Courtyard House: Starting in a Ceramics Factory

Chapter 7 Lifting the Stone Lock! Throwing the Pottery!

Li Feng and his group of over a hundred people arrived at the open space of the Five Star Ceramics Factory.

At this moment, ten stone locks were placed on the open ground.

Looking at these stone locks that were almost covered in patina, Li Feng secretly pondered that these stone locks must have a history. He wondered how old they were and whether they had any cultural relic value.

Others also started discussing it at this point.

Some of them had played with these things before, but the stone locks they played with were not as big as the ones in front of them.

After all, a stone lock usually weighs only a few dozen kilograms at most.

Just as everyone started discussing it, Deputy Section Chief Han walked up to them and began to introduce himself.

"Each of these stone weights weighs about 100 jin (50 kg)."

"As long as you can lift it, you will pass the first test."

Everyone was surprised when they heard what Section Chief Zhang said.

"What?".

"One hundred jin?"

"My goodness."

"I can only carry about 50 kilograms at most."

"How many kilograms is a bag of rice again? Fifty kilograms?"

"So, you mean you have to lift the weight of two bags of rice? You're not going to do it with one hand, are you?"

At this point, someone started asking Deputy Section Chief Han questions.

"Section Chief Han, is it stipulated that only one hand can be used to raise it?"

After hearing what that person said, Deputy Section Chief Han simply shook his head and said...

"One hand or two hands are fine, as long as you can raise it."

There are no regulations in this regard.

Han Liye felt that the first test was very simple, just to see how strong he was.

After all, when it comes to making porcelain, it takes some strength to move more than three hundred pieces (a unit of porcelain size). For example, a large vase with more than a thousand pieces can be much taller than a person.

For example, the Five Star Ceramics Factory has thousands of pieces of blue and white porcelain.

Most importantly, this recruitment primarily targets apprentices for pottery throwing and pottery shaping.

Apprentices like this have to put the embryo in a cool, shady place to dry after they finish pulling it.

The shady spot is still some distance from where the potter's wheel is being thrown.

Therefore, the person who pulls the potter's wheel needs a lot of strength.

Conditions are much better now than before. In the past, we could only carry the prepared clay over there, but now we can put it on a cart and pull it over, although we still have to carry it.

Strength is indispensable.

The reason we couldn't use handcarts in the past was because the roads were bad and the bumps would deform the stretched blanks, so we couldn't use them.

The roads are in pretty good condition now.

Therefore, a handcart can be used.

But no matter what, you can't do this without strength.

After Deputy Section Chief Han finished speaking, everyone looked at the stone locks thoughtfully.

In those days, people living in the city had better material conditions than those living in the countryside, and they ate commercial grain.

They are physically strong, but they don't have many opportunities to do heavy work. They are all young people in their teens, and although they are physically good, not many of them have real strength.

However, this 100-pound load is not a problem for most of them.

The next step was simple: Li Feng and his group started testing the stone-lifting lock in groups of ten.

Among the applicants, some could lift it with one hand, some needed both hands, and some couldn't lift it at all and left.

When it was Li Feng's turn, he lifted the stone lock, which weighed over a hundred pounds, with one hand. The staff member in charge of recording glanced at Li Feng and then wrote down "Li Feng qualified".

In the end, fifty-three people successfully lifted the stone lock.

The person who seemed to have connections also passed the test.
However, it's worth mentioning that almost half of them have been eliminated.

This surprised Li Feng, as he hadn't expected it.

One hundred pounds is a bit heavy, but a young man should be able to lift it if he grits his teeth.
But this had already eliminated almost half the people. Just as Li Feng was thinking this, Deputy Section Chief Han looked at the remaining people and said slowly.

"Next, we will proceed with the second test."

"Pulling the potter's wheel".

"As long as you can pull out a bowl or other vessel shape, you can participate in the scoring."

"Anyone who doesn't produce any shape will be eliminated."

This is the most difficult part.

The first part, which tests strength, is manageable.

After all, most people still have some strength.

But the second item, the pull-out type, is too difficult.

Most people present had never encountered this before. Those who could pull out the shape of the instrument were all somewhat talented; otherwise, you definitely wouldn't be able to pull out anything decent.

At least that's what Li Feng thinks.

This step made Li Feng a little nervous.

After all, I've never touched this thing before.

Next

Section Chief Han led the remaining fifty-three people to a workshop. There was no one in the workshop, but there were five pottery wheels inside.

A few minutes later, several dark-skinned, middle-aged, and somewhat short elderly men entered the workshop.

They then greeted Deputy Section Chief Han.

Deputy Section Chief Han nodded slightly to them, and then he began to speak to everyone.

"These are our factory's level 5 pottery throwers: Master Liu, Master Jin, and Master Zhang."

"They will be the ones to evaluate what you produce."

"Now you can start throwing the pottery in groups of five. As for the shape of the vessel, you can throw whatever is on the table behind you."

After hearing Deputy Section Chief Han's voice, everyone turned their gaze to what was behind them.

Then they saw some pulled-out embryos on the table behind them.

It contains items such as a general's jar, teacup, bowl, water basin, pen holder, and small water vat.

Having a benchmark would make things much better.

After all, few people present can work in isolation; having a reference point is definitely better than having none.

At this point, most of the people present had already chosen their reference points, and Li Feng was going to choose a pen holder.

Because in Li Feng's view, the pen holder looked the simplest.

Others chose to use bowls, while others opted for shallow water.

These were the choices of most people. The only one who chose to make the general's jar was the young man who was brought into the auditorium by a middle-aged woman at the beginning.

At that moment, he was greeting the several experienced craftsmen who had come in.

When Li Feng saw this, he roughly understood.

This person with connections must be one of the pre-selected candidates. After all, he must have some ability to choose the most difficult general-grade jar, so he must be one of the factory's children.

According to what Li Feng learned.

The ten positions the factory is recruiting must be reported to the labor bureau.

Based on this, Li Feng made a conjecture.

This person with connections must have studied these things, but because the factory doesn't have a policy for converting temporary workers to permanent employees, they could only be recruited through social recruitment.

In other words, he will definitely get in eventually.

In the end, are there only nine spots left?
There were over fifty people present, which was almost a six-to-one ratio.

Thinking of this, Li Feng couldn't help but take a deep breath.

If that's the case, I still have a chance.

after all!

If all the applicants are children of factory workers, then I really don't have much of a chance.

(End of this chapter)