It was a spectacularly unfortunate accident when unemployed sketch artist Nicholas Flynn fell down a flight of stairs on January 25 and crashed into three Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) masterpieces, causing them to break into hundreds of pieces.

It is reported that the cracks, after the vases are restored, will be visible and not covered with paint in order to show the authenticity of the vases.

The restoration of the two vases and a big baluster-like jar will be a complex affair that will take up to 10,000 pound sterling (US$17,210) and eight months to restore.

The decision of Britain's Fitzwilliam Museum to not cover up the cracks may have come as a surprise, especially to those for whom appearance is all that matters. Today's world is full of materials to cover our defects, to hide our shortcomings, to keep the truth from showing. All of us employ one or more of these means to look good, or at least appear to look good.

But when we are confronted with the notion of what reality should be whether we like it or not it is reality that always wins. Accepting reality is a choice. That choice has to be turned into commitment, and commitment into reality.

Reality is never superficial, it always runs deep the difference between the face, the appearance and the soul. The soul is real, the appearance vanity. And as French philosopher and Nobel literature laureate Henri Bergson has said: "The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that's laughable is vanity."

To look good and appear good is important, but to pretend to be what one is not is a crime. Clothes and cosmetics can change our looks, not what we actually are. Fashion and accessory may be a gift, but let's not forget what Oscar Wilde had to say about it: "Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."

"Three-tenths of a woman's good looks are because of her nature, seven-tenths because of her dress," goes a piece of Chinese proverbial lore.

To all intents and purposes, this saying holds true even in this materialistic world. Good looks, we may think today, is the outward appearance, but nay, it's nature a person's heart and soul that makes him/her beautiful.

It's always more important to know the value of gold than to have the greed to own it and be intoxicated with its power. Irrespective of its attraction and the power that it wields, we should always remember the 8th-9th centuries' Zen Master Hsi-Tang Chih Tsang's words: "Although gold dust is precious, when it gets in your eyes it obstructs your vision."

But all this is not meant to say a person shouldn't try to change. For, as Mark Twain said, "Be yourself is about the worst advice you can give to people." One has to change, and change for the better. But that change has to come from within. The heart and soul have to change into better beings. Appearances do matter, but only a little.

A rotten wood, even if it looks beautiful from the outside, cannot be carved. It has to have value. The vases' value is because of their utility. That they also look beautiful is besides the point. Their usefulness is that they represent a period in history. They speak of the deft craftsmanship of the ceramic artists of the time and their painstaking work. And even if they appear with all the cracks, their utility will not diminish. And so should be the case with us human beings who want to represent reality. For, in the immortal words of John Keats, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Email: zouhr@chinadaily.com.hk

(China Daily 04/07/2006 page4)