China Trip - Day 2 Huidong

The first night we stayed with our host factory in Huidong, about 2.5 to 3 hours northeast of Hong Kong, in the town of Pingshan.  This would be our home base, where we would return between trips to other parts of China.  We were setup in dorm rooms on the factory grounds, which were really just like hotel rooms.  We spent the next day touring the factory.  It was so exciting to see a ceramics operation of this scale!  I use slip casting and mold making in my studio practice but it was impressive to see a seven story factory with 1000’s of molds, kilns that run the length of each floor, and massive slip tanks.  Beyond that, the grounds were immaculately manicured and there was even a water treatment system that returned clean water from the factory to the water system.      

I have to admit that I was a little skeptical about visiting Chinese factories and the conditions I would see.  But after touring this facility I realized that not all of China’s factories are as bad as we see in the news.  I did hear later that this would be the nicest factory we would visit.   

This was an early morning view from my dorm room.  You can see the newly built high rises in Pingshan in the distance.  The rate of construction was incredible!  Many of these buildings sit empty as just a shells without even any windows.  It's a little surreal to see rows and rows of these buildings.  

Huge slip mixing vats!  

A worker removing the casts from the molds.  

Look at all those molds!!!  Wow!  This is only a fraction of all the molds on this floor!

Glaze buckets

This is a computerized kiln that is continuously moving.  It takes about 8 hours for one piece to move through the entire kiln.  What you see here is a long conveyer belt where ceramic items are stacked onto the shelves.  The shelves move on this conveyer to the end, they make a u-turn, and then enter the kiln.

This is looking into the kiln box.  

Check out the size of this car kiln!  It is huge!!!

After a busy day we had a wonderful meal in Pingshan.  This is where we went for dinner.  I have no idea what kind of Chinese food we had here but it was delicious!