and adjusts to life as an ABC (American-born Chinese). I almost enjoyed his experiences adapting to life in China more than his family's history, which could be confusing at times. Overall, this is an interesting and humorous look at life in China and the act of discovering roots. I received this book from an LibraryThing early reviewers giveaway.

Journalist Huan Hsu chronicles his efforts to find his great-grandfather’s porcelain collection, buried in 1938 at his ancestral home in China just in advance of the Japanese invasion. Seventy years later Hsu, a self-described ABC (American Born Chinese), takes a job at his uncle’s factory in Shanghai and learns Chinese in order to search for the lost family treasure. In his quest to find out what happened to the porcelain, Hsu finds his (often cantankerous) family and their history, and a bit about himself.

It is a mosaic of a book, created with fragments of Chinese cultural and political history, family stories, a personal memoir and observations, and a travelogue of contemporary China. But from these fragments, like the shards of porcelain that enthrall him, Hsu pieces together a picture of China and of a family caught up in an incredibly turbulent time in its history. And running throughout, a meditation on China past and present and, for good and bad, what it means to be Chinese.

Yet for a book that is sometimes awash in details, many are left out (What happened to Hsu’s job? Why did he end up estranged from Tang Hou Chun?), with the biggest omission occurring at the end – what happened next? But that’s life really, isn’t it. The ending may be jarringly abrupt, but it’s the journey that’s the story. The Porcelain Thief takes us on a family’s journey through a history most of us know very little about, and that in itself makes the whole thing worthwhile.

this review is based on an ARC copy.

Huan Hsu grew up in Utah trying to be as un-Chinese as possible. After becoming interested in porcelain after seeing an exhibition of it, he's told to ask his mother about her family's collection.

The family story goes that his great-great-grandfather had a large collection of porcelain, including from the imperial kilns, which he buried in the garden before fleeing as the Japanese approached his village. Hsu is driven to go to China and do what he can towards digging for the porcelain, while also finding out more about his family's history.

The book is a mixture of Hsu's experiences in China, the history of porcelain, the personal history of his various relatives, some of whom never left China and some who fled to Taiwan when the Communists took power, and the history of 20th century China in general (often viewed through a relationship to porcelain).

While the title is rather misleading (there's really nothing about theft mentioned except in an abstract way), I really enjoyed the book. I liked Hsu's writing style, the mix of histories, and Hsu's growing appreciation for his family and for China in general. It ends incredibly abruptly, and there's not much narrative arc, but I would recommend it to pretty much anyone with even a slight interest in China. The stories of his family members during the tumultuous 20th century was more interesting to me than the search for the porcelain.

In this book, Hsu, an American-born Chinese takes us on a search for his great-great grandfather’s porcelain collection and for his family heritage. Hsu grew up in Utah, and spent his younger years trying to avoid his Chinese heritage. So he returns to China not really speaking Chinese, and barely able to communicate with is grandmother.

His family story was really interesting, but a bit hard to follow at times. The book is supposed to have a family tree and maps, which were absent from this advanced reader’s copy. I think that they would have helped. Also, I would have loved pictures!

Overall, I did enjoy the book which gives a view of the interactions of history (Japanese invasion, Cultural Revolution, etc) and family identity. I appreciated the perspective that Hsu was able to give of contemporary China. I do think it would have been a better book if he’d gone a little deeper into what the family history meant to him as an individual.½

Author Huan Hsu became interested in his family history as an adult. He was particularly fascinated by the stories he heard of his great-great-grandfather's porcelain collection that he was said to have buried on his property before fleeing from the Japanese in the 1930s. Some of Hsu's relatives believed that the porcelain was still there. Hsu became obsessed with finding the porcelain. He moved to China, got a job in his uncle's company, and devoted most of his free time to interviewing older relatives to learn more about his family's history and especially about the porcelain collection. Hsu intersperses histories of China, Taiwan, and porcelain manufacturing with his family's history.

I found the historical and travel narrative portions of the book more interesting than Hsu's description of his relatives and the family porcelain. Readers learn bits and pieces of Hsu's family history in the same order that Hsu discovered it. What's missing is a synthesis and interpretation of the information. There is a strong current of hostility throughout the book, and at some points it's disturbing. I think he could have written a better story if he had been able to resolve his anger.

This review is based on an advanced reading copy provided by the publisher through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.½

In 1938, with Japanese invaders approaching his village, the author's great-great-grandfather buried his extensive porcelain and other valuables and fled with his family to Chongqing (or Chungking as Westerners knew it in those days.) By the time he returned to his village after the Japanese surrendered, civil war was starting up once again between the Communists and Chiang Kai-shek forces. Soon the younger members of the family were forced to move again, this time to Taiwan, and great-great-grandfather died in his village shortly thereafter. What happened to the buried porcelain?

That is the question that fascinated the author, Huan Hsu, once he heard the story. He set out to track down the answer, a journey that he recounts in this book. His sources are for the most members of his extended family, and what an extraordinary family it is! As Hsu gathers information and provides context, I learned about many aspects of China, both ancient and modern.

Hsu starts his quest in Shanghai, where he has landed a job thanks to his Uncle Richard, an evangelical Christian and wealthy entrepreneur who is the CEO of a large silicon chip company. The book has been called part memoir, part history and part travelogue. In Shanghai, we get a little of the traditional travelogue-like descriptions, but much more about the smells, the lack of civility, the corruption, the piracy of intellectual property, the pollution and the stomach ailments to which visitors are prone. Despite the Western concept of China as totalitarian, to Hsu it seems that "everything outside the political sphere is a free-for-all." But China is changing fast, as Hsu concedes, so maybe some of the criticism no longer applies.

Moving on, he talks to relatives in Taiwan and several cities in China so that we meet among others a retired officer of Chiang's Air Force, a scientist educated in the U.S. who was involved in China's nuclear research program, women who taught in former missionary schools, and survivors of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution (and hear about those who did not survive).

As the title suggests, we also learn a lot about porcelain. I was surprised about how important this was to the Chinese economy for so many centuries. Stories and myths abound - emperors who threatened death to manufacturers who could not meet their demands, daughters who threw themselves into the kiln as a sacrifice that produced a beautiful red porcelain, for example. I was also amazed to read about modern day Sotheby auctions where authentic (and sometimes fake) pieces are sold for millions of dollars.

Does Hsu find his answers? I won't give that away, but I will say that his search provided material for a very interesting book. I enjoyed it and also learned something more about a country with over a billion people and 5,000 years of history.

I received this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program.

This is a rare case where reading this as a galley doesn't really give an adequate picture of the book. Hsu has penned a book that's part memoir, part genealogy quest, part history lesson on China. As he says at one point, trying to explain Chinese history is like trying to get a drink while drowning. The beginning of the books has placeholders for maps and charts, and that content would have helped immensely to understand the geography and the convoluted connections within Hsu's family (which often confuses and surprises the author as well).

Hsu is American-born and raised in Utah. He had to deal with frustrating comments from other people--the compliments on his English, the way he stood out in lily-white Mormon Utah--but also didn't fit in with his Chinese family. He was largely ignorant of the language and history. Even so, he's fascinated by stories of his mother's family and of the wealth of porcelain they once had, and he takes a job in China at a volatile uncle's company so he can find out more.

The beginning of the story is a bit whiny as he describes China as it is now (it sure doesn't make me want to travel to Shanghai), even as the content is intriguing from the start. Hsu brings a great perspective; readers are likely to be ignorant of China as it is now or was in the past, and I felt like I got to learn along with him. Once it started to delve into the past and the often contradictory stories within his family, it became a gripping book. Hsu isn't searching for buried treasure to get rich. It's more of a sense to recover something lost. His mother's family struggled through all the turbulence of the 20th century, from the Sino-Japanese War through World War II through communist and the horrible whims of Mao. His grandmother escaped some of the worst by being a teacher in missionary schools and then immigrating from the mainland, but other cousins were not so fortunate. The book does a good job of showing the terrible nature of Mao and what he put the people through, and Hsu with his American sensibilities struggles to understand how they endured. It's not just that the porcelain was lost. Almost all family pictures, books, and artifacts were also lost in immigration or through cultural purges.

There's also the historical thread about porcelain itself, how it was made and where, and how that industry has so drastically changed.

I liked the book much more as I read, even as I had to utterly give up on keeping track of who was who. I have trouble remembering names in English, so the similarity of the Chinese names--and that some people had a few names--was utterly confusing. Maps would have been an enormous help as Hsu travels all over China, and also describes where his family was and is now.

If you have any interest in China, seek for this book when it's out in March. At heart, it's about a genealogical search for self, an it's a fascinating journey.

Early reviewers book, thanks.
I really liked this book. It reminded me of one of the Lisa See books insomuch as it dealt with the author trying to connect with his heritage (along with history of China's porcelain industry and a little Chinease history too). I would think the final printing should have a family tree along with maps and some pictures would be nice- family, places, and some porcelain perhaps.
I liked the writing style and found it easy to read and myself not wanting to put the book down, and unlike a couple of other reviews I read, I thought it ended just as it should- true to the reality of it all. There was nothing else he could do at that point, have to let some pass and have a few sons :)
I will recommend it to my friends, especially those that find all things Chinese fascinating.

The Porcelain Thief by Huan Hsu. The advance press for this book compares it to The Hare With Amber Eyes. While it does not rise to the heights of that book, The Porcelain Thief has a similar structure in it uses a family legacy to trace the history of the family through a turbulent period of history.

The Porcelain Thief starts with stories of the author's great-great-grandfather burying a fortune of priceless porcelain in the backyard of the family home before fleeing the Japaneses invading China. The author, an American of Chinese descent, decides to try and locate the porcelain. In the process, he traces the fate of his extended family as it fled the Second Sino-Japanese War. Shortly after the defeat of Japan, his family is embroiled in the civil between Kuomintang and the Communists. Some of the family flees with the Kuomintang to Taiwan while others stay in the mainland and endure the terror of the Cultural Revolution.

While the story of the turmoil of China, as told through Huan's family is fascinating, many of the best parts of the book are Huan's own interactions with modern China. As an American, Huan finds modern China dysfunctional, corrupt, and filthy. At the same time, he comes to admire some qualities of China as he finds himself reconnecting with family that were little more than distant relatives.

The search of the family porcelain is the heart of the story but The Porcelain Thief goes far beyond a personal treasure hunt. In the process, you get a personal view of a tumultuous time in Chinese history and a look at the way modern China operates. The journey is well worth it.½

I won a proof of this book from LibraryThing. The proof did NOT include a family tree, which the final is supposed to have. I think having one will make the narrative much easier to follow. I suspect I would have given if four and a half stars if I'd had a family tree to help make the narrative more understandable. ( Many Chinese family names are very similar for a "round eye.") A time line would also help.

The book is non-fiction. The author is a journalist, but there a lot of writing glitches.These are minor, but in the aggregate they are annoying. I hope an editor will fix them before the final publication.

The book is well worth reading because the story itself is incredibly interesting. The author is an ABC --an American Born Chinese. While working as a journalist in Seattle, Washington, he writes an article about a local museum which has a collection of Chinese porcelain. He is struck by the porcelain and wants to learn more about it--up until this point in his life, he's had almost no interest in Chinese culture. He's told that his mother's family had a collection of rare porcelain...and from that point..we're off and running, as the author goes off to China to learn more about porcelain and his family.

It's hard to "pigeon hole" the book. It's part travelogue. It's part the story of modern China. It's part a history of China. It's partly a story of the attempt of one American from an immigrant family to "reconnect" with his roots. It's partly a story of how historical events impact individual lives. I found all of this fascinating.

The "plot" meanders and a lot of the book has zilch to do with the story at its heart. Moreover, the ending of the book is abrupt and unsatisfying. This detracts from the overall quality of the book, but the digressions are interesting. And, as I said before, the underlying story is fascinating.

This book is titled like a 1950s pulp. But, alas, we never find out if there was a porcelain thief, and we never recover the porcelain. The three year odyssey recorded here is of an American born Chinese attempting to find a large stash of valuable antique porcelain that family lore maintained was buried by his geat-great-grandfather before he fled the invading Japanese during the Sino-Japanese war.

The search for the buried porcelain is a loose structure that supports three narratives: the author's confrontation with modern China (both Taiwan and mainland); his discovery of familial and ancestral roots, including the family's buffeting by recent Chinese history; porcelain manufacture and its place in Chinese culture. These three threads are enough to keep us going through the author's hopscotch journey, his back tracking through many generations of his diffuse family and some meandering prose.

Hsu tells us that in his youth he was "preoccupied with overcoming my own hardship of being Chinese and non-Mormon in Salt Lake City", and he felt that " . . . the Chinese people in my life, with their loud, angry sounding manner of speaking and odd habits, were from another planet and had traveled to Earth for the sole purpose of embarrassing me." On his porcelain search in China, in his thirties, he is still the outsider, this time an ABC - American Born Chinese - with limited Chinese language skills.

He is very much the American in his observations of the Chinese people. Automobile traffic is treacherous and seemingly without rules. Queues for entering or for service do not exist; pushing and shoving replace them. "[C]hildren were clothed not in diapers but in pants with open crotches so they could easily relieve themselves, and they were encouraged to do so whenever they felt the urge. It wasn't uncommon to see mothers . . . instructing children to [defecate] on sidewalks, in public parks, or on subway platforms." And "China was where cheating, cutting corners and corruption appeared to be so ingrained that I began to question the supposed immorality of it all." Even the dating scene for the unmarried Hsu was unattractive: "Having witnessed the kind of nagging, overprotective dragon ladies that Chinese women could become, I never had much interest in dating one . . ."

For me, the most captivating narrative of the book is the description of porcelain - its central position in Chinese culture, its manufacture and its creation of the "porcelain city", Jingdezhan. "Porcelain was as central in the Chinese identity as the Yangtze river . . . and it was no accident that the material became eponymous with its country of origin. Porcelain touched every member of Chinese society, from peasants' rice bowls to the imperial family's massive collection. Porcelain formed the basis of China's mythology and morality tales and fueled its economy, including the golden age of the Ming dynasty, which boasted the world's largest economy."

The city of Jingdezhan had been central to porcelain's production since ancient times. Today it is a dreary, largely abandoned factory town producing cheap, quickly made ceramic knock offs and utilitarian ware. Hsu, with delight, finds and describes a few craftsmen in the city who are preserving some of the ancient porcelain-making arts.

The search for collectible pottery/porcelain shards in Jingdezhan is described by Hsu again and again. No one expects to dig up unbroken vases, plates or bowls from the areas surrounding the ancient kilns, but shards abound, and quality, old pieces are prized and traded. The cover of the book depicts shards.

Lastly, the book is about Hsu's visits to his extended family - both in Taiwan and the mainland - and its degree of help or hindrance in the buried porcelain search. These relatives also serve, effectively, as a springboard to describe Chinese 20th century history from Empire, to Republic, to civil war, to communism, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and today's unbridled capitalism. This description is not in history book order, but it is effective because it is embedded in real people. The unpublished proof copy of the Early Review book omits the Family Tree page that will appear in the published version. That will be a great help in keeping the many relatives, all with unfamiliar Chinese names, in some kind of order.

The search for buried treasure is a conceit that keeps us reading through Hsu's many observations and discoveries. It is somewhat contrived, however, and the final pages of the book depict the author and many relatives standing on great-great-grandpa's land with shovels at the ready. There is no digging and no discovery of the treasure. Only THE END. Somewhat of a brusque finale - and a cop out, but we enjoyed the search nonetheless.

This memoir about contacting family in Taiwan and China on a quest for the family porcelain, turns into a social commentary, travelogue, and history of China, on a personal relatable scale. My early review copy was missing a family tree and three maps which would have been very useful. This was an enjoyable evenhanded look at China from 1900 to today.

The book was really an amalgam of memoir, travelogue of mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, Chinese history and Chinese geography, relating everything to a quest Mr. Hsu takes to the land of his ancestors to find the porcelain collection of his great-great grandfather, after viewing a beautiful red Chinese bowl in the Seattle Art Museum. This search becomes an obsession with him. He connects with family members who help [or hinder] him in his search. Also museum and archives personnel aid as far as they are able. Government bureaucrats seem to be obstructionists.

I enjoyed the different anecdotes, facts about China. I chuckled at some of the author's comments and observations on current Chinese social behavior. I appreciate receiving this ARC from LibraryThing. Space was left for an index and other supplementary material, which I'm sure will be a big help to anyone reading the book once it is released; right now I feel the lack. I will enjoy plunging into the book again for such nuggets as these that I do remember: ineptness of the "Great Leap Forward", the section on the innovations in Jingdezhen, a former porcelain center now reduced to producing cheap reproductions. I never knew that the iconic Chinese blue-and-white porcelain was developed there. In Europe, an alchemist, who of course couldn't produce gold from lead, produced the first porcelain there--Meissen. The author's breezy, casual style was just right.