News story:
Siblings’ Two Worlds Collide in War Over Chinese Art Trove
—————-
My comment:
There are always fights over money in the news, but those that happen among siblings are the most discouraging to hear about. Especially as they happen within people who are deemed to highly applaud family value in their traditional culture.
In C. C. Wong’s story, the wealth he stored up through his massive collection of Chinese artwork did not assure him of a happy life and a loving family. He had been continuously in agony of suspicions and worries of in-family thefts before he died. The children, though of the same blood, started wars against each other over the legacy as soon as after the funeral.
Ironically, those works of art Mr. Wong collected were mostly representations or epitomizations of traditional Chinese philosophies, which emphasized unearthly spirit, loath of mundane pleasure and the pursuit for harmony in life. That makes one think if art is defined as only the virtuosity of the skills and techniques in the craft, or the mere antiquity of time, how much wisdom can we inherit from those Masters, which they endeavoured to save for us long long time ago?
It seems to me that the wealth the collection brought to Mr. Wong was tagged with a curse that was too much over its worth.
