NANCHANG, June 9 (Xinhua) -- During her three years in the village of Jinkeng, Huang Wei has made it her business to ensure that the preservation of history becomes part of every villager's daily routine.
When Huang, 35, arrived in Jinkeng in 2014, she brought with her a brilliant innovation: full-time farmer/part-time preservationist.
Jinkeng lies about eight km to the east of Jingdezhen, China's porcelain capital, in east China's Jiangxi Province.
A thousand years ago, Jinkeng supplied Jingdezhen with the quality china clay that was so crucial to the production of Qingbai ware, the bluish-white porcelain considered the ebodiment of excellence in the annals of China's ceramics.
If Jingdezhen was the birthplace of Chinese porcelain, Huang said, Jinkeng was the cradle of Jingdezhen.
Huang, who lectures at the Jingdezhen Ceramics Institute, has worked with other archeologists to discover 15 sites of porcelain kilns in Jinkeng, dating back to the Song Dynasty 1,000 years ago. She has also worked out the route along which the clay was transported, found several mines and various pieces of mining equipment.
Farming is a highly seasonal activity. More than 1,000 years ago, when Jinkeng was at its peak, villagers worked mainly in the fields during the busy season and for the rest of the time, brought clay down from the mountains in wheelbarrows and made porcelain.
Traces of the entire porcelain-making process can be found in Jinkeng, making preservation of the village's historical heritage all the more significant, Huang said.
Porcelain may be Hunag's area of expertise, but her talent lies in organizing people.
"Little will be achieved if you fail to engage local people. Incentives are needed for them to play their part," Huang said.
She has set up an eco-agriculture cooperative called "The Porcelain Farmer," which is all-organic. Villagers grow organic rice, vegetables, lotus and chrysanthemums. This year, she oversaw the construction of a traditional winery, making organic rice wine that is sold nationwide.
Sustainable agriculture means villagers earn more without damaging the environment and, perhaps more importantly, the historical relics, Huang said.
All round the village, signboards display the "10 rules" Huang and the villagers have agreed on. These include bans on collecting fragments of ceramic at kiln sites, chopping down trees, throwing trash into the local river, hunting and excavation of ancient tombs.
Not content with setting up an organic farming cooperative and making wine, Huang established the Dongjiao Center soon after moving to Jinkeng. The center is a private non-profit organization, which organizes monthly lectures and small exhibitions, among other activities. One of these other activities is revitalizing folk customs and traditions.
In 2015, Huang and the villagers revived the tradition of making rice cake with a water-powered trip-hammer, a device which was also essential to the china-making process.
Later this year, when the chrysanthemums bloom, Huang plans to organize a gathering for local artists to paint the flowers or make chrysanthemum-themed ceramics, just as the ancient Chinese did.
"I hope that one day, the village will be a national historical park and an center of ceramic education," she said.
"For our experiment here to succeed, cultural relics should not just be preserved, but should also be properly used. They must be brought back to life. We need to conserve and inherit not only the tangible -- the porcelain itself, the sites and equipment -- but the intangible, the traditional ways of life."
