Timescale : Memories of Time in Enamelware 时光刻度 – 搪瓷中的时代记忆

Enamel on steel was used so widely in the everyday lives of Chinese people that the material was given a special name, tangci 搪瓷. For many years in the latter half of the 20th century, people ate and drank from tangci mugs and bowls. Even doctors placed their surgical tools in tangci trays.

This exhibition features 191 sets of artefacts documenting social development and changes, divided into three sections: New China, New Life (1951-1966), Exploration and Progress Through Twists and Turns (1966-1978), and Recording an Era of Change (1978-1996). Through enamelware items clearly representing different eras, the exhibition serves as a marker of those times. Combined with old photos, videos, and scene reconstructions, the exhibition uses an immersive approach to depict the historical scenes of countless people in Shaanxi working together with the great motherland and struggling hard over half a century. It takes visitors back to those glorious years and allows them to savour the bittersweet experiences of those who personally witnessed them.

While both enamelware and falangcai (aka familie rose) involve applying vitreous (glass-based) enamel, they differ drastically. Enamelware is everyday utilitarian kitchenware where enamel coats a metal base for durability. Falangcai is a luxury imperial art form where Western enamels were intricately hand-painted onto porcelain for the Chinese royal court. 

New China, New Life 新中国、新生活 (1951-1966)

It all began with the Korean War (1950-1953)¹, aka “War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea” (抗美援朝). In October 1951, to support the war efforts, a unit of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army established an enamelware factory outside Changle Gate in the eastern suburbs of Xi’an.

In 1952, the factory was transferred to the administration of Xi’an City and renamed the Xi’an Municipal People’s Enamelware Factory, a local state-owned enterprise. Over the next half-century, the factory gradually grew and developed into one of the most important and well-known state-owned enterprises in Northwest China at the time. Its Camel and Goat brands of daily-use enamelware became household names in Shaanxi and throughout the country.²

In 1953, China began implementing its first Five-Year Plan for national economic development, launching a large-scale economic construction boom. The main tasks of the First Five-Year Plan revolved around concentrating efforts on industrialisation and accelerating the socialist transformation of various economic sectors.

In terms of economic growth, the 1st Five-Year Plan was quite successful, especially in those areas emphasised by the Soviet-style development strategy. Although urbanisation had not been a specific goal of the plan’s focus on industrialisation, industrialisation also prompted extensive urban growth. By 1956, China had completed its socialist transformation of the domestic economy.

The First Five-Year Plan was completed ahead of schedule by the end of 1957. With the initial foundation of industrialisation laid and the people’s living standards significantly improved, the Second Five-Year Plan was even more ambitious with lofty goals. “The Great Leap Forward” (大跃进) was launched to transform the country from an agrarian society into an industrialised society through the formation of people’s communes (人民公社). This social experiment failed which resulted in the tumultuous decade to follow.

Exploration and Progress Through Twists and Turns 曲折探索前进 (1966-1978)

This is a special period of China known as the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)⁷. It was a period of slogans, which can seen in these enamelware artefacts collected from the period. “The enamelware produced during this period, with its strong characteristics of the era, reveals to us from many perspectives that era of arduous exploration and tortuous development.”⁸

Achieving political stability and economic and social recovery and development were pressing tasks facing China at the time. Mobilising the masses to participate in economic and social construction became one of the main means of solving development problems. The “Learn from Daqing in Industry, Learn from Dazhai in Agriculture” and “Go to the Countryside Movement” were among the most representative of these movements. Many enamelwares from this period showcase the tortuous development of Chinese society through arduous exploration and record the real lives of ordinary people.⁹

During the Cultural Revolution, due to the policy tendency of “culture and art serving politics,” a large number of literary and artistic works emerged, represented by the “eight model operas.” These works were “deeply loved by the people at the time” and remain in the collective memories of an entire generation to this day, becoming a symbol and mark of the people’s literary and artistic achievements of that peculiar era.¹⁰ These days, these performances have been revived and well-received by the younger generation not for its content and artistic expressions but for its reminder of a past era.

After 1968, following Chairman Mao’s instructions, educated youth went to the countryside to receive re-education from poor and lower-middle peasants. A nationwide upsurge of the “Go to the Countryside Movement” was launched, with tens of millions of urban youth going to work and live in rural areas across the country in a short period of time, lasting for more than a decade and influencing an entire generation.

The Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, and widespread rectification of errors was carried out in all sectors of Chinese society. In 1977, the National College Entrance Examination system, aka Gaokao 高考, was restored; in 1978, the National Science Conference was held, once again emphasising the importance of science and technology in nation building. The giant ship of China once again forged ahead.

Recording an Era of Change 记录变革时代 (1978-1996)

In December 1978, the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held, marking the beginning of reform and opening up and socialist modernisation.

In the early 1980s, both urban and rural areas faced unemployment. Millions of unemployed youth were in cities, while surplus rural labor was unable to find work in cities. To facilitate employment for young people, township and village enterprises were vigorously developed, and urban collective enterprises and small state-owned enterprises were liberalised. Shareholding reform was implemented in China for the first time.

Against this backdrop, Chinese society underwent tremendous changes, achieving remarkable success through rapid development. Enamelware factories across the country actively explored ways to revitalize their businesses, adapt to reforms, and adapt to the development of a market economy. They implemented reforms in areas such as complete enterprise management mechanisms and adopted a series of decisions and measures to optimise products. Enamelware products were exported to nearly a hundred countries and regions worldwide.

China in the 1980s was a pivotal decade of transformation, defined by paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s “Reform and Opening Up” policies. The country transitioned from a strictly controlled, Maoist agrarian economy to a rapidly growing, market-oriented powerhouse. Xi’an was not spared from the tides of change.

Reform has become the dominant theme of those times, and opening up has become the trend. With diligence and wisdom, the Chinese people have completed one exciting and wonderful Five-Year Plan after another. The ancient land of China has begun to show a vibrant scene. The earth-shaking changes in economic and social development and people’s production and life are like a fast-paced TV series shown in these Xi’an-made TV sets. The open, diverse and trendy picture is dazzling.

After the 1990s, market competition intensified, and enamelware was replaced by more affordable products such as plastics, glass, aluminum, and stainless steel. Consequently, state-owned enamelware factories either shifted production or went bankrupt, and enamelware gradually faded from people’s daily lives.

Conclusion

In Singapore, we used to see a lot of these China-made enamelwares used everywhere. When I got married, we had to prepare a large red enamel plate to with a pair of Mandarin ducks with huge double happiness in Chinese character for the tea ceremony. These days, you can only see them in museums or tucked away in the corner of my mom’s kitchen.

After entering the 1990s, enamelware gradually faded from people’s daily lives. Where did the “enamelware” of our memories go? With the deepening of reform and opening up and the rapid development of the national economy, the living standards of Chinese people have greatly improved, market competition has become more intense, and consumption hotspots have shifted rapidly. The consumption of daily enamelware products has been squeezed by emerging daily necessities made of various materials such as plastic, glass, aluminum, and stainless steel.

Meanwhile, state-owned enterprises that originally produced enamelware faced numerous problems, including difficulty in reducing costs associated with “enterprises running social services,” rigid systems, and slow transformation, leading many to switch production or go bankrupt. Therefore, the once-thriving daily enamelware products gradually faded from the consumer goods market.

Enamelware is not just a passing fade, something that is no longer relevant. Just like the inscriptions found in bronze ware that are excavated in Shaanxi, the enamelware recorded the 75 years of changes in modern China.

All photos taken by author at Shaanxi History Museum Mar 2024, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

Footnotes :

1. James I. Matray, The Korean War 101: Causes, Course, and Conclusion of the Conflict. Volume 17:3 (Winter 2012): US, Asia, and the World: 1914–2012, Winter 2012. https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/the-korean-war-101-causes-course-and-conclusion-of-the-conflict/
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2. Museum information card
   西安品牌、驰名全国
   1951年10月，为了支援抗美援朝，中国人民解放军第19兵团某部在西安东郊长乐门外创建了一家搪瓷厂。1952年，该厂转由西安市管理，更名为地方国营西安市人民搪瓷厂。在此后近半个世纪的时间里，西安人民搪瓷厂逐步发展壮大，成长为当时西北地区最重要、最具知名度的国营企业之一。它所生产的骆驼牌、山羊牌等品牌日用搪瓷器皿成了陕西乃至全国人民家喻户晓的名牌。
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3. 山羊牌“团结起来争取更大的胜利”糖瓷盘 ⑤ 1970年
   1969年4月，中国共产党第九次全国代表大会在北京召开。大会之后，“团结起来，争取更大的胜利！”作为毛泽东的“最高指示” 见诸报端。
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4. 骆驼牌“西铁联”搪瓷缸 ⑥ 1968年
   塘瓷缸正面书“红铁军暂将革命进行到底”“忠”“西铁联”“68年6月“字样，左侧印有红色的中国铁路标志。
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5. 山羊牌毛主席语录搪瓷缸 ⑦ 1966年
   搪瓷缸正面上方印有三面红旗图案，下方为金色麦穗、蓝色齿轮图案，并书有“把无产阶级文化大革命进行到底”字样。
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6. 拖拉机牌毛主席语录搪瓷茶缸 ⑧ 1967年
   摘瓷缸正面书“毛主席说：‘我们是主张自力更生的，我们希望有外援，但是我们不能依赖它，我们依靠自己的努力，依靠全体军民的创造力。’”字样。
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7. Tom Phillips, The Cultural Revolution: all you need to know about China’s political convulsion. The Guardian, Wed 11 May 2016 03.04 BST https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/11/the-cultural-revolution-50-years-on-all-you-need-to-know-about-chinas-political-convulsion.
   The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a decade-long period of political and social chaos caused by Mao Zedong’s bid to use the Chinese masses to reassert his control over the Communist party.
   Its bewildering complexity and almost unfathomable brutality was such that to this day historians struggle to make sense of everything that occurred during the period.
   However, Mao’s decision to launch the “revolution” in May 1966 is now widely interpreted as an attempt to destroy his enemies by unleashing the people on the party and urging them to purify its ranks.
   When the mass mobilisation kicked off party newspapers depicted it as an epochal struggle that would inject new life into the socialist cause. “Like the red sun rising in the east, the unprecedented Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is illuminating the land with its brilliant rays,” one editorial read.
   In fact, the Cultural Revolution crippled the economy, ruined millions of lives and thrust China into 10 years of turmoil, bloodshed, hunger and stagnation.
   Gangs of students and Red Guards attacked people wearing “bourgeois clothes” on the street, “imperialist” signs were torn down and intellectuals and party officials were murdered or driven to suicide.
   After violence had run its bloody course, the country’s rulers conceded it had been a catastrophe that had brought nothing but “grave disorder, damage and retrogression”.
   An official party reckoning described it as a catastrophe which had caused “the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the party, the country, and the people since the founding of the People’s Republic” in 1949.
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8. Museum information card
   记录曲折发展
   20世纪六七十年代，新中国的社会主义道路经历艰辛探索，社会主义建设在曲折发展。在国际上，我国长期遭受敌视、封锁，承受巨大的军事压力，面临严峻复杂的外部环境。而在国内，由于复杂的国际国内的社会历史原因，“文化大革命”被错误发动。1976年“文革”结束，中国社会各领域开展了广泛的拨乱反正。1977年，高考制度恢复；1978年，全国科学大会召开。中国巨轮再次破浪前行。这一时期生产的具有强烈时代特色的搪瓷制品，从许多侧面向我们展示了那个艰辛探索、曲折发展的时代。
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9. Museum information card
   难忘岁月、 曲折前进
   1966至1976年，由于各种复杂的原因，中国处于“文革”的特殊历史时期。党和国家建设经受了严重挫折，国民经济出现较大起伏，人民生产生活经历了难忘岁月。如何实现政治稳定和经济社会恢复发展是当时的中国面临的紧迫任务，通过广泛动员民众投身经济社会建设运动成为解决发展问题的主要手段之一。“工业学大庆、农业学大寨”以及“上山下乡”即是当时诸多运动中最具代表性的。许多这一时期的搪瓷器为我们展示了中国社会在艰辛探索中的曲折发展，记录了普通老百姓真实的生活风貌。
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10. Museum information card
    艺术经典、岁月留痕
    早在1942年，毛泽东《在延安文艺座谈会上的讲话》讲话明确指出：“为什么人的问题，是一个根本的问题，原则的问题”，“我们的文学艺术都是为人民大众的，首先是为工农兵的，为工农兵而创作，为工农兵所利用的。”“文革”时期，由于“文化艺术为政治服务”的政策倾向，涌现出了以“八个样板戏”为代表的一大批文艺作品，这些艺术在当时深受人民群众的喜爱，直到今天也是我们记忆中的经典，成为一个时代人民文艺成就的标志与象征。
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