Shao Dahen the man

There is a teapot made by the legendary Shao Dahen during the mid-Qing dynasty. In the County Annals of Yixing, it was written that teapots by Shao Dahen were rare and priceless as there were very few of his teapots left behind in this world. He was considered the best potter ever lived in Yixing. Even the grandmaster Gu Jingzhou had deep respect and admiration for his works.

Figurine of Shao Dahen

Shao Dahen's famous Duozhi pot is now on display in a Shanghai Yixing museum, a privately owned museum owned by a teapot fanatic.

Shao Dahen's Duozhi pot

The legendary Gu Jingzhou considered Shao's teapots to be the best in this world. He often imitated Shao's work in the 60s.

Gu Zingzhou

Shao was a great potter not only because of his excellent skills, He was an upright person not intimidated by power and authority. There was a story that he was beaten up and jailed  for refusing to make teapots for the corrupt magistrate in the county where he lived. But there was an even more interesting account of him for showing humanity and passion for innocent people.

The legend had it that there was this magistrate in the Yixing county. He liked to drink tea and also collect teapots. It was told that he ever owned a teapot made by Shao Dahen. Even during that time, it was not easy to own a teapot made by Shao. Hence, Shao's teapots were considered precious and priceless. This magistrate was deeply in love with this pot due to fine workmanship. Everyday he would instruct his servant maid to brew tea with this teapot. He would sip tea while enjoying the beauty of the pot made by Shao. Unfortunately, one day the servant was a bit careless and dropped the teapot. It smashed into pieces on the floor.

The magistrate was furious when he saw his favourite teapot broken into many pieces. Out of anger, he demanded the death of the servant to pay for the loss of this precious pot.

The maid must die for breaking this precious teapot

When Shao Dahen heard of this incident, immediately he brought some of his teapots to see the magistrate.

He pleaded with the magistrate not to punish the servant and he was prepared to let the magistrate choose any teapots he liked in exchange for the maid's life.

The magistrate took a look at Shao's teapots and they were all professionally made and were of the highest quality. Then he remembered that Shao's teapots were indeed hard to come by. He agreed to Shao's request that he would spare the maid's life in exchange for one of Shao's teapots.

Then Shao Dahen let the magistrate chose the teapot he liked from all the pots he brought along. After the magistrate had chosen a teapot, Shao then packed the rest of the teapots and was about to leave.

Then suddenly the magistrate stopped Shao from leaving. He told Shao that he liked all his teapots and wondered if Shao could sell all the pots to him. He told Shao to name a price for all the pots. He thought that Shao would be very please to this transaction as Shao could receive a fortune by selling these teapots to him.

 On hearing that the magistrate wanted to buy all his teapots, he immediately put down the teapots. Without saying a word, he started smashing his teapots with a stick. All these beautiful and precious teapots became broken pieces of clay on the floor.

The magistrate was shocked by this sudden change of event. He could not imagine these beautiful and precious teapots all smashed up in front of him.

He wanted to know why Shao would smashed all his teapot rather than selling them to him for a fortune. Do you know why Shao did what he did in front of the magistrate? Do you also want to know what Shao had spoken to the magistrate or the reason behind his action?

Shao told the magistrate, " If I let you have all my teapots, I don't know how many people would die because of all these teapots that I made."

Obviously he was telling the magistrate. Teapots were nice to have but nothing could compare to the lives of innocent people. The magistrate, powerful he might be, could not just let innocent lives to be lost because of his love for the teapots.

After Shoa had broken these teapots, there were very few of Shao's teapots around these days. No wonder they are very precious indeed. They are precious not only because of their fine workmanship, it is because of the person who made them. A potter who treasured life more than anything in this world. No wonder the legendary Gu Jingzhou had such high regards for this man.

There is a lesson to be learned. We may have passion for certain things. But we cannot let this passion hurts the people around us.