The Tale of the Porcelain God: Pouring Yourself Into Your Work

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For this blog post I'm deciding to focus on the short story The Tale of the Porcelain God from Lafcadio Hearns' Chinese Ghost Stories Curious Tales of the Supernatural. The main thing that struck me about this story is that for the first few pages it seems that all this story is is just some guy gushing about how much he loves porcelain. He goes on and on listing "this porcelain and THAT porcelain and who could forget about THIS porcelain" and you start to wonder if this is even a supernatural tale at all. Finally, towards the end of the story you get to see what the supernatural element is. Unto Bu literally pours his heart and soul into his work and sacrifices his human life so that his artwork may be perfect. I think it's pretty straight forward what this story is trying to say; that if you put your all into your artwork then you will be rewarded with a great product. Unto Bu does, after all, end up becoming a god after achieving what he believes to be the impossible. However, I do believe that it is just as easy to read this story from a negative standpoint. Bu worked himself so hard that he actually died. He worked himself to death just to make something that he deemed "perfect" and nobody should strive towards perfection so much in that you are actually doing harm to your mind and body. Of course, I believe that there are merits to both of these views. You should pour as much of yourself into your art as possible and always strive to improve and create great work. You should also know your limits and know when you are holding yourself to too high a standard. Nothing, after all, is perfect. For these reasons this particular story stuck with me as an artist who struggles with perfectionism and knowing when I need to take a break.

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