From the germination of the topic, to the official publication, to the selection of the "2023 Theme Publishing Key Publication of the Central Propaganda Department", to the recently released "2023 China Good Book", the book "My City, My Town - The Story of Jingpiao", is gaining more and more attention from the industry and entering the eyes and hearts of more and more people. Recalling the publication of this book, I have a lot of feelings, and today I take the opportunity of this book to win the award to count some details of the birth of the book "Jing Piao".
Spanning ten years, retelling the story of the porcelain capital
Ten years ago, Hu Ping's China on Porcelain – China and Two China was published by 21st Century Press. Now, Jingdezhen is full of new vitality, and Mr. Hu Ping, who has been "drifting" in Jingdezhen for ten years, has also shifted from focusing on outlining the historical scroll of the porcelain capital to paying more attention to and depicting its current human fireworks and life aesthetics, and his understanding of Jingdezhen has become more and more profound.
And I, because of my age, left the 21st Century Publishing House, which had been deeply cultivated for more than 30 years, and was hired by Hainan Publishing House as the editor-in-chief of its subsidiary Sanhuan Publishing House. Fortunately, Mr. Hu Ping and I had the opportunity to continue their relationship - his new book "My City, My Town: The Story of Jingpiao" was finally jointly published by Jiangxi Education Publishing House and Sanhuan Publishing House.
The origin of the topic of "Jing Piao" can be traced back to two years ago. At that time, I frequently went to Jingdezhen for business trips due to work, and I felt more and more that Jingdezhen was increasingly surging with vitality and vitality, especially the Jingpiao youth in various cultural activities were extremely active, this discovery made me realize that a series of new changes have taken place in Jingdezhen at present, but Jingdezhen is a small fourth-tier city, why do young people "reverse" and "get together" here? This question is a kind of reminder for me, but also a kind of activation, to use an inappropriate analogy, as if a shark smells blood. After many exchanges with different Jing Piao, I realized that Jing Piao is a particularly unique group of people in our time, and their stories are the original Chinese stories, and they are also the best Chinese stories to tell the world, so I decided to curate a book with Jing Piao as the theme.
After the idea began to take shape, I immediately reported the idea to Lin Rong, who was then the head of the Propaganda Department of the Jingdezhen Municipal Party Committee. Minister Lin Rong listened to my idea and immediately decided to work with me to complete the planning and publication of the new book. She hopes that this book can provide a panoramic record of Jingpiao, a unique and active group of creators, and reflect the regional social development model that Jingdezhen has created at the moment, covering humanistic ideals, artistic spirit and lifestyle, and achieve a breakthrough in Jingdezhen's "Five One Project". When talking about the choice of authors, Minister Lin Rong and I agreed that it was none other than Hu Ping. Mr. Hu Ping is a well-known reportage writer and cultural scholar we are familiar with, and he continues to write the history of the land of Jiangxi, where he was born and grew up, with a sense of historical responsibility and the mission of the times. In the past ten years, he has shown a special love for the city of Jingdezhen. We immediately decided to ask Mr. Hu Ping to go out of the mountain to be the editor-in-chief of this book.
Speaking of which, I have been associated with Mr. Hu Ping for a long time. When I worked at 21st Century Press, although I had been serving in the children's publishing industry, I have always had a passion for publishing in the humanities and social sciences deep down. When the conditions are ripe, the publication of "cross-border" humanities and social science books will begin. In this "cross-border" impulse, I have a soft spot for the publication of Jiangxi's historical and cultural themes. This is related to my understanding of publishing: on the one hand, local cultural resources are a rich mine for the development of publishing topic resources; on the other hand, telling the "Jiangxi story", disseminating Jiangxi's traditional culture, and serving the economic and cultural construction of contemporary Jiangxi are important topics and mission consciousness of every cultural worker who has a deep affection for Jiangxi. At that time, because I noticed the new changes in Jingdezhen, the thousand-year-old porcelain capital, I planned a reportage with Jingdezhen as the theme, and Mr. Hu Ping was the author I invited, which was "China on Porcelain: China and Two China", which won the "Five One Project" Excellent Work Award in the future. Also because of "Porcelain on China - China and Two China", Mr. Hu Ping formed an indissoluble bond with Jingdezhen, from a seeker who "broke into" Jingdezhen to visit, observe and record, and became a resident of Sanbao International Porcelain Valley, and has been in cold and summer for more than ten years. He took Jingdezhen as the deep well of literature, and wrote the history and reality of this ancient land again and again in the way of "presence", and successively published "China on Porcelain: China and Two China", "China on Porcelain: China and Two China (2017 Edition)" and "Jingde Meteorology: An Aspect of Chinese Culture". In 2019, "China on Porcelain: China and Two China (2017 Edition)" was selected into the "Recommended List of 100 Translated Books in the 70 Years of New China", which is the only book selected by Jiangxi. In the process of writing, Jing Piao, a new phenomenon of plumbing in the Spring River, naturally cannot escape his keen observation and feelings. When he was invited to create a book with the theme of Jing Piao, he hit it off, and Mr. Hu Ping immediately readily agreed.
Sanhuan Publishing House was born on the coast of the South China Sea with coconut wind and sea charm, publishing books with great regional colors in Jiangxi, and it also needs to cooperate with local publishing houses, so I immediately thought of Jiangxi Education Publishing House. Jiangxi Education Publishing House, a subsidiary of Jiangxi Publishing Group, is a leading enterprise under the listed company Chinese Media. I have been friends with Xiong Chi, the president of the Education Society, for many years since we worked with 21st Century Press. Previously, the Education Society and the Sanhuan Society had a successful cooperation with the red book "Red Flag Sweeping Jiangxi". When talking about the theme of Jingpiao, we all think that this topic is promising, and we decided to join forces to create a high-quality product. In the process of book publishing, our two societies have been focusing on this book as a key project, investing a lot in funds, manpower, and material resources, and striving to make this book a key theme book with depth, temperature, and thickness.
Compile and create together, and concentrate on creating high-quality products
At the beginning of the planning, for the positioning of the book "My City, My Town - The Story of Jingpiao", after many exchanges with Mr. Hu Ping, I decided that this book should focus on the stories of many Jingpiao characters in the special field of Jingdezhen, especially the entrepreneurial journey and the road of pursuing beauty for these art believers.
The theme, author, and theme have all been decided, and the selection of Jingpiao characters has become the top priority. The candidate plan solicited and collected the opinions of many people, especially the senior Jing Piao and cultural scholar - Wang Zhigang, "Director Wang". He is well versed in the habits of Jingpiao and has long been associated with this group. After several researches, it was finally determined that more than 20 typical Jing Piao currently presented in the book were the writing objects. The creative team led by Mr. Hu Ping immediately began a three-month in-depth visit, which was arduous step by step, but it was not afraid of difficulties, and it was sharpened again and again to achieve success, and finally became hundreds of thousands of words of oral transcript material. The story of each character is full of sincere and touching details, which also laid the cornerstone of the success of this book, just as Gao Hongbo, former vice chairman of the Chinese Writers Association, said, "The shaping of the group portrait of Jing Piao originated from the 'close hand-to-hand' style of focused interviews by a group of writers." During this period, Minister Lin Rong also accompanied Mr. Hu Ping to visit Liu Ruihua, the founder of the new farmer Jing Jing and the "Guan Song" brand, to gain an in-depth understanding of the work and life of Jing Piao in Jing, and strive to provide them with help in their artistic creation, giving them enough courtesy, and so on. Jiang Bin, member of the Standing Committee of the Zhushan District Party Committee and head of the Propaganda Department of Jingdezhen City, also gave strong support to the creation of this book. These actions of the department directors reflect a high degree of cultural consciousness and are well aware of the great role played by the power of culture in promoting industrial progress, which is admirable.
With abundant and vivid first-hand information, at the end of May 2022, I organized a symposium in Jingdezhen for critics, Jingpiao scholars, creative teams, and editorial teams from Jiangxi Education Publishing House and Hainan Sanhuan Publishing House. The symposium also officially decided on the title of the book, "My City, My Town: The Story of Jingpiao". "City" and "town" refer to different spatial aspects, which not only have a distinct sense of place, but also allude to the history of Jingdezhen since the Song Dynasty because of porcelain. The two "my" not only reflect that this book is the personalized expression of Jingpiao, indirectly point out the non-fiction writing characteristics of this book, but also have a sense of nostalgia, and at the same time, it is also Jingpiao's heartfelt dissection of the city—Jingdezhen is "my" second home. This sense of urban identity and spiritual belonging from "drifting" to "my" is richly reflected in the words and deeds of the characters in the book. The stories of many individual "I" are assembled into "My City, My Town - The Story of Jingpiao".
From left: Zhang Qiulin and Hu Ping
After this symposium, Mr. Hu Ping and the creative team immersed themselves in creation for several months, and conducted supplementary interviews with Jingpiao characters many times. During this period, the editors and creators discussed the text style and manuscript revisions many times, and the teams of both sides held several review meetings online and offline to review the newly completed texts one by one, and adhered to the principle of content first, eliminating the weak texts. After many revisions to the second, third, and fourth drafts, the manuscript has made a qualitative leap in ideology, literature, and readability.
When it comes to the candidates for Jing Piao, as the editor-in-chief of the publishing house, I not only pay attention to the overall progress of the book, but even "offside" to Mr. Hu Ping to strongly recommend the candidates I admire. In the process of Mr. Hu Ping's creation, in order to avoid the regret of missing pearls, I have not forgotten to pay attention to and look for wonderful and vivid stories of Jingpiao during several business trips to and from Nanchang and Jingdezhen. It was at this moment that the beautiful and magical world of immortals on the walls of Jingdezhen Sanbao International Pottery Village and other places, these wild immortals came from the hand of mural artist Wen Na. Wen Na has created illustrations for 21st Century Publishing House, and she is also a veteran Jing Piao. I keenly felt that Venna's story deserved to be included in this book. Soon after, "Jingdezhen is My Second Home" was written, and the article was full of aura and distinctive personal style, which was really a rare masterpiece! By chance, I met the cultural scholar Li Dongjun, who was doing a bookstore activity for "Into Song Painting" at that time. She told me about her son, Liu Hanyu, about his experience with Jing Piao. Liu Hanyu's transformation from a financial returnee to a tea farmer and a Song painting craftsman is not difficult to make people think about why Jingdezhen has such a magical charm and rethink the contemporary value of Jingdezhen's unique cultural environment. I immediately asked Li Dongjun for a manuscript. Soon after, "The Rain Falls into the Song Rhyme" was written, and history, literature, aesthetics, and art were intertwined, which was very wonderful! The young Wen Na and Liu Hanyu were the representative figures of Jingpiao, and their life stories of Jingpiao as Beijing's cultural elites and returnees typically confirmed the charm of Jingdezhen. Their stories add a lot to this book.
After determining the text, if there is a preface with an outline, the whole text will be more perfect, and then I think of Mr. Zhu Hong. Mr. Zhu Hong has written a large number of monographs to promote Jiangxi culture, such as "Tang Xianzu in Love and Dreams", "The First Genius of the Ming Dynasty", "Red Flag Sweeping Jiangxi", etc., and has a profound literary foundation. Moreover, Mr. Zhu Hong has always paid special attention to Mr. Hu Ping, a writer with a strong sense of homeland, and has twice written the preface to his new book. I reported the book to Mr. Zhu Hong and asked him to write a preface to the new book. He agreed very readily, and this is why there is a preface to "Youth Jingdezhen Highlights the Pulse of the Times", which is brilliant and profound. In this preface, he spoke highly of "My City, My Town-The Story of Jingpiao" as a work of current care, a unique urban writing, a spiritual history of the city, and a work in which individuals and groups can see the overall pulse of the times.
On January 11, 2023, our two societies once again invited literary critics, Jingpiao scholars and others to hold a finalization meeting in Jingdezhen, with Mr. Hu Ping presiding over the meeting, and relevant leaders and editors of Sanhuan Publishing House and Jiangxi Education Publishing House, as well as representatives of Jingpiao and the design team. The meeting discussed the text and agreed on the binding design and post-development of the book. After a year of repeated polishing, the book was finally completed, and the editors of the two societies began to review and edit the manuscript intensively, because the text not only looks at the history and reality of the city, porcelain and people, but also spans multiple professional fields, involving exquisite and professional technical knowledge, which brought a lot of challenges to the editorial team. The editors of the two societies worked together and carefully reviewed the manuscript, and finally the manuscript achieved outstanding results in terms of content and binding. During this period, Zhang Long, director of the children's branch of Jiangxi Education Press, Dong Tiantian, editor, and Deng Boer, director of the editorial department of Sanhuan Publishing House, contributed a lot.
Now, "My City, My Town-The Story of Jingpiao" is about to be republished, and Mr. Hu Ping has written a new long preface for it, "The New Scene of "Jingde Meteorology"". The preface is sprinkled with more than 10,000 words, which not only expresses my personal nostalgia for the three books in Jingdezhen in the past ten years, but also comprehensively refines them based on the observation of ten years in Jingdezhen and the creative experience of the previous "trilogy". The text has been perfected so far, and I believe that it can bring new reading feelings and thoughts to readers.
Integrated publishing, let Jingpiao stories "go out"
When I edited and published "China on Porcelain", I had a wish, that is, to prepare for the filming of a Jingdezhen version of "Crossing the Guandong". Mr. Hu Ping also wrote a script. Since Mr. Hu Ping and I have always had this "grand wish", and the topic of Jingpiao itself has a unique IP value, at the beginning of the topic selection, our two societies will create it as a fusion publishing project, hoping to produce a micro-documentary with Jingpiao as the object, which resonates with the paper book at the same frequency, and strives to let readers see the vivid present of this small city in a corner of northern Jiangxi from the experience of Jingpiao in an all-round and multi-angle way, and hear the story of Jingdezhen reviving in the new era.
Since the start of the filming project, Mr. Hu Ping has been deeply involved in the creation of micro-documentaries, so that the narrative of micro-documentaries contains the emotional power and humanistic care that directly hit people's hearts. After more than a year, thirteen episodes of documentaries have been produced one after another, which can be regarded as a reproduction of the story of Jingpiao, making readers feel as if they are in the scene and truly feel the entrepreneurship and life of Jingpiao.
Books and videos were completed one after another, and the launch ceremony was immediately put on the agenda. In October 2023, the Porcelain Expo will be held as scheduled, and the launch ceremony of the new book and micro-documentary "My City, My Town - The Story of Jingpiao" will be held in Jingdezhen, with the theme of "Non-fiction Display of Beautiful Landscapes". Industry leaders, publishers, literary critics, and Jing Piao gathered together to witness the launch of the new book.
In October 2023, the new book "My City, My Town - The Story of Jingpiao" was launched
One of the micro-documentaries was also played at the launch ceremony - "Sculpting the East and the West Together" with the French ceramist Kaimi as the protagonist, and it is not difficult to see that the audience was immersed in it and intoxicated and moved.
In his keynote speech, Gao Hongbo, former vice chairman of the Chinese Writers Association, praised this as a "thick book", a "humanistic reading book for the youth of Jingdezhen, and a full portrayal of the ecological transformation of a city (city of art)".
In her speech, Zhu Hong expressed her profound thoughts on the development of Jingdezhen, and at the same time expressed her heartfelt respect for Hu Ping's continuous writing of Jingdezhen. He praised "My City, My Town-The Story of Jingpiao" as a way to write about Jingdezhen in the way of the biography of Jingpiao's characters, which is a new breakthrough in Mr. Hu Ping's creation, which is unique and far-reaching.
Fang Lili, director of the Institute of Art Anthropology of the Chinese Academy of Arts and a well-known scholar who has studied Jingdezhen for a long time, said that Jingdezhen "is a city with the imagination of post-agricultural civilization", and that Jingpiao may be more important than our modern "Jingpiao" and "Haipiao", because it indicates that China may take the lead in taking the lead in a more sustainable, more humanistic and more green ecological modernization path.
It is worth mentioning that Li Ruigang, chairman of the Chinese Culture Group Company, also came to the launch ceremony. He said that Jingpiao has become a very unique cultural phenomenon in contemporary times, connecting China and the world. It creates a new way of life that is pregnant with endless possibilities. He believes that this theme has the potential to be made into a film and television. Zhang Long, director of the Propaganda Department of the Jingdezhen Municipal Party Committee, once had contacts with me, and he was also full of enthusiasm for filming film and television dramas on the theme of Jingpiao. I believe that in the near future, we can see a TV series on the screen with Jingpiao characters as the object of depiction, which will tell the story of the rebirth of Jingpiao's intoxicated ceramic culture, and analyze why Jingdezhen has become an ideal place for countless young people to stay, and why young people are willing to take root here.
It is worth mentioning that the 2023 Porcelain Expo, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative, CCTV launched "Beauty and Beauty", inviting Chinese and foreign guests to tell the story of mutual learning, open cooperation, and multicultural exchanges and collisions of civilizations under the Belt and Road Initiative. In particular, it is mentioned that of the approximately 30,000 Jingpiao in Jingdezhen, one-sixth are foreigners. These Yangjingpiao combine the cultural characteristics of their respective countries with traditional Chinese art to create a fusion of ceramic works. Colorful world, beauty and beauty, with porcelain as the medium, integration of China and foreign countries. This information confirms the correctness of our publication of our attention to the phenomenon of drifting.
Since the topic was selected, this integrated publishing project has received wide attention from many parties, and now although the book has been released, the wonderful story of Jingpiao is not over. In the future, our two societies plan to publish a separate book for the typical Jingpiao, so that the Jingpiao characters will be fuller, more typical, and demonstrative, and eventually develop into a set of "Jingpiao Character Story Series". Moreover, at present, a single book of "My City, My Town - The Story of Jingpiao" can publish a new version every two years, including the new characters and stories of Jingpiao, so as to keep the content fresh and become a long-term project and brand.
From reminiscing about the publication of "My City, My Town-The Story of Jingpiao", I think of the continuous attention of Mr. Hu Ping, myself and many publishing colleagues to Jingdezhen. Regarding continuing to dig deep into a theme and building it into a high-quality key integrated publishing project, I have the following thoughts:
First, publishers have a sense of responsibility to respond to the pulse of the times and the voice of the times. On June 2, 2023, General Secretary Xi Jinping said at the symposium on cultural inheritance and development: Chinese culture has a long history, and Chinese civilization is broad and profound. Only by having a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the history of Chinese civilization can we more effectively promote the creative transformation and innovative development of China's excellent traditional culture, more effectively promote the construction of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics, and build the modern civilization of the Chinese nation. Jingdezhen is China's thousand-year-old porcelain capital, a city of ceramic art, and a capital of ceramic culture. Its millennium of endless creation, especially the current unique cultural phenomenon of Jingpiao, fully reflects the profound proposition of creative transformation and innovative development of China's excellent traditional culture. The transformation and development of Jingdezhen has its exemplary enlightenment significance for the thinking and practice of this epochal proposition. As publishers, we have the responsibility to consciously intervene in this regard, make our due contributions, and reflect the pulse of the times by paying attention to Jingpiao, a group of dreamers.
Second, high-quality publishing is of unusual significance to promoting social progress. Jingpiao is a new and dynamic phenomenon. "My City, My Town: The Story of Jingpiao" is the first book to use literary language to paint a portrait of Jingpiao's characters, and the authors in the book must be affirmed and inspired, believing that their creativity will burst out like never before. The power of role models is endless, and these stories of Jingpiao will attract more young people to Jingdezhen to start a business, and Jingdezhen will definitely become the creative capital of the world's ceramic culture in the future, reproducing the grand occasion of "guests come from all over the world, and the world goes".
The third is the in-depth combination of compilation and creation, interactive collusion, which is the only way to create high-quality products. From planning to publication, it took two years, during which the editorial team and creative team of Jiangxi Education Publishing House and Hainan Sanhuan Publishing House held seven publishing seminars in Nanchang and Jingdezhen, deeply involved in the creative process, and achieved today's new book results. It can be said that this book is a model of in-depth combination of compilation and creativity, interactive collusion to give birth to high-quality products.
Fourth, IP-based operation can unleash more possibilities of publishing resources. The "Story of Jingpiao" is incubated and operated as an IP, and the marginal effect of this IP is infinitely amplified, such as closely combining books with Jingdezhen cultural IP and cultural tourism, and deeply cultivating "Jingpiao's Story" as a "cultural tourism product", promoting local cultural and tourism products in Jingdezhen while promoting books, and borrowing from each other for mutual benefit. In the future, in the operation of financial media, it is necessary to conduct in-depth research, careful planning, and continuous advancement, and strive to make niche books become popular books and brand books through systematic operation and combined marketing, so that the story of Jingpiao can go abroad and drift overseas, and further continue to write the culture of the porcelain capital and tell the Chinese story in the new era.