“Retaining the old and outworn” is from To Dr. Taichang by Liu Xin in Han Dynasty. The original text says, “...but still retaining the old and outworn and fearful of anything potentially harmful for personal interest at all, and thus feels no obligation towards good deeds.” It criticizes the tradition of holding on to old-schooled values.

　　To me it should have another interpretation. It is not necessarily a bad thing. Oftentimes it can be a form of beauty too.

　　Ancient times, people from east and west have been going after the beauty of anachronism.

　　The stapling technique used in porcelain making release the broken beauty of the ware to the extreme. When you see the winding lines and crackles and the rusty staples along the lines, you will find them so visually striking as if you could see everything they have witnessed and that creates a sense of intimacy. This special kind of beauty of stapled porcelain ware is real, plain, rich, special, and somewhat mysterious and sad at the same time. People can’t help but appreciate the beauty of imperfection.

　　Western countries have a long history on this, too. Venus de Milo, Winged Victory of Samothrace and Mona Lisa in Louvre are the best proof of how western culture values the beauty of the imperfection. When Venus de Milo was discovered, people were amazed at the beauty and delicacy but also sorry for the missing arms. However they turned out to leave it up to people’s imagination to complete the work as they wish. So I say it takes some flaws to make perfect. People who truly understand and reach the realm of perfection know that perfection itself does not glow. People have too much illusion about how glorious being perfect is.

　　There are problems and defects in this world we live in wherever we go. I used to feel sorry for Cao Xueqin because he couldn’t finish what he started. His unfinished words were plaintive. When someone went to complete where Cao had left off and made it Dream of the Red Mansion, is that still imperfect beauty? There is nothing missing. So it’s complete. However that also means there is no more hope, no more pursuit and everything stops there. When history is complete, it’s the end of the history. When life is complete, it means life starts to go downhill from the peak. Sometimes regrets and incompleteness are beautiful. They give people the drive to long for perfection and miss this desolate beauty. Longing for perfection is only an ideal option. The goal of life should always be evolving and growing, trying to fix the incomplete and make it perfect. The defect implies a hope for the perfect.

　　Or even maybe, retain the old fashion and stay imperfect.

　　Our ancestors wrapped their mind around this a long time ago. The best proof should be Confucius on Yiqi, a leaning scoop. It says on the book that Yiqi is a very special container—when it’s empty, it leans to one side, stays upright when a little more than half full and flips over when full. This container teaches people not to be full of themselves. Once they become like that they are going to trip. Like Confucius said, haughtiness invites disaster and humility receives benefit. When appreciating imperfect beauty, people are visually attracted to natural and abstract extension of the incomplete object and thus get inspired by the object. They become free and limitless in their imagination.

　　To some extent, life itself is imperfection.

　　Looking back at my journey to the city of perfection, I realized that things I thought were not beautiful actually radiate beauty of being real and down to earth. Half of my foot is in the sun, the other half in the moon. My journey was sometimes easy and sometimes bumpy; sometimes filled with compliments, sometimes discourage. They are all parts of my life that’s in the past. Failures cause frustration. Growing up is followed by nostalgia. They become the imperfect life that I’ll never have again.

　　Sometimes I’m deeply saddened thinking about imperfections that I can do nothing about. When you miss the chance to fix it, the pain in your heart stays and you drown yourself in missing yesterday. However in this endless missing, the emotions are purified and sublimed. Imperfection is absolute and eternal. Perfection is relative and temporary. Perfection is like a sky with a full moon every night. It becomes dull and thus an imperfection. People have their own flaws too. They conquer them and gain new ones. It never stops. It doesn’t matter if you appreciate the beauty of the outworn. As long as you are alive and have the courage to move on, you have a journey that you can start freshly. Hence come hundreds of times of pursuits.

　　Broken porcelain pieces and sculpture are flawed as time goes by. People’s imperfection in hearts comes from life and growing up. Many setbacks leave marks in your life. We hear the sound of breaking glasses in our heart. Our crippled heart is lonely and empty, and pain. So we inhale like we are going to die until the heart feels a shed of sunshine. Then, the heart becomes peaceful, so peaceful as if nothing had ever happened; peaceful like a pond at a windless night. It’s because a heart is still perfect when it sees flaws.

Liu Yanjun

March, 2015

Beijing

作者：Liu,Yanjun