Even Thieves Need to Be Cultured

By Putizi

Knowledge is power. This is a phrase of truth for any profession. Even thieves cannot be uneducated.

Eduardo Chillida was a Spanish sculptor with excellent taste and wisdom. He perfectly blended rational logic with poetic passion and has been regarded as a leading figure in the field of contemporary visual art. Unfortunately, there was a thief who knew nothing of him and treated his work like scrap metal. In 2006, a bunch of famous artworks were stolen in a warehouse in the southern suburbs of Madrid, which worth some five million euros. Later, a scrap metal buyer called the police, who then retrieved most of these valuable artworks.Topos IV, a bench-like iron sculpture of Chillida worth about 800,000 euros, was among those stolen, and unfortunately sold by the thief for only 30 euros.

The case is surely not alone in Spain. Similar things happen in China, too. A sixteen-year-old thief was working at a place in Beijing. He stripped the bedroom apart and painstakingly pried the safe open. In the end, he took 20,000 yuan in cash and 40,000 yuan in gold jewelry. The study was also ransacked, but he didn’t see the paintings on the walls. There was a piece by Zhang Daqian and another by Fan Zeng. In any case, those pieces would be worth millions.

In Hong Kong, there was a purse snatcher. He would wait until nighttime and look for women alone on lightly populated streets. In the end, he was caught by the police and sentenced to prison for crimes amounting to over 600,000 yuan. In court, the thief claimed he was being treated unfairly. He figured that everything he had stolen could only amount to around 30,000 yuan. He didn’t realize that the bags found in his place were all from famous luxury brands. Any one of those bags would be worth more than 30,000 yuan by itself.

(FromHumor & Jokes, Issue 11, 2012. Translation: Sam Bowden)

知識就是力量，這句話，對于任何行業而言都是真理，小偷沒文化也是不行的。

西班牙雕塑家愛德華多·奇利達，有著卓越的品位與睿智，將理性邏輯與詩意激情完美地融于一體，是當代視覺藝術領域的領軍人物。很不幸，就有小偷不識貨，把他的作品當成廢品。2006年，一批藝術名品在馬德里南部郊區的一座倉庫內被盜，總價值500 萬歐元。后來，一名廢品收購商報了案，警方才得以追回這些寶貝。其中就有奇利達的一件形如長椅的鐵塑作品，估值約為80 萬歐元，而小偷出售這件作品的費用，僅為30 歐元。

無獨有偶，一個16 歲的小偷在北京作案，房間被翻了個遍，保險柜也被費勁打開，最后，拿走了2 萬元現金和價值4 萬元的黃金飾品。書房里，他也翻了，卻沒有看到墻上的那幾幅畫，有一幅是張大千的，有一幅是范曾的，怎么著也得好幾百萬吧。

在香港，有一個小偷專門搶包，趁天黑，在人少的街道上搶劫單身女性，最后被警察抓住，立案判刑，涉案金額高達60 萬。小偷在法庭上叫冤，說自己只搶了大概三萬元。他不知道，他住所里的那幾個包都是名牌，隨便一個也不止三萬元。

（摘自《幽默與笑話》2012年第11 期）