"Dr. King's statue is to be shipped here in a crate that supposedly
says 'Made in China.' That's just obscene," Winfrey Young says."

versus

"In Lei's home town of Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, talk
of the controversy in the United States draws not anger but
bewilderment.

"Wasn't it King's dream to end all racism? Lei asked.

"He has always dreamed that people from all over the world will not be
judged by the color of their skin -- that we would all be brothers and
sisters and enjoy equal opportunity. Now I have the luck to get this
opportunity," he said"

Hmmmm...... bwahahahaha!! This may be one of those rare moments that
mainland Chinese are just soooooooooooo naive!! Bwahahaha!!!! Mainland
Chinese have been outdone here!!!

As they say losers don't get mad, they get even.

Or, contra liberals, identity politics *does* matter.

* * * Featured Article * * *

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/14/AR200...

A King Statue 'Made in China'?
U.S. Critics Blast Selection; Artist Is Bewildered at Outrage

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 15, 2007; C01

CHANGSHA, China -- Inside a cavernous studio in this steamy inland
city, Lei Yixin is molding clay into the shape of the Rev. Martin
Luther King Jr. Lei scrutinizes every inch of the models -- the
direction of King's gaze, the crinkle of his clothes, the way his arms
are folded -- knowing that the final product will make its home among
the other great American monuments in Washington.

For China's artists, the selection of Lei as the lead sculptor for the
project, to be unveiled in 2009 on the Mall, is a triumphant moment.
It is a recognition of how rapidly their status has progressed in the
generation that has grown up since the repressive years of the
Cultural Revolution.

Not everyone feels this way.

Atlanta resident Lea Winfrey Young says the "outsourcing" by U.S.
companies and organizations to China has gone too far this time. She
and her husband, Gilbert Young, a painter, are leading a group of
critics who argue that an African American -- or any American --
should have been picked for such an important project.

"Dr. King's statue is to be shipped here in a crate that supposedly
says 'Made in China.' That's just obscene," Winfrey Young says.

By awarding the contract to a Chinese artist, the foundation financing
the project has touched on sensitivities at the core of U.S.-Sino
relations: nationalism, racism and worries about what China's
emergence as an economic and cultural world power means for America.

A former adviser for the memorial has accused the Martin Luther King
Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation Inc. of promoting Lei to head
artist in the hopes of getting a $25 million donation from the Chinese
government to make up for a shortfall in funding. In a 13-page
critique, Ed Dwight, a sculptor who has created seven King memorials,
called Lei's proposed statue a "shrinking, shriveled inadequate
personage."

Dwight, 73, said in an interview that the model Lei submitted to the
foundation "didn't look like Martin Luther King. He had a whole bunch
of wrinkles and great big bulky clothes. It wasn't right."

Harry E. Johnson Sr., president of the foundation, denies ever having
conversations with Chinese officials or companies to ask for money. He
said scouts for the foundation spotted Lei's work at a sculpting
workshop in St. Paul, Minn., and approached him. The sole criterion
for choosing him, Johnson said, was artistic ability -- Lei's skill at
capturing personalities in sculptures, his expertise in hewing granite
and his extensive experience with large public monuments.

"This is no different from the Houston Rockets working with Yao Ming,
or Jackie Chan in Hollywood movies," Johnson said. "We don't want to
take the stand to say African Americans can only work on this project.
We appreciate the diversity we have."

Johnson said yesterday that the foundation had raised $82 million of
the $100 million needed to complete and maintain the project. The most
recent donation, valued at $1.5 million, came from media conglomerate
Viacom Inc., which owns BET and MTV.

Viacom pledged $1 million in cash, plus promotions for the memorial
that will include public service announcements on the company's
networks and on its billboards in New York's Times Square, CEO
Philippe Dauman says.

Johnson emphasizes that Lei was selected by a design team that
included mostly African Americans, and that the artist is
collaborating closely with Jon Onye Lockard, a painter and a
University of Michigan lecturer, and Louisville-based sculptor Ed
Hamilton, both of whom are African American.

Lockard says that Dwight had been vying for the position of head
sculptor and that he's simply "a sore loser."

In Lei's home town of Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, talk of
the controversy in the United States draws not anger but bewilderment.

Wasn't it King's dream to end all racism? Lei asked.

"He has always dreamed that people from all over the world will not be
judged by the color of their skin -- that we would all be brothers and
sisters and enjoy equal opportunity. Now I have the luck to get this
opportunity," he said.

The 53-year-old Lei is a reclusive figure with stringy, shoulder-
length hair who shies away from the politicking that is typically
required to succeed in China's art world. He was doing sketches for a
publishing company when a local government official recognized his
talent and encouraged him to build monuments.

After winning top prizes in national competitions three years in a
row, Lei was given a rare honor -- recognition as a master sculptor,
which came with a lifetime stipend from the Chinese government.

Zhu Xunde, 53, a painter and friend of Lei who is dean of the School
of Art at Hunan University, said he and others have chided Lei for not
spending enough time promoting himself and his work. Lei's response,
Zhu said, was that "sculptors are not actors who perform on screens --
we are supposed to be invisible."

Born to a family of scholars, Lei was one of millions of "educated
youth" sent to the countryside during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution,
a national campaign by the Communist Party to rid the country of all
things "bourgeois." As a way to develop a skill other than farming
during the seven years he spent toiling in the fields, Lei started
drawing.

"Whenever I saw something interesting, like drum games, peasants
smoking, I drew a picture of it. That was my diary. My diary was all
pictures, with a few lines of comments," he recalled in an interview.

When Lei applied to college, he submitted the diary as his portfolio.
In 1978, he became part of the first class after the Cultural
Revolution to be able to go to art school. In 1982, when Lei
graduated, there were no more than 100 art majors in the country,
according to Sun Quan, vice president of the Hunan Sculpture
Institute. In recent years the number has grown as high as 260,000.

Today, the art world in China is booming. Galleries from Shanghai to
London and New York sell the work of contemporary Chinese artists for
thousands of dollars.

But more important than material rewards, sculptors, painters and
others say, is the artistic license that the government gives them.
"Foreigners think we artists in China have no freedom, that we are
told what to create. That's not true," said Zhu, chairman of the Hunan
Association of Artists.

The opportunities for sculptors of monuments are especially numerous.

In the United States, artists may wait a lifetime for the chance to
create a public monument. But in China, thanks to an unprecedented
construction boom, even small towns are clamoring for artists to build
monuments honoring local heroes.

Lei can boast of more than 150 public monuments that bear his name.
Roughly a fourth are of prominent historical figures, such as busts of
Mao Zedong. Other famous works include "Crossing the Border," which
features a family of anxious but excited rural peasants taking its
first trip abroad, and a totem pole decorated with copies of relics
unearthed during the recent excavation of an ancient village near his
home.

Xiao Xiaoqiu, 39, a protege of Lei who first helped Lei on his
projects and now leads his own teams, said it was obvious to him why a
Chinese artist was chosen for the Martin Luther King memorial.
"Chinese sculptors have many more opportunities to practice," he said.

Lei usually spends just a few months on one project, but for the King
memorial -- which he describes as "the most important work of my life"
-- he will take 18 months.

The statue Lei is creating -- which at 28 feet will be a full nine
feet taller than the statue in the Jefferson Memorial -- will be the
centerpiece of the tribute to King. The memorial will span four acres
near the Tidal Basin between the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials,
facing Jefferson. Visitors will first walk through a grove of spruce
and magnolia trees by a waterfall and read a selection of the civil
rights leader's famous words carved on walls. At the end of their
walk, they will see King's likeness emerging from a chunk of granite.

Lei has hired 10 other Chinese sculptors, many of them local
university professors, to help him create the giant monument. But it
is Lei who will carve critical features such as King's face and hands.

Lei said there was much internal debate at the foundation about how
King should look. Some thought the statue should reflect King as an
ambassador of peace. Some wanted to present his urbane, intellectual
side. Still others wanted to make him into a towering heroic figure.
"If there are 1,000 readers of 'Hamlet,' " Lei said, "you will have
1,000 interpretations."

For months, Lei buried himself in King's readings and speeches. At one
point, every wall in his studio was covered with pictures of King. In
the end, Lei's interpretation was this: Martin Luther King was a great
man but also an ordinary man. "He is short and doesn't stand out in a
crowd," he said. "But when his voice comes out, he's a leader. His
charisma has attracted millions of Americans to follow his cause."

So in his first clay model, Lei showed King standing, arms folded
across his chest, his left hand grasping a pen. The goal, Lei said, is
"when you see the statue of Martin Luther King, you might think of the
injustices around the world, which call for our collaborative
efforts . . . to bring to justice the things that King himself was
unable to finish."

Staff researcher Wu Meng and wire services contributed to this report.