Section 2: Reaching Distant Lands Time: 1760 Place: City of Canton (now Guangzhou), China [click on map for larger view] Mr. Yi, a Chinese porcelain merchant, and Mr. Peters, an English merchant, meet at the British East India Company offices to look at porcelains manufactured by the Jingdezhen Ceramic Works. Mr. Yi: It is an honor to show you the porcelain manufactured by the Jingdezhen Ceramic Works. We think you'll be very interested in what you see. We can fill any order, great or small, for your merchants at home in England. We can even paint them with the decorations your people want the most. Why, just a few years ago, we helped fill an order from the imperial palace for nearly 175,000 pieces of porcelain. Mr. Peters: How is this possible? Mr. Yi: We have special techniques that allow us to make many plates, tea cups, saucers, vases, bowls, and pots in one day, almost all of them of the finest quality. There are many steps in making a simple ceramic bowl, for example, and the people who make them each have special jobs. As many as 70 people may have helped produce the tea caddies you see here, from mining the clay, shaping them, firing them, painting them, and packing them for shipping [click on image for larger view].