How can culture and economy travel in both directions behind a strand of silk, a piece of tea, and a kiln of porcelain?
2026-09-08
In the article "Continuing the bloodline of national culture in creative transformation and innovative development," General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "We must be good at organically integrating the promotion of excellent traditional culture with the development of real culture, closely combining them, developing in inheritance, and inheriting in development
In the 2023 National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out during the deliberation of the Jiangsu delegation: "In places with well-developed culture, the economy still leads the way. We can study the humanistic economics here
The Silk Road connects China and foreign countries, the fragrance of tea lingers through the ages, and the charm of porcelain echoes for thousands of years. On September 7th, six departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the "Opinions on Promoting the High Quality Development of Historical Classic Industries", which clearly stated the need to accelerate the protection, inheritance, and innovative development of Chinese traditional characteristic industries with profound cultural heritage such as silk, tea, and porcelain.
Silk, tea, and porcelain, the three beautiful business cards of Chinese civilization that have gone global, are now shining with new colors in the fusion of ancient and modern: digital technology unlocks the contemporary value of ancient silk, diverse formats enrich the cultural heritage behind rock tea, and vivid experiences bring ancient wood kiln techniques closer to the public
Reporters went to Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, Mount Wuyi, Fujian Province, and Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, to feel the softness of silk, the mellowness of tea, and the moistening of porcelain, and to see how the cultural context that has lasted for thousands of years bloomed into a more vivid vitality in the new era, and how the humanities and the economy can coexist and prosper in a two-way way.
Suzhou, Jiangsu: A strand of light silk can undergo various changes
Suzhou, Jiangsu, on the banks of the Outer City River, there are many visitors to the Suzhou First Silk Factory Cultural Industry Park.
The red brick factory building of the old silk factory has been transformed into a cocoon bookstore, fashion show, original design workshop, etc., with fashion releases, creative markets, and industry salons appearing one after another
This product is called 'Tree of Life', which integrates Su style silk and French painting. It was previously unveiled at the Paris Design Week in France. In the quaint red house, the anchor is promoting the new silk products of the 'Golden Leaf Silk' brand.
Who would have thought that this factory area used to be just an empty shell, "said Shi Xiang, a 58 year old former employee of the First Line Factory, witnessing the ups and downs of the factory area. The First Silk Factory was originally the golden signboard of Suzhou silk, and its product "Golden Leaf Silk" was exported overseas. But later on, the brand faded out of the market, the bustling factory area quieted down, and the equipment was idle
In order to make good use of the precious legacy of the modern silk industry, Suzhou First Silk Factory, Suzhou Cultural Investment Development Group Co., Ltd. will launch a renovation and renovation of the factory area in 2025. Culture is hidden in the 'old', but it also needs to be integrated into the 'new', "said Chen Long, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Suwen Investment Group, outlining the ideas for transformation.
The industrial park anchors its positioning as a "cultural tourism destination and cultural industry cluster", planning two major areas in the east and west, each showcasing its strengths and complementing each other: the east area deeply cultivates the century old silk roots, cultivates fashion design, cultural and creative development, and cultural tourism experience formats; Anchoring the artificial intelligence and digital science and technology innovation track in the western region, empowering the traditional silk industry with cutting-edge technology.
With the start of the renovation, Shi Xiang also actively participated in the revitalization of the "Jinye Silk" brand - forming a team with more than 10 old employees, inviting designers and technicians who have settled in the park to work together, grafting new designs for old crafts, and leading the team for online live broadcasts
Nowadays, industrial parks have an increasingly strong cultural atmosphere, and the agglomeration effect continues to emerge. After more than two months of opening, the occupancy rate has reached 70%, and many well-known silk and cultural and creative brands have successively settled in. Suzhou Silk has cultural soft power, but it also needs industrial hard support, "Chen Long said." Our goal is to build this place into a billion yuan industrial park in the next three years
A strand of silk drives the related industrial chain and ushers in a new era of transformation.
In the exhibition hall of Suzhou Silk Museum, the lively animals, graceful peonies, and elegant rolled grass on ancient silk relics have been digitally extracted and creatively reconstructed into reusable cultural digital assets. The Suzhou Silk Museum has completed the high-definition digital collection of 50000 silk patterns in its collection, and has established an artificial intelligence database including a specimen library, material library, and gene library.
What is the use of patterns? Designer Zou Yujia, born in the 1990s, used these digital patterns as inspiration and integrated them into modern aesthetics, endowing them with various forms - butterfly brooches worn by young people, pendants in cars, refrigerator stickers at home
By 2025, the number of visitors to Suzhou Silk Museum will reach 588000, a year-on-year increase of 12%, with over 57% of visitors being born in the 1990s and 2000s. In the first half of this year, the total number of tourists received and the total tourism revenue achieved by Suzhou increased by 7% and 8% year-on-year, respectively.
Adhere to integrity rather than conservatism, and innovate without leaving roots. A strand of silk that has lasted for thousands of years is constantly being infused with new vitality.
【 Expert Review 】
In Suzhou, the traditional silk industry has shown new vitality, which precisely confirms the essence of the tripartite synergy of "human culture economy" in humanistic economics. The spatial transformation and revitalization of the old factory area reflect the concept of "cultivating culture through economy". Through the integration of resources and the precise empowerment of new technologies, new values are generated through the synergy of culture, tourism, and creativity. The prosperity of cultural ecology has also driven the agglomeration of the silk industry and the improvement of related industrial chains, which is precisely the intention of "developing the economy through culture".
——Song Lu, Executive Dean of the Institute of Smart Governance Strategy at Renmin University of China and Researcher at the Suzhou Research Center for Humanities and Economics
Mount Wuyi, Fujian: A leaf of tea reflects the green mountain
"That's the fragrance! The good mountains and water in this area produce the unique 'rock bone flower fragrance' of rock tea." The morning light sprinkles into Huangbai Village, Wuyi Street, Mount Wuyi City, Nanping, Fujian. In Tiantianrenhe Tea Manor, the water vapor is full of tea fragrance, attracting many tourists.
Go for a walk along the waterfront tea trail, breathe the fragrance of tea, appreciate the tea garden, and even sit around a table to brew tea and watch the mountains in the embrace of Danxia, "said Ji Suying, the person in charge of Tian Ren Ren and the tea estate. The production technique of Wuyi Rock Tea (Dahongpao) is a national intangible cultural heritage, and there are a large number of books about Wuyi Tea in the library station inside the estate, which is open 24 hours a day, and tourists can come and read at any time.
Relying on the unique landscape resources, Mount Wuyi has dug into the connotation of the millennium tea culture to build a complete "Four Seasons Tea Event"——
In spring, there are tea ceremonies and mountain picking activities. In summer, visitors can go deep into tea factories to observe traditional tea making techniques. In autumn, they can participate in lively tea fighting events. In winter, they can gather around the mountain to brew tea... The tea culture that can be felt, understood, and experienced allows tourists to understand the cultural heritage and humanistic concepts behind a piece of tea.
Along the protection and development belt around Mount Wuyi National Park, 25 tea manors and 22 tea spaces are scattered; A scenic road No. 1 of Mount Wuyi National Park connects 21 A-level tourist attractions, 40 characteristic villages... A piece of tea between green water and green mountains is connecting multiple business forms.
It is precisely with the opening of Scenic Road No.1 that heaven, earth, man, and tea plantation have embarked on a path of tea tourism integration——
Within the estate, surrounded by tea gardens and murmuring streams, a handmade tea experience workshop has been specially established for visitors to immerse themselves in intangible cultural heritage techniques such as sun drying and shaking; Supporting tea culture exhibition hall, study class, mountain tea dormitory, with stacked tea mountains visible through the window, allowing for slow sipping of fragrant tea while sitting quietly; Relying on local ingredients to develop tea and snacks, integrating the fragrance of tea into the fireworks of three meals a day... Tea gardens are no longer just tea gardens, but have become characteristic spaces for cultural dissemination, study experience, and leisure travel.
There are too many new possibilities for 'tea culture+'. "Having been deeply cultivating rock tea for more than 20 years, Ji Suying has become a disseminator of tea culture. Nowadays, in Huangbai Village, there are more than 30 business entities such as Tian Ren Ren and Cha Manor that deeply integrate tea and tourism. The once weak village has transformed into a well-known online tea village. Not only Huangbai Village, the 251 kilometer long No.1 Scenic Road has driven the successive landing of new business models such as "tea garden+photography" and "tea garden+leisure". During this year's May Day holiday, the number of tourists received by villages along the route increased by nearly 30% year-on-year.
Xie Xiaoming, a member of the Party Leadership Group of Mount Wuyi Municipal Government, said that Mount Wuyi tea making, adhering to the tea industry as the main body, cultural empowerment and technological empowerment as the two wings, simultaneously enhance the influence of tea culture, the competitiveness of the tea industry, and the support of tea technology.
Technology is injecting new vitality into this tea. In the Dapingzhou Ecological Tea Garden of Mount Wuyi Yongsheng Tea Industry Co., Ltd., the children studying lie down in front of the glass window and curiously observe the continuous operation of the rocking robot, the temperature and humidity curves bouncing on the screen, and the carbon fire and burning incense in the air. The robot accurately replicates the shaking technique trajectory of the old master, and the most experience controlled process in rock tea production achieves standardized production.
One leaf carries the cultural context, and green mountains nurture the fragrance of tea. According to the data, by the end of 2025, 56% of the per capita disposable income of farmers in Mount Wuyi City comes from the tea industry, and the brand value of Wuyi rock tea reaches RMB 75.018 billion.
【 Expert Review 】
A piece of tea produced in Mount Wuyi will drive the development of the whole industrial chain and realize the symbiosis and co prosperity of culture and economy. The key is to operate natural endowments and intangible cultural heritage skills as cultural IP, upgrade tea drinking to an experiential "landscape tea life", and use scientific and technological means to standardize and scale this experience, so that cultural values can be realized in the experience.
——He Jianjin, Vice President of Fujian Academy of Social Sciences
Jingdezhen, Jiangxi: A kiln of new porcelain moistens the millennium
A Jingdezhen, half ceramic history.
In July this year, at the 48th UNESCO World Heritage Conference held in Busan, South Korea, "Jingdezhen Handmade Porcelain Heritage Site" was successfully included in the The World Heritage List, becoming China's 61st World Heritage Site.
Lotte Pottery Society Market, Taoda Youth Collection, Taoxichuan Market... shuttle through the unique markets of Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, where young "scenic drifters" constantly create, find positioning, and undergo market testing.
Craftsmen and masters from around the world gather here, and creativity always collides unintentionally. "After graduating from the China Academy of Art in 2008, Wang Ping came to Jingdezhen to admire his reputation. He rented a 100 square meter warehouse from a sculpture porcelain factory, explored techniques in the mud every day, and insisted on going to the market every Saturday to set up a stall.
I was stunned for a long time when I first fired the emerald green color of Jiangnan misty rain. Inspired by the bluestone slabs in the old alley, Wang Ping repeatedly adjusted the glaze formula over a hundred times and created a unique "moss glaze". Now, his "Moss Series" has been collected by foreign museums, and he also has his own "Pingzao" ceramic studio.
A favorable entrepreneurial environment, a sound industrial ecology, and a profound cultural heritage... Jingdezhen is like a "magnet", attracting more than 60000 "scenic drifters" to work and live here, including thousands of overseas people from more than 60 countries.
Craftsmen come from all directions, and tools become the world. When traditional culture meets the trend of aesthetic appreciation, Jingdezhen's "trendy play" goes out of China and into the world.
In earlier years, ceramics were mostly vases and porcelain plates. In the production workshop of Jingdezhen Chentian Ceramics Co., Ltd., the exclusive production line is running at full speed. The company's head, Xu Wan, introduced that they are targeting the young market and applying fine traditional craftsmanship to trendy toy dolls.
This is not an easy task. The face and body of trendy toys have a large curvature, making it extremely difficult to control the cutting of patterns and lines. The body is prone to collapse and deformation during firing, requiring repeated sampling and kiln temperature adjustment. Experienced craftsmen use cutting needles to carve each one on the porcelain body. In 2024, Chentian Ceramics and Bubble Mart reached a cooperation agreement to apply high-temperature color glaze technology on a large scale in the field of trendy toys.
In Jingdezhen, from China-Chic animation IP such as "Unhuman" to internationally renowned IP, and then to the Internet celebrity cultural relic IP "Suisui Duck" launched by Jingdezhen Royal Kiln Museum, the warm ceramic cross-border rebirth continues to shine new brilliance.
Behind the bold cross-border and creative research and development, there is the empowerment of the industrial chain, and it cannot be separated from the support of the system. "Xu Wan bluntly stated that Jingdezhen's complete original copyright and process patent protection system has dispelled the worries of trendy toy partners.
Introduce the first local regulation on intellectual property protection in Jiangxi Province, the "Jingdezhen Ceramic Protection Regulations"; Establishing a system of ceramic intellectual property technology investigators and hiring 18 experts to address the challenges of identifying ceramic intellectual property disputes... Jingdezhen continues to promote the standardized development of the cultural market.
The best protection is active utilization, "said Chen Kelong, Secretary of the Jingdezhen Municipal Party Committee." We will formulate tourism development plans with high standards, connect various heritage elements into a line, and promote the active inheritance of intangible cultural heritage; Develop more cultural and creative products with stronger creative design; To create a year-round market matrix with higher quality and strive to transform cultural and tourism traffic into incremental development.
By 2025, Jingdezhen will receive over 39.5 million domestic tourists. The brand value of "Jingdezhen Made" has reached 51.6 billion yuan.
【 Expert Review 】
In Jingdezhen, a vibrant sample nurtured by humanistic economics, the millennium kiln fire not only refines the beauty of objects, but also forms a complete "culture technology industry" transformation mechanism. When a city can form a positive cycle of culture, manpower, and institutions, prosperity has an endogenous driving force, which is also the deep logic of the eternal kiln fire.
——Wang Yushuai, Executive Deputy Director of the Central China Economic and Social Development Research Center at Nanchang University
(Outlook New Era)
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