The Cabbage And The Pork

The famed Jade Cabbage, a charm that the Chinese believe to bring wealth and prosperity, and the real-looking Pork Chunk Dipped in Soy Sauce carved from a yellowish-brown jade stone, which, I suppose, are among the national treasures of Taiwan, are arresting spectacles of the museum. These still lives, in addition to the other marvels in display, have earned admiration of, I guess, most visitors of the museum, locals or foreigners, including me. While these pieces have their stories to tell, they are still inanimate objects which I give lesser regard than the people in the museum who are curious of what these objects had silently witnessed during the (ancient) times when people who made or owned them were unknowingly marking their existence in a tableau that we now call history. Ironically, these objects and the scenes with the traffic of people admiring them will remain while most of us will not leave a mark for the people a century hence to talk about.

We may never know in our lifetime the faceless ancient artists who carved the cabbage and the pork from the crude jade stone deposits but they have already been immortalized in the delicate details of every curved surface that gave flair to these museum treasures. Those persons certainly made their mark.