The Liao Dynasty white porcelain leather-bag-shaped vessel from the opening is the quintessential example. The Khitan nomadic ethnic tribe nobility deliberately chose the most iconic vessel of their nomadic lifestyle but recreated it in the most prestigious medium available: high-fired white porcelain.
"The pi'nang hu… closely resembles the traditional leather containers of the Khitan people… and later evolved into the common chicken-crested pot (jiguan hu) of the Khitan people," Zhao Fanqi interprets.
"This reflects how the Khitan people absorbed Central Plains culture and carried it forward."
Simultaneously, the Xixia Dynasty pursued fusion at a more fundamental, industrial level.
A Xixia Dynasty white porcelain dish-mouthed vase from the Suyukou kiln site in northwestern Ningxia Hui autonomous region exhibits a serene, even glaze. Excavations there revealed a startling technological transfer.
"Some saggers unearthed at the kiln site were sealed with porcelain glaze, a technique found only at Shanglin Lake (a southern celadon center) in Zhejiang province," Zhao Fanqi reveals.
"It suggests southern technology, and even southern craftsmen, directly coming to Suyukou for kiln production."
The Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) created a contiguous time of unprecedented scale, forcibly mingling peoples, goods, and ideas.
This catalyzed the final, mature phase of fusion, where synthesis became systemic.
The Huozhou kiln in Shanxi province, operating under the Yuan artisan household system, achieved a technical pinnacle with its "fine spur-mark" firing, producing porcelain of impeccable, uniform whiteness.
This technical mastery served a newly unified market. The Huozhou kiln used the same sublime clay and glaze to produce two seemingly opposite vessel types side-by-side: the scholarly, elegant Yuan Dynasty yuhuchun vase (a slender vessel for display and poetic inspiration), beloved by Han literati, and the pragmatic pan'er bei (cup with a loop handle) rooted in nomadic utility.
The latter is a hybrid in form.
"Its cup body is a multiethnic traditional form… but at the rim, a crescent-moon-shaped handle was added," describes Zhao Fanqi.
"This vessel type is essentially the traditional Central Plains form, augmented with the nomadic loop handle, creating a new form. It reflects the Huozhou kiln's absorption of grassland culture."
Walking through the exhibition, one gradually discerns a grand pattern emerging from the individual cases.
"The greatest distinction between white porcelain and other vessel types is precisely its connection to ethnic fusion," Zhao Fanqi reflects.
The exhibition aims to offer a narrative that reveals a grand, coherent pattern rather than a series of isolated incidents.
"If we regard each piece of porcelain with fused elements as a material 'fossil' of a 'fusion event', then this exhibition strings together countless such events," Zhao Fanqi explains.
White porcelain of the Sui and Tang dynasties provided the model for the Liao, Xixia and Jin (1115-1234) dynasties, while their innovations, in turn, prepared the essential elements for the extensive fusion seen in the Yuan, he adds.
Experts agree that white porcelain is the fruit of technological exchange, a vessel for aesthetic dialogue, a medium for negotiating identity, and an embodiment of political wisdom.
It demonstrates that the grand construction of the Chinese national community is not an abstract concept, but a civilizational marvel — layer upon layer, built over long centuries through countless concrete, solid, and luminous "fusion events", much like the porcelain itself.
