A teapot coming to life? The Tik Tok series about a jade teapot that has been made in China coming to life as a human girl, has brought some trouble to the British Museum of Artifacts. It has been said that since it opened in 1753 there have been many additions to the museum that have questionable sources of getting there. On the official website of the British Museum, the starting sentence on their websites says, “Objects have been acquired in a variety of ways. Some objects are subject to questions about, or requests for, return to other countries.” Could a Tik Tok series possibly have opened some old scandal that the world had decided to overlook?
While this started as a series someone made, it has turned into a real-world story. We wanted to get the insight of a history buff and of someone who would be interested. We were able to interview our history teacher Mr. Korty. He had an amazing opinion on the story and dug into the history side of this story. “There have always been requests to have artifacts returned to their nations of origin, and these recent thefts have increased that. The thefts show that the British Museum may not be a safe place for these objects, so it’s natural that they would increase demands for return. I think that requests for the return of items should be treated seriously and the British Museum should be willing to discuss how items were acquired. I also think the British need to be willing to discuss returns or maybe engage in a cultural exchange by allowing for key artifacts in British history to be displayed in other nation’s museums. If the British are uncomfortable sending the Magna Carta to a Chinese Museum, perhaps that may help them understand the feelings of other nations.” So this isn’t the first and only theft. It has happened so many times and we have just now brought attention to it.
For anyone who steals the consequences will come back twice as hard. But also this shows that history doesn’t always have to be something people perceive as boring. It’s a huge part of how we build our country for the future.