Editor's Note
This editor’s note highlights the key facts and market implications behind “Famous Figures Shout ‘I Only Regret I Can’t Carr”, with emphasis on sourcing, product fit, fabrication, logistics, or buyer impact.
After an immersive experience with hundreds of flowers in the millennium-old porcelain capital of Liling, on December 4, over 20 famous figures participating in the 'Famous Figures and Families View Hunan's High-Quality Development' event enjoyed the recently viral online trend of 'Liling porcelain picking.' The affordable, even free, porcelain pieces left everyone exclaiming, 'I only regret I can't carry more!' Recently, 'going to Liling to pick porcelain' has become a hot topic on major social media platforms. In fact, the so-called 'picking' originally involved finding aesthetically pleasing cups, bowls, and other ceramic products among defective items piled outside production workshops. After netizens recorded and shared these finds on short-video platforms, it quickly attracted a large number of visitors from Hunan, Jiangxi, and other regions. Online 'porcelain picking route maps' and 'porcelain picking experience posts' have also multiplied. Liling is a famous city in Chinese ceramic history and culture, the capital of Chinese ceramics, the original production site of the world's underglaze multicolored porcelain, and the home of China's 'national porcelain' and 'red official kiln.' Here, the kiln fires have burned continuously for 2,000 years. To date, the Liling ceramic industry cluster includes over 1,500 upstream and downstream enterprises, employing nearly 200,000 people. The developed industrial chain means Liling is filled with porcelain factories. In this city known as the 'Capital of Chinese Ceramics,' from industrial factories along main roads to shops in narrow alleys, you can feel the pulse of ceramics almost everywhere. This is the industrial foundation for 'porcelain picking' at factories. The group of famous figures walked into a ceramic factory near the exhibition center. The spacious factory's shelves and floors were filled with bowls, plates, cups, vases, and other porcelain items. Some workers were methodically packing goods for shipment, while others busily welcomed visitors coming to 'pick porcelain.' Intact porcelain on shelves ranged from 1 to 49 yuan, with many exquisitely designed cups, bowls, and plates priced at 1 to 9.9 yuan for clearance. Outside, slightly defective porcelain was given away for free, attracting a wave of visitors eager to hunt for bargains. Online celebrity Yu Xiaopan carefully selected her favorite pieces among the dazzling array of porcelain, exclaiming, 'Picking porcelain feels like finding treasure on the ground.' The blogger 'Military Sub-Lieutenant Mai,' who has millions of followers, is very knowledgeable about porcelain picking. He explained, 'I saw some bowls with a 5-euro label, and here you can buy them for 10 yuan.' Shoppers as discerning as the 'Military Sub-Lieutenant Mai' blogger are often familiar with Liling's ceramic exports. In 2022, the city's ceramic industry cluster had an annual output value of approximately 74 billion yuan, with export earnings of nearly 3.074 billion yuan. As an export-oriented ceramic production base, over 90% of Liling's daily-use ceramic products are exported, reaching more than 150 countries and regions, ranking first in the country in export volume. According to statistics, one out of every four ceramic cups globally is produced in Liling. 'Spending just 9.9 yuan in Liling to buy a Starbucks cup' is no exaggeration.
Furthermore, the quality of porcelain picked up in Liling is guaranteed, which is a key reason for its popularity. In 2010, Liling established the country's first local standard for daily-use porcelain, setting strict specifications for the production process. The inspection of an A-grade product involves multiple checks including weight, size, shape, color value, and glossiness. Once a product shows defects such as glaze lines, orange peel, pinholes, bubbles, black spots, or cracks, it is rejected. Massive production volumes and 'strict' standards mean that every factory generates large quantities of rejected 'defective items' daily. Friends who have come to pick porcelain have experienced that even factory-rejected micro-defective items are almost always usable, and sometimes the defects are barely noticeable without close inspection. It is this uncompromising perfectionism that has produced so many porcelain pieces that are still usable and highly popular even when picked up. Hunan TV's famous host Wang Yan recommended Liling porcelain online, saying, 'Liling porcelain is affordable and high-quality; come to Liling to buy porcelain for even better prices!' (Reporters: He Wei, Liu Chunlin) Responsible Editor: Guo Xianyu
Source: Read the original article | Published: December 05, 2023