Section 2: Reaching Distant Lands Mr. Peters: We appreciate your hospitality in allowing us to live and work here in Canton. Of course, we would like to see the rest of China—the scenes on your porcelain are so beautiful that we'd like to see them for ourselves. Our wealthy lords and ladies want china and more china. We want them to buy it from good English merchants, and not from our competitors, the Dutch and the French. I understand a Dutch ship just sank with 150,000 pieces of porcelain, including 63,623 tea cups with saucers. And, as you know, drinking tea is very popular in England, as well as in our colonies in North America, and tea will also be on board our ship. Not only are we interested in tea cups and tea pots, but we would also like tea caddies. We will use them to store our tea. They are very lovely and the exotic pagoda pattern is fit for a queen. What do the designs mean? Mr. Yi: Many of the designs you see on these porcelain pieces [click on any image for larger view] symbolize long life—the pine trees on the tea caddies, for example, or the deer on the large plate to the left. The boys playing show a wish for male children. The strange horse-like animal below? That is a qilin, something like your western unicorn. It brings good luck. [visit Chinese Symbols ] And I agree, these porcelains are very nice. We also make special porcelains for our emperor and his family, but alas, we cannot sell these imperial ceramics to you, even for the use of King George III. But more about that later. [visit section 3, Fit for the Emperor] Now, how can I help you with your order?