When you’re a kid, there are a few golden rules you are taught to never, ever, break.
Don’t talk to strangers
Be home before dark.
And if it’s not yours, don’t touch it.
Well, it appears the third rule got lost on a four year old boy in China who ended up touching, and eventually destroying a LEGO sculpture that cost £10,000.
A Chinese artist, known as Mr Zhao, had spent three days and three nights creating a wonderful sculpture of Nick, the fox from Zootropolis, for Sunday’s Lego Expo in Ningbo, China.
Image via Weibo
(Sidebar: make sure you watch Zootropolis sometime this year, animated film or not, it’s one of the best movies of 2016.)
Spending 100,000 yuan (£10,382) on his wonderful creation, Mr Zhao’s sculpture was placed behind rope at the the Expo and stood for one hour.
Image via Weibo
Before a four-year-old boy came along and smashed it.
That’s ten thousand pounds and three days of someone’s hard artistic endeavour, destroyed by a four-year-old. In one hour.
Image via Weibo
As one onlooker described to People’s Daily Online: “An hour after the exhibition opened, a boy aged four to five pushed Nick and he fell to the ground and smashed into pieces.”
While the LEGO sculpture was lightly glued, it was not designed for the sort of wear and tear one might find the LEGO figures in LEGOland. Unfortunately for Mr. Zhao, his beautiful creation was destroyed completely.
After much chatter on Chinese social news site Weibo, Mr Zhao later revealed that the boy’s parents had apologised for the incident, and that he was not seeking financial compensation.
Explaining on a post on Weibo, Zhao said:
“I thank everybody’s concern… I have known many LEGO lovers through this incident and I am moved. Nobody wants to see this happen.
“If the parents could draw a lesson from this and learn how to teach their child, then it’s worth it.”
It seems not only does Mr Zhao have excellent taste in films, but also has an admirable “these things happen” view when bad things happen. Seems like a good egg.
As for the parents and the child? Well, this looks like a situation to learn yet another valuable life lesson we can learn from Arrested Development.
All images via Weibo
