A person answering the telephone at the Tongxu County government offices said he did not know anything about the demolition. He referred a caller to the county propaganda department, where the telephone went unanswered. Another person answering the telephone at the local Sunying township also said he had not heard of the demolition.ADDED: Perhaps the idea was to have one of these very large roadside attractions that bring visitors to various out-of-the-way places. Me, I'm pretty averse to traveling and am not easily suckered into going a long distance to see some big damned thing you're supposed to feel you ought to see, but I could spend years doing day trips in Wisconsin to all the places listed as "Wisconsin Attractions and Oddities."
According to villagers and reports on online chat sites, the statue was the idea of a local businessman, Sun Qingxin, the head of Lixing Group, a conglomerate that owns food-processing facilities, hospitals and schools, as well as makes machinery. Mr. Sun paid for it, they said...
“He is crazy about Mao,” said a villager who identified himself as Mr. Wang, a potato farmer. “His factory is full of Maos.”...
[A] woman named Ms. Yang, 75, said several villagers cried when it was knocked down. “Mao was our leader and ate bitterness for us,” she said.
One of them is the recently removed Ozzy the Octopus that was a few blocks from our house. Ozzy killed no one, ate bitterness for no one, but he did preside over a car wash.
But if you're more of a bucket-list-y world traveler, here are some colossi you could feel you need to visit, such as the "Statue of Unity," honoring India’s first deputy prime minister, which will be somewhere you probably wouldn't even have considered going. It will be 597 feet tall, out-talling the Spring Temple Buddha, heretofore the tallest statue in the world, which gets a good lot of people to go to Zhaocun township, which is somewhere in China. Also at that last link is the Peter the Great Statue at the confluence of the Moskva River and the Vodootvodny Canal in Moscow. I recognize it only because I recently flipped through a slideshow of the ugliest statues in the world.
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29 comments:
"The county propaganda department"? No one would ever call a county propaganda department "the county propaganda department."
“Mao was our leader and ate bitterness for us,” she said.
A little explanation is in order. "Bitterness" is Chinese slang for neighbors you don't like.
It's a shame they tore it down. A giant gold statue of a Communist grandee towering over a barren and impoverished province seems just perfect to me.
Another reason to despise China.
To this day the Chinese people worship a murdering Commie. How stupid is that?
That's a shame, as they could've taken that $465K and bought Powerball tickets. Of course, the same thing would result: Losing all the money ;)
The Internet mau–maued Mao.
I am Laslo.
But if you go building statues of chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow.
They should have known that already.
I am Laslo.
They could have just sold it on ebay or amazon. the shipping charges alone would have made the village rich.
Let me guess. OzyMaodias.
Shoulda built a cathedral.
It all goes back to the inhumane systematic torture and murders by Hirohito's invasion and systematic occupation Army that deemed conquered Chinese worthless animals to be slaughtered .
Terrible Mao fought back.
Paul Krugman approves. Now that's economics at work!
Robert Cook hardest hit.
"“Mao was our leader and ate bitterness for us,” she said." Sure. And having a leader who eats bitterness for you is worth, oh, at least another 10 million victims. Another potentially useful data point as Americans think about what to expect from China.
...to the county propaganda department.
We've got one of those. It's called the County Commission, though. I think the Chinese nomenclature is refreshingly honest.
Somebody check on Amanda! I Fear she may try to harm herself!
That's some good Keynesian stimulus there. Why, one good-sized earthquake, or even a decent riot now, and everyone should be rich!
The Chinese have stopped celebrating the Communist's "final solution" and subsequent selective child policy.
There's a historical marker in Wisconsin near the place where the Republican party was founded. Nothing besides remains. All around the highway line the growing corn stretches far away.
There's a memorial to Governor Lucey on the Mississippi River. It is very nice setup consisting of a telescope and place of vantage for watching migrating birds on the Great River Road between Prairie de Chien and Lacrosse
No one in Wisconsin is famous until they are FROM Wisconsin. I do not except the Packers since I have to explain great Packer moments to all my non-Wisconsin relatives. I picture a FROM Wisconsin monument - Standing around a tailgate party, brats on the boil, with Aaron Rodgers throwing a 70 yard pass on a backdrop, are the "From Wisconsin" people, sombre onlookers - an Iron Brigade soldier, Arthur and Douglas MacArthur, George Kennan, Senator McCarthy, a screaming Teacher's Union official reaching out to tip it all over and snatch away the children ...
Taiwan under the Nationalists and Chiang evolved into a democratic country with a standard of living that surpasses many European countries. China under Mao was a death factory until it finally evolved into an ecological disaster. It would be useful and instructive for liberals to ponder why the liberals of a previous generation were so admiring of Mao and so critical of Chiang.......Some years back I read Theodore White's account of his time in China. Theodore White had studied Chinese at Harvard. He was the Time reporter in China during their civil war. He admired the honesty and purity of the Communists as opposed to the corruption of the Nationalists.....Why do western intellectuals so consistently screw up in their evaluation of psycho Commie killers?
What's more garish than a giant octopus at a car wash?
How about this, which was on US-90 in Del Rio, TX when we were there in the early 1980's?
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/3945
Interesting correlation between east Asian cultures and colossal statues. What's up with that?
Mao's Great Leap Forward resulted in an estimated 20-40 million deaths, mostly due to starvation caused by his stupid policies. His Cultural Revolution killed perhaps millions more, with estimates running from several hundred thousand to 2 million. The best place for Mao statues would be overlooking the country's cemeteries.
I feel the same way about traveling Georgia. I could just explore its oddness forever
So instead of "come to podunk town to see 'worlds largest ball of yarn', you can go see a 120foot golden statue of Mao.
Progress.
Jason: "Somebody check on Amanda"
Not to worry. Amanda is off fighting in the titanic struggle against islamopobia in order to keep the world safe for mass beheadings, mass sexual enslavement and now mass violent sexual assault.
You dont have to tell Amanda which way the winds are blowing.
Statue? What statue?
In China, there is no history that cannot be written to align with the political view.
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