Posted on 03/31/2006 7:00:00 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Chairman Mao’s features are to gaze over Tibet for the first time. A 7.5m (24½ft) statue of Mao Zedong, whose Red Armies entered the deeply Buddhist Himalayan region in 1951 to extend Communist Party rule, is to stand in the newly built Changsha Square in Gongga.
The figure, which weighs 35 tonnes, is a gift to the small Tibetan town from Mao’s birthplace, the Chinese city of Changsha, where it is seen standing before transportation by lorry. A government official said: “Tibet does not need only material development. It must also meet the more spiritual needs of its people.”
Though Tibetans still have a love-hate relationship with Mao, they apparently requested the gift. The statue was designed by Zhu Weijing, president of the Changsha Sculpture Institute, who said: “I tried to understand how Tibetans feel towards Mao. Because they have deep feelings about Buddha, I tried to make Mao more like that, with a plumper face.”
It took nine months to carve the figure from local granite.
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Chairman Mao's image...
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