My childhood friend's family owned a ceramic factory that exported products, but it eventually went bankrupt.

On the day it closed, his father piled the last batch of goods in the yard and called neighbors to take them.
No one took any. Everyone said they were defective and not worth anything.
His father then moved all those bowls and plates back into the house.
He used them every day. The bottoms of the bowls were full of cracks, and the edges of the plates were rough enough to cut your mouth.
His father said, these are not defective products. They are samples.
Before export, each batch had to be tested with a few samples.
He had been making samples his whole life, but none could be sold.
His father passed away last year.
When he left, those bowls were still on the kitchen cabinet.
My childhood friend returned to China to sort through his belongings, flipping over each bowl to look at it.
The bottom of each bowl was engraved with a date: March 2008, November 2011, June 2017.
Each date was a day he returned home.
His father didn’t leave him a letter.
He left a cabinet full of bowls.
The dates on the bottoms of the bowls were like letters from his father.
He picked the earliest one, March 2008, and brought it to the U.S.
He placed it on the bookshelf.
Someone asked him why he didn’t throw away the cracked bowl.
He said, it’s not cracked.
It cracked during firing.
But his father knew it was cracked and kept it anyway.
He turned the bowl over to show others the date on the bottom.
He said, this is me.
Not a defective product.
It’s a sample.
Last month, he cooked a meal using the remaining bowls from his father.
The whole table was full of cracked bowls.
The food was delicious.
After eating, he carefully collected each bowl.
After finishing, he told me:
The one I used is from 2011.
That year, I received my first scholarship abroad.
His father didn’t call.
He fired a bowl.