Dear Friend,

	Pottery made by artists from Yingko

Surprise—it was raining again today! But it was OK. We spent most of the day indoors at the Taipei County Yingko Ceramics Museum.

The town of Yingko is famous for producing pottery and ceramics. So the museum is dedicated to the ceramics industry. Before this trip, I hadn’t thought about ceramics as an industry; I really only thought of it as creating pots on a wheel and carving cute little figurines. Wow—was I wrong! Ceramics is an important part of fields such as electronics, aerospace, and biotechnology. Electronic ceramic technology has helped make cell phones smaller, and magnetic ceramic technology is used in ATM cards, credit cards, videotapes, and cassette tapes. Amazing, right?

	The Arch of Millennium, outside the Yingko Ceramics Museum

I was also fascinated to see all the different ways to create pottery, such as coiling (using rolls of clay), patting (using your hands and wooden tools), molding (using plaster molds), and “throwing” pots on a wheel.

If you like pottery but are not planning a trip to Yingko in the near future, you could read A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park. It’s a young-adult novel about potters in Korea. I read it just before I left for Taiwan, and I thought it was excellent!

Your friend,

Carla