Aug. 5, 2019 -- The first ceramic work made during art classes in the Nyemo Middle School. (Photo: China News Service/Kunsang Lhamo) 

Aug. 5, 2019 -- A pottery made during art classes in the Nyemo Middle School. (Photo: China News Service/Kunsang Lhamo) 

Aug. 5, 2019 -- An innovative pottery pot made during art classes in the Nyemo Middle School. (Photo: China News Service/Kunsang Lhamo) 

Aug. 5, 2019 -- Colored potteries made during art classes in the Nyemo Middle School. (Photo: China News Service/Kunsang Lhamo) 

Aug. 5, 2019 -- Phurjung makes a pottery ware in the classroom. (Photo: China News Service/Kunsang Lhamo) 

Aug. 5, 2019 -- A student learns pottery making techniques. (Photo: China News Service/Kunsang Lhamo) 

 

“At first I learned pottery making just for a living. In the early years of reform and opening up, we had no other source of income besides planting barley. People here usually exchanged pottery for butter, chili, sugar, rice and clothes,” said Phurjung.

 

Tibetan pottery making has a history of more than 5, 000 years and it was included in the fourth batch of the list of intangible cultural heritage at the regional level in 2003. 

 

In modern times, pottery has been replaced by metal ware gradually, which brings new challenges for the inheritance and development of pottery culture. More and more pottery craftsmen left this technique behind due to some outdated ideas. 

 

In order to inherit and protect Pongkang pottery making technique, Phurjung went to many places in Lhasa to learn more. As an inheritor of this intangible cultural heritage, he mastered the traditional technique well; however, the lack of related cultural knowledge made him unable to make the best of it, said Phurjung.

 

In 2015, traditional pottery making was introduced to the Nyemo Middle School, and Phurjung was employed as a teacher. Since then he was able to deliver his technique in a modern class, along with a stable income for his family. 

 

“The aim of introducing pottery into class is to increase practical teaching as well as protect and inherit local pottery culture, and at the same time, we hope to change people’s outdated ideas,” said Tashi Dondrup, art teacher of the school and also a state-level training technician for ceramic art.

 

In recent years, traditional pottery making technique regained life through the exploration, practice and research in the school, with Phurjung as a witness of the technical breakthrough transforming traditional red pottery into ceramics.

 

Pongkang village will make use of its advantageous resources and solve the problems in the production of traditional red pottery and modern ceramics by combining traditional handcrafts with machining and upgrading processing, making the red pottery and ceramics popular in modern markets.