THE INQUIRY
How a heritage product appeared in a city that never had one.
I grew up in Yuxi, Yunnan. I never saw a Wamao in any house, any temple, or any rooftop. Then, around 2020, it appeared — on Douyin livestreams tagged “Intangible Cultural Heritage,” in blind-box collections on Xiaohongshu, on government banners along newly built cultural streets.
A creature I had never encountered was suddenly everywhere, claiming to be ancient.
What the Internet Says
200 posts about Wamao on Xiaohongshu, categorized by primary content.
Only 20% of posts discuss Wamao as a cultural object. The rest treat it as something to buy, visit, or experience.
n = 200 posts, collected June 2025. Methodology: manual content coding with 6 categories.
“The internet has completed what the marketplace began. Wamao exists online almost exclusively as a product to buy. Its history is virtually absent from the digital record.”
Seven Days in Yuxi
June 16–22, 2025. Two workshops, three artisans, and a question that got harder to answer.
Qinghua Street was built to save the local economy after Yuxi's tobacco industry declined. Red brick, calligraphy banners, “Intangible Heritage” everywhere.
Inside Yuqing Kiln: brick walls, a half-height kiln, two worktables, two people shaping clay. By the door, a shelf of Wamao fridge magnets — crudely made.
The bestseller was a green figure with a coin in its mouth. If the coin is inside, the back is sealed — to prevent wealth from leaking. If there is no coin, the hole stays open — to draw wealth in.
The logic had nothing to do with heritage. It was engineered for luck.
Zheng Popo and her husband, Liu Jialiang, are ceramicists — not Wamao artisans. He reverse-engineered Yuxi blue-and-white porcelain in 1992. She spent twenty years firing glazed roof tiles by his side. She never made Wamao.
That changed in 2013, when the city launched a cultural industries campaign. A new agency connected workshops to trade fairs. She began producing Wamao — a product she never cared about — to keep the workshop alive.
By 2017, the system changed. Awards and channels went to those who paid or had connections.
“Real craftspeople get nothing.”
— Zheng Popo
Their workshop sits on the ruins of the old Yuxi Kiln — the factory Liu once directed. He moved here on purpose.
“The root of Yuxi ceramics is here. You can't surrender this land to food vendors.”
He was financially secure. He didn't need to be here. He stayed, petitioning the Bureau to waive rent for young artisans. They declined.
Li Ping's studio was the largest Wamao brand in Yuxi. She chose Wamao in 2013 because “it was cute to make, and nobody else was doing it.”
Wamao was never anything to begin with. As long as you keep the giant open mouth, you can do whatever you want.
— Li Ping
Her real frustration was storytelling. After a decade, her brand remained mid-tier because Wamao had no transmissible myth.
When it first went viral, merchants without stock substituted stone lions from Fujian. They sold just as well.
Tourists do not care about origins.
I arrived with a thesis already formed: Wamao is an invented tradition. Seven days confirmed it.
But what I did not expect was this: the invention is not the story. Zheng Popo made Wamao to survive. Liu Jialiang does not care about Wamao — he cares about the kiln beneath his feet. Li Ping openly admits she sells something fabricated.
None of them are deceiving anyone. They are navigating a system in which “heritage” is an economic instrument, and their livelihoods depend on performing it.
If today's Wamao is a modern invention, what is the real history it claims to inherit?
ACT II: THE DESCENT
Geographical mutation from imperial order to primal roar.