My Porcelain Teapot

Juliana Taomin Giacone ‘23

There’s this delicate porcelain teapot that is sheltered from dust, enclosed in a wooden cabinet with glass doors, in my dining room. Surrounding the teapot which rests at the center of the top shelf are large serving trays and sets of matching plates, bowls, cups, and silverware. On one side, the teapot’s cobalt blue and white design shows a scene of children playing together by the river in an ancient Chinese village. On the other side, a young woman sits in a garden, dressed in elegant robes, her eyes focused on the strings of her harp-like instrument.

Because of the teapot’s intricate detail, it stands alone, distinct from all the other items in the cabinet.

My father and I found the teapot on a road trip we had taken a number of years ago, somewhere in a small town in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. I remember it was raining heavily that day and there wasn’t much for us to do, so we went into an antique shop. As my eyes scanned the room for something worth my superior heckling skills, I came across the teapot. I think I loved it immediately because it reminded me of my mother. My mother would have loved it because the joyful, rural scene in China would have reminded her of her own home in the countryside in the north of Jiangxi Province. She had complicated feelings about leaving China and her family home, where her parents still tend the farmland. She had been raised in that home with her grandparents, parents, and five siblings until most of them moved out to go to university and explore city life. After college, she would often return to her village and continue to spend time with her family, but when she met my father, she traded in terraced rice fields, for the rocky Maine coastline.

My father immediately questioned the practicality of buying the teapot. It was fragile, and it could break in the car. “You don’t even drink tea,” he argued. I didn’t tell him that it reminded me of Mama. I rolled my eyes and said, “It doesn’t matter if I use it. It has already been used by other people.” I held the teapot in my hands, hugging it close to my chest, and firmly claiming it, as I got in line to make my purchase.

My father shrugged his shoulders.

My mother would have loved the teapot for all the reasons that my father didn’t. She would probably have said something like, “I wonder where this little teapot has been before? Imagine its previous owners … I bet they lived in a mansion! Imagine what this little teapot has witnessed in its lifetime!”

She was quite the character, with a neverending imagination. But I think that when she came to America, over time, some of her ability to imagine faded. She told me once, “My dreams took flight before I secured a place for them to land.” As playfully imaginative as she could be, she could also be cryptic and philosophical when she was emotional and pensive. She would mask her sadness by looking blankly into the distance, and mumbling a phrase like this. It would be accompanied by an intense gaze, where I could almost see the mechanical wheels and gears spinning in her head.

I never fully understood what she meant, but what I did know was that life in America, more specifically, life in an affluent suburban town had not been what she expected. And at the time, I could not understand why my mom did not have any friends. When I was younger, I thought there was something wrong with her. But now I realize she struggled to find her own sense of home here, not just because of her slight difficulties with English, but because of the way that people perceived her and what she represented to them. My father was a contributor to these narrow perceptions. My father would always ask my mother to play our grand Steinway piano to entertain guests when we hosted parties. Each time, he would make some version of a speech about how thankful we were for the welcoming community, and he would introduce my mother before she would begin to play great pieces. She could effectively pretend she had studied Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven for her entire life. She was an excellent sightreader and could play anything on the piano as long as there was sheet music in front of her, so my dad got books of music solely for these occasions. She would play until it was time to serve dinner, while he would parade around in what he believed to be a most distinguished crowd of invited guests in an attempt to charm people who came from old money. About an hour into these parties, my mother’s novelty dissolved, and she would be swallowed by a sea of strangers. She became the background noise of the ambient buzz in our parlour room, among people clamorously telling eccentric stories, drinking and laughing, and having heated conversations about local politics. I would hear guests whisper about how pretty and how talented his “little Chinese wife” was, and some men would leer at her when they thought nobody was looking. Most people did not talk to her, with the exception of some “well-intentioned wives”. They would offer to share their classic American recipes with her that they were sure my father would appreciate after an overload of traditional Chinese cooking, to which she responded sarcastically with a forced smile, “Oh I cook hamburgers and hot dogs every weekend on our outdoor grill, as long as the weather is nice. And my traditional Chinese cooking? Why, I thought you knew … that’s the only reason he wanted to marry me!”

Porcelain will crack and blacken if you try to use it like an iron kettle to boil water over the flame of a stove. Because it is so delicate, it requires a lot of care. Any amount of extreme heat can damage it. Sometimes though, I wonder what would happen to the teapot if I did put it over the heat of a flame. In the worst case, I imagine it exploding, just as the water is about to reach the boiling point, leaving shards that puncture every part of our house after years of suppressing its anger. This porcelain teapot, unlike some modern tea kettles, does not have a whistle to announce with a glaring siren-like sound when the water is boiling. This type of teapot isn’t built to scream, even if it wants to be heard.

I wanted to believe that the teapot did not find its true home until I brought it home with me. I had a lot of trouble finding a proper place to put it so it would be safe. I thought of putting it in the cupboard with our regular dishes, but it seemed like I would be hiding it.

My father suggested we put it in our dining room cabinet, with the glass doors – on display, for all to see.

I agreed that this was its right place, not so everyone could see my teapot, but because I knew it would be safe behind these glass walls. I could really care less whether other people saw it or what they thought about it.

It was to my great disappointment one day, years after I had declared it was mine and brought it home with me, that I found a small engraving on the base of the teapot that said FABRIQUÉ EN FRANCE. Somehow, I had missed it. I felt somewhat betrayed by the seeming authenticity of my “Chinese” teapot which was essentially a fraud.

But I soon realized that it did not matter because I had already taken care of my teapot for so long, for reasons that went beyond its origins. I loved it even after its truth had been revealed to me.

I came to understand just how resilient the teapot truly is despite my initial impression of its utter fragility.

My Chinese teapot has survived much longer than I have. The pot is likely to outlive me and my own children. This pot has found many homes, and it will find many more to come. The scenes it depicts might not be entirely real, but its artwork is based on the very real ancient Chinese history and culture that it preserves by simply being passed down from one caretaker to the next, from generation to generation.

I was ignorant to believe that I was the only person to have ever provided my teapot with a home. But I do wonder if I am the only one who will ever truly cherish it.