Taiwan Hut

An impressive collection of glassware made of liuli, or colored glaze, awes visitors inside the Taiwan Hut.

Delicate pieces in marvelous shapes and patterns lie on the white table for display. They range from transparent to opaque and colorless to multicolored.

Beside a showcase, Loretta Hui-Shan Yang, a successful film star and multiple Best Actress winner of the Golden Horse Award of Taiwan, shares her interest in the art with visitors.

"Twenty years ago, I was impressed by several pieces of liuli artworks in France and was curious about the pate-de-verre (technique for making liuli)," Yang recalls.

Taken by the beauty of the art, the actress, who is fond of Chinese history and culture, abandoned her successful career to enter the unfamiliar world of liuli with a team of seven others.

She was surprised to hear from a Japanese liuli scholar that China's earliest liuli artifact, made using the pate-de-verre method, was a pair of ear cups found next to the famed jade clothes in Emperor Liu Sheng's tomb dating back to China's Western Han Dynasty (BC202-8AD). After archaeological confirmation the glass material was of Chinese origin - and the technology was indigenous to China - Yang and her team attempted to revive the artistry embedded in their ancestry. Liuli is now one of Taiwan's most representative art forms.

"Imbued with history and tradition - and combining artistic, aesthetic and creative design, liuli has raised the cultural bar," says Taiwanese visitor Chen Yan. "More and more people including young generation like this art."

The floor of the hut is equally astonishing. Several peonies made mainly from liuli spread across the surface, displaying the extraordinary beauty of the magical glaze.

Several photographs of ordinary Taiwanese taken by the region's famous photographer Shen Xinlin line the walls near the hut's exit, capturing everyday life of the Taiwanese people.

(China Daily 08/16/2008 page15)