Out of the “Secret Color” Mist: Integrated Pathways for the International Communication of Celadon Culture

The cross-cultural communication of celadon culture has long been constrained by the cognitive dilemma of “separation of Dao and vessel,” wherein overseas audiences tend to be captivated by the formal beauty of celadon objects yet struggle to apprehend the underlying East Asian philosophical foundations embodied in their “jade-like, mirror-like” aesthetics. This challenge is compounded by mistranslations of culturally loaded terms such as “jiangxin” (craftsmanship/spirit of the artisan) and “kaipian” (crackled glaze), which further erode cultural meaning. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective that integrates communication studies and translation studies, this paper proposes an integrated framework centered on three pillars: “philosophical-aesthetic tracing, cultural-loaded term trans-coding, and multimodal narrative.” By systematically mapping the four quintessential aesthetic attributes of celadon—“green as jade, bright as a mirror, thin as paper, and resonant as a chime”—onto the corresponding philosophical tenets of Daoism, Confucianism, Mohism, and Buddhism, the study constructs an “Analytical Framework of Core Philosophical and Aesthetic Elements of Celadon Culture.” To address translation inaccuracies in English, French, and Japanese, a “literal translation + annotation + cultural compensation” strategy is piloted for deep localization. Concurrently, a short-video-based multimodal narrative experiment is carried out. This paper reports the interim findings and identifies existing bottlenecks in the above research endeavors, with the aim of offering a transferable pathway for moving cultural heritage beyond mere “object export” toward genuine “spiritual resonance” in international reception.