Written by: Zhu Wanjun
Posted on: December 04, 2018 | 
| 中文
You Wanli with visitors to the museum
After obtaining his MA from Jindezhen University of Ceramics in July 2018, You Wanli (his Chinese name), a Cuban archaeologist, has become the first international student, majoring in archaeology, who has graduated from the university. He returned to Cuban National Deco-Art Museum for his further studies in ancient Chinese porcelain collections.
Ten years ago, You quitted his job as an art history teacher, and joined the museum in the quest of practicality. It never occurred to him when he commenced his journey on Chinese Ceramic archaeology that he would become one of the most famous experts in this field in Cuba and Latin America as a whole.
So he could still clearly remember that his first workday was hurricane-stricken in 2008, and he was assigned the first task of his career; to protect the exhibits in house from being destroyed by the hurricane.
“Do you think you will be able to take over the responsibility for the Asian collections?” asked the curator of the museum. Opening the storehouse, he caught sight of all the glamorous oriental ancient decorative artworks, and became obsessed with the Chinese ones.
“I didn’t know anything about their value back then, but instinct told me that they were invaluable,” so he accepted that he would conserve and protect Asian collections.
Cuban National Deco-Art Museum has a collection of 1200 Chinese Porcelains, among which the major pieces are from the time of emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong of Qing Dynasty. Over time, the research interests of Cuban archaeologists focused a lot on European and American art forms, while rarely touching on oriental arts. That's why the Chinese porcelain is a veiled mystery, lying silently in the museum.
To systematically sort out the Chinese porcelain collections, You looked for all the pertinent literature on the subject, only to find out that most of them were written by western scholars.
In 2014, You was granted the Chinese Government Scholarship, and made his trip to the hometown of Chinese Ceramics as he had always dreamed. He settled in the thousand-year old ceramic town—Jindezhen, which he had read about in books a thousand times before, and finally finished his master degree of archaeology in the university, with his research domain set for antique porcelain identification.
In his eyes, his journey to study in the university just opened doors, which led him to his dreamed long-closed world and offered him a golden chance to deepen his knowledge in Chinese porcelains and broaden his research into a more professional level.
The MA program of Jindezhen University of Ceramics for foreign students provides one year of Chinese language learning and three years of academic courses. But he couldn’t wait until his academic training since his very first day, “In case I would not have enough time to catch up. I should keep the ball rolling from Day 1 at school!”
The university You went to has proven to be a good one, where many unearthed ancient porcelains are just used for academic practices and analysis. He still clearly remembered that not long after he arrived in China, in his supervisor’s home, when he was about to touch an ancient piece of porcelains, he was so scared that he withdrew his hand when he was told how priceless it was. In July 2018, 35-year-old You Wanli successfully completed his MA program with his thesis titled, “A Study on Exported Jindezhen Colorful Chinese Porcelain in Emperor Kangxi Period of Qing Dynasty—based on the collections from Cuban National Deco-arts Museum.”
He still recalls his old sweet days back in China and the first Chinese Characters he learnt, shortly after he went to Jiangxi, ““?”?“la”-spicy)” and his first sentence?Yi Dian La Zi Ye Bu Yao-No spice at all). He started to love Chinese food so much that he began drinking tea and got used to working in intense situations.
“Four years of studying experience in China changed my whole life. I feel I have the responsibility and mission to apply what I learnt in China, to my study on ceramics back in Cuba,” he said.
Upon his return to Havana, You Wanli got himself involved in the planning of a 3-month long eighteenth century Chinese Porcelain theme exhibition, which was the first time of its kind, in the museum he works for.
He has also made up his mind to launch an even bigger project, which was about the creation of a catalogue based on systematic identification and refined Chinese ancient porcelain pieces sorted out from the museum, by applying what he has learned in China and what is newly found in this field.
His other plan includes returning to China for a PhD degree and contributing more to the study of Chinese Ceramic Culture Heritages in Cuba.
Translated by Yang Jing
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