Story of China

But at home, China was changing, especially in the rich cities of the south like Suzhou. Ming China had begun as an agricultural state with a stifling command economy. But now the growth of the market gave birth to a new urban moneyed class, who would begin to loosen the grip of Ming autocracy. Suzhou, they said, was heaven on earth. Like renaissance Florence with its high culture and its palaces and mansions, and these days you can even stay in them. (birds chirping) This was the house of the Fung family. They were only middling merchants. But, as you can see, they lived the good life. And in your Ming dynasty guest room there is fine furniture as you can see, wooden bath that the servants would fill for you in the evening, and a lovely four poster bed hung with muslin mosquito nets, very necessary here in Suzhou. 30 rooms, ancestral hall and a shrine room and a little family school, all belonging to the one extended family. (traditional Chinese music) The Fung family had joined a new world of conspicuous consumption, of private wealth and taste. On their table the finest blue glaze porcelain bought by the new rich from their local art dealers and made by thousands of indentured workers in the state pottery kilns. Soon they'd be exporting these things to Europe. To meet the consumer demand, old arts reached new heights under the Ming. Among them, lacquer making. It's a craft that demands incredible attention to detail. The best work was so coveted that Ming collectors traveled hundreds of miles to buy the top brand names from the most famous houses. Such confusions of pleasure were a long way from the austere world of the first Ming emperor. Even fashion was now no longer the preserve of the ruling class. And as regards designer labels, well, Suzhou was all the rage! If it wasn't made in Suzhou, people said, people just didn't want to wear it. The hems go up, the hems go down, and the fuddy-duddies complained that these new people with their newfangled fashions are erasing the class differences which were implicit in the old traditional styles of costume. (frantic drumbeat music) In the cotton and silk industries demand skyrocketed. And Suzhou silk was the best.