Potpourri of Pottery

Whenever we'd eat at Casa Zoe, one of the girls' favorite restaurants, I'd covet the beautiful dishes. I examined the make of them, only to discover an American brand name stamped on the bottom. I asked one of the waitresses if she knew where they'd bought their dishes. Her response, "Yixing".

Yixing, a city located about two hours northwest of Suzhou, is known for pottery and ceramics. It's known simply by expats as Pottery Town. The expat group went there just before I became involved, but I'd heard several members mention they'd found some pretty pieces.

The only dishes we brought with us from the US were my Lenox 'fancy' china. I sold almost all of the white Pfaltzgraf we received when we got married except for some large bowls and platters. I was determined to find a new set and not a white one. For an entire year, I would say I wanted to go, but could never seem to plan a trip. Well, 2011 is the year of "now's the time". First mission accomplished by getting Larry to the tailor. Now for the dishes.

I mentioned to my friend, Shannon, about going and she said she wanted to come as did a couple of other ladies. We picked a day and by gum, we went. Thankfully, one of the ladies is Chinese or the day would have been more of an adventure than it was.

We had no idea where in the city we were going, and we didn't realize the city was so large. After a half hour of asking (well, not me asking...Mr. Liu and Rachel), we made it to Pottery Town. Funny, though, as we neared, the signs read 'Ceramics City'. Hundreds of stores, street after street, awaited us. We split up to cover a wider area. Every store we went into sold teapots and I'm pretty sure most of the shop owners either made the pots or was related to the person who made them. I watched an older woman as she meticulously handpainted characters on to the clay mugs. I'm quite sure I'll buy a tea set on a second or third trip, but I had tunnel vision. Since we were the only non-workers roaming the streets, people were anxious to assist. A seemingly crippled and ancient woman hiked a steep set of stairs and into a cramped attic, helping me search. Another kindly woman, after learning from Rachel I was looking for plates, led us to her...storeroom, which was located amidst an apartment complex a few minutes down a not so pleasant road. Going through the barred windowed door, all of us stood with our mouths agape. There were four rooms stacked to the ceiling with plates, bowls, mugs, platters and other kitchen accessories. We had to be careful where we walked trying to avoid the towers of dishes. I don't know how the woman finds anything, but there must have been some method to her madness. I showed her what I liked and off she would go, coming back with more. Some had brand names like Pampered Chef or Southern Living. Others were blank. All were beautiful. Had we found this place earlier, more serious shopping would have taken place. Even with limited time, we managed to fill the back of the van. I was in awe as that room was just one of hundreds. I wanted to knock on the door of a couple more, but we had to get back to Suzhou. We'd already stayed too long and our girls were going to miss ballet. But, I figured we could at least have a good dinner and eat off of our new dishes. Oh, total price on a set of eight; two sizes of plates and bowls, large platter, large bowl, cream/sugar bowls and utensil holder...179RMB or roughly $26. Oh, yeh...I'll be going back there.