With more than 6,000 years of potter-making history, Southwest China’s Yunnan province is famous for its pottery ware.

The slow-wheel pottery manufacturing skills that originated in the province’s Xishuangbanna region entered the list of national intangible cultural heritages in 2006.

Yu Nannan, a 60-year-old Dai ethnic woman from Xishuangbannna is an inheritor of Dai ethnic slow-wheel pottery manufacturing skills. When she was 10 years old, her mother taught her slow-wheel pottery skills by hand. After she married, Yu started to sell hand-made pottery works at markets.

Yu began teaching others pottery techniques in 2009 to pass on her skills.

“I am now old and can no longer make many potteries every year. I hope that my skills can be passed on to the next generation,” said Yu.

Manlang county in Xishuangbannna is a Dai ethnic county with a long history of potter manufacturing. However, since the manufacturing of pottery is complicated and doesn’t yield high profits, fewer and fewer make a living in pottery manufacturing.

Edited by Jacob Hooson