Bid for World Heritage status is everyone's business in Dongbu village

On a sultry afternoon, an elderly man sat on the doorstep of his home in Dongbu village, a riverside settlement about 40 kilometers from Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, idly fanning himself in the shade, when a visiting official stopped to ask him a question.

"Do you know what big thing your village is doing these days?"

Without a word, he turned the fan in his hand. Printed across its face was a single line: "Supporting the World Heritage bid".

"That's it," he said, "We're applying for World Heritage status."

Everyone laughed. For Han Xiaoshan, deputy director of the World Heritage application office in Fuliang county, where the village sits, the moment was proof that years of knocking on doors had finally sunk in.

"It showed our work hadn't been for nothing," she says. "Residents here now know that this is everyone's business, not just ours."

It had taken years to get there — years of persuading villagers to look again at the street, houses and riverfront they had grown up with, and to see not just a familiar home, but a piece of history worth preserving.

On July 25, the Jingdezhen Handicraft Porcelain Industry Sites were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, becoming China's 61st World Heritage site. Dongbu was among the newly listed heritage components.

For centuries, kaolin, or China clay, and other porcelain-making materials were brought down from the surrounding hills to Dongbu and shipped along the Donghe River to Jingdezhen's kilns. Goods purchased in the porcelain-making city traveled back along the same route.

With an ancient trade route also running through the village, Dongbu became a busy hub for land and water trade and transshipment. Its old wharf, commercial street and waterways still trace the transport network that once helped supply Jingdezhen's porcelain industry.

For generations of villagers, however, those remains were simply part of everyday life.

Wu Jinghua, a former village official who has lived in Dongbu for more than 70 years, remembers efforts to protect the old street and wharf beginning around 2000. Systematic restoration gathered pace from 2015 as the World Heritage application moved forward.

Dongbu was traditionally an agricultural village. Tourism slowly developed, but few visitors came at first.

Gradually, as the village became cleaner and its historic buildings were repaired, residents developed a stronger sense of belonging and pride, Han says.

Restoration followed a principle of "minimum intervention".

Traditional materials and techniques were used to repair the old buildings, the wharf and the stone-paved street, with colors and textures kept as close as possible to the originals.

When workers moved utility lines underground, they marked each stone slab before lifting it. Once it was complete, the workers returned the slabs, one by one, to their original positions.

At the same time, the village upgraded water and drainage systems and improved other basic infrastructure.

The changes also created new opportunities for residents.

More than 80 villagers found work during the restoration projects. Others opened homestays, restaurants and teahouses or began selling local produce to visitors.

Under a large banyan tree by the Donghe River, one elderly resident sells mung bean soup and rice jelly, often going through two buckets a day.

Dongbu has also begun hosting study tours and cultural tourism programs centered on its role in Jingdezhen's porcelain history.

The village now receives at least 190,000 visitors a year, according to Wu. More visitors mean more customers for local food, accommodation and produce, giving villagers additional ways to increase their incomes.

But another change is harder to measure: A history long taken for granted has become more closely tied to how residents view their home.

For Dongbu, World Heritage status has changed not only how its old street and wharf are protected but also how residents understand their value.

"We all have the same hope now: to protect our ancient street and wharf well so that our culture can be passed down for generations," says Wu.