An ancient dragon kiln in Yixing, a city famous for its purple clay teapots in east China's Jiangsu Province, is still being used to fire the pottery, more than 600 years after it was first built.

The dragon kiln, which gets its name from its dragon-like shape, is a type of semi-continuous ceramic firing kiln, which was constructed with a specific slope.
The Qianshu dragon kiln in Yixing, with a full length of more than 40 meters, was built more than 1,000 years ago in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in ancient China. It is one of the three ancient dragon kilns that are still in use in China today.
Victoria Almeida, a Brazilian teacher with Shanghai International Studies University, visited the living dragon kiln and explore the production of the purple clay teapots that the city has become known for.
Inside the "dragon's" belly, thousands of ceramic and porcelain products are fired at temperatures that can reach over 1,200 degree Celsius.
"After the fire started, it would leave marks on the pottery. That's why the final products are different. We say in the past, 'There are thousands of colors in one kiln," said Hua Sheng, a pottery making inheritor.
Almeida was amazed by the high temperature required and the wonderful color hues presented during the pottery-making process.
"Just to see it inside, I knew it [the process] that we could do, like ceramics must go to this process, but I never saw it with my own eyes. So, I'm very impressed by it," she said.
Yixing's ceramics museum houses a replica of the dragon kiln. People can also find there a number of dragon motifs featured on ceramic products made in Yixing, with some dating back more than 2,000 years.
"From excavating the raw materials, to making different potteries, like teapots and utensils, and also after making and drying the potteries, we put them in the dragon kiln to fire them. And then use the ships to transport them for trading," said Jiang Liyao, a narrator with the museum.
To Almeida's surprise, a piece of pottery from Brazil was on display in the museum.
"I'm amazed to see this work of art here, and to see that Brazil and China already had connections in this field in the past, and we have artists in Yixing to get to know more about the 'zishawenhua' (purple clay culture in Chinese), and also to bring their own pieces of work to have this cultural communication," she said.
Almeida said that visiting Yixing was revealing for her and that she hopes the city's ceramics tradition could feature in more international exchanges, especially as Brazil and China will mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 2024.