## Matters of Shame Gu Jingzhou and his wife Xu Yibao The color is very good, the firing temperature is just like last time, very pleased His wife's premature passing suddenly made him realize the preciousness of cherishing life's time. After the intense grief, Gu Jingzhou wrote on his birthday that year: "Over fifty years competing in the craft, yet recalling the years already ancient and rare. Rising up at Chongyang is not too late,願留指爪踏雪泥."[1] Lu Yang wielded his spear and drove back the proud sun three stages; like wild geese leaving traces in snow and mud, the passing geese leave their marks without wasting the remaining years. What magnificent ambition and sentiment this is—you can hardly imagine this is a life reflection from a seventy-year-old man not long after his first wife had just passed away. This is Gu Jingzhou, a Gu Jingzhou different from others. In the face of life's suffering, he had no mournful laments or complaints; on the contrary, he poured all his intellectual talent into the Yixing pottery art he so loved. Different from what everyone sees in daily work, Gu Jingzhou's character had another completely opposite side. On this side, what we see is not "cold as autumn frost," but rather "warm-hearted in the old way." Just as he wrote in his diary on January 31, 1991: > Arrived at the factory at 8:15 AM, opened the two "Monk's Hat" teapots that had been sealed the previous two days, the clay Because it can punish me for the education foundation --- [1] A reference to the Chinese idiom "鸿爪雪泥" (hóng zhǎo xuě ní), meaning traces left by wild geese in snow and mud, symbolizing the fleeting marks one leaves in life.