It seems a three dollar tag sale bowl sold for 2.2 million at the Sotheby’s had shocked the nation. I am neither a garage sell trooper nor junk yard warrior, I spent money on food and to pay bills. However, after looking at the picture of this Cinderella bowl, I have to admit, it’s beautiful and perfect.  I wish a Chinese billionaire bought it and would bring it back home to China.

I am not too crazy about “Made in China”; it is cheap and slightly off like my Made in China paper-cutter.  The marked measurement is off more than one mm. However, the 2 million dollors ceramic bowl is not just Made in China, it was MADE IN SONG DYNASTY a thousand years ago!

To appreciate this bowl, you have to imagine three things: the Song period, the bowl, and its maker.  Compare Song dynasty to the majestic Tang Dynasty before it: Song Dynasty is famous for its artistic achievement in art, not warfare or political influence.  To personalize the last five dynasties of Chinese history, I think you get a sense of what is Song: Tang people is colorful with an organic food diet, custom of drinking wine, well-built and a bit sun tan.  Song people are well dressed, lean, noted for art, music, scholarly writing, rice and tea.  Yuan stands for a winner takes all sportsman, loud, hairy, strong built and drinks beer.  Ming is represented as a mannerist, with a good appearance, eccentric, and very suspicious about the others. Qing is spoiled, bossy, an imitator, under weight, and sometimes a druggie.  Song is sentimental, subtle, and shows vulnerability.   Song suffered bullying from enemies to the north and eventually moved its capital south.  It was in this governmental setting that the greatest landscape painters, calligraphers, poets, and urban elites appeared.

From the well balanced white glaze of the North to supreme Jade like Celadon, Song aesthetic sophistication was matched by an incredible inventiveness, which led to a variety of classic wares for the imperial court all over China.  It reminds me of the wine culture of our time.  The connoisseurs would spend lots of money for a certain taste, flavor, moment of romance and to brag about their finding with a divine moment to their honored friends.

The form of this million dollar bowl is perfect: 5 inches diameter is the space inside fingers with your palm opened, like a blossom lotus.  You would hold the bowl for eating or drinking.  The food for the bowl shouldn’t be too creamy to enjoy the flowing flower design inside; maybe sweet lotus seed soup or tea to accompany the lotus flower.  I don’t think the bowl is for the general public because common people do not have this kind of fine time or fine taste.  However, when the fine art of the 21^st century is shaped by body parts, garbage assembling, and zombie grotesque, this simple, subtle, and delicate bowl brings me back to an era that painters created the most sublime landscapes, and craftsmen crafted the most exquisite wares in Chinese history.  These artists followed a simple code: to make it just right.

Once my father had warned me never to get into Chinese Crafts, “it will suck you into its perfection and you’ll never come out of it”, he said.  It echoes contemporary food and wine connoisseurs who cannot get away from their noble hobby!  A humble maker with positive Karma had to perfect the million dollar bowl.  After it is resolved, the spirit of creativity wanes and form begins to control the production.  You are left in awe.  I prefer any kind of bowl that can hold a humble meal.  Here are some of my imperfect and inexpensive ceramic wares. Hope you enjoy.  Have a free spirit!

• Guide to Chinese Ceramics: Sung (Song) Dynasty [Minneapolis Institute of Arts]

• The Legend of Ju Ware: A Special Exhibition of Ju Ware from the Northern Sung Dynasty [National Palace Museum]