US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation.
Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世).
The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines.
Photo: AFP
Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week, they have become hot property again.
“In the days after he won the election there was a lot of interest,” said Hong, who originally designed the statues as a joke. “Politicians are normally so boring, while [Trump] is this massive online figure who often says fantastical things.”
Hong, 47, estimates that he has shifted hundreds of the ceramic creations in the past few years.
They raise a smile among customers because Trump’s “personality and the shape of the statue are two opposite extremes,” he said.
Each figure comes in packaging emblazoned with a Chinese phrase that translates to: “Make your company great again,” a play on Trump’s well-worn slogan for restoring American supremacy.
Copycat versions have even appeared on shopping platforms in the US — including Amazon and Chinese-owned Temu — for up to US$45.
“It’s a good laugh to poke some fun at authority figures and famous people,” said Hong, sitting barefoot on the floor of his minimalist studio.
Hong’s loose white clothing, shaved head and softly spoken nature bear little resemblance to the eccentric subjects of his sculpting. He recently began designing a similarly tongue-in-cheek effigy of another US luminary — Trump backer Elon Musk, who seems set to play a major role in his administration.
The statue casts the controversial billionaire in the style of the Marvel superhero Iron Man, clad in a rippling suit of metal armor.
In Hong’s version, though, a large rocket protrudes from Musk’s groin to symbolize the SpaceX chief executive’s galactic ambitions.
Despite toeing the line between homage and offense, Hong said he has a lot of admiration for Musk, whose electric vehicle company Tesla operates a massive factory in Shanghai and enjoys robust sales in China.
“Musk’s rockets are awesome — he’s brought the price of rockets down a lot,” he said. “He has done, as an individual entrepreneur, what an entire country can’t even do.”
Hong declined to comment on Trump’s policies toward China, a sensitive topic in the Asian nation, but many expect relations with the US to deteriorate further after Trump’s inauguration.
On the election campaign trail, Trump took a tough line on Beijing, vowing even higher tariffs on Chinese imports.
He previously imposed onerous levies during a bruising trade dispute in his first term — measures largely preserved by his successor US President Joe Biden.
Trump also angered Chinese leaders with his brash rhetoric, notably blaming Beijing for the decline of US manufacturing and calling the pathogen that causes COVID-19 the “Chinese virus.”
Yet the 78-year-old still appears to have many admirers in China.
“I still think he’s just as funny [as before],” Hong said. “Every day there’s interesting news when he’s president.”
Despite the renewed interest, Hong no longer sells his Trump statues on Chinese sites after they removed his listings — perhaps, he said, because they were deemed insulting to Buddhists.
Still, orders keep rolling in from tourists who visit Hong’s workshop, as well as from friends and acquaintances.
“Now he’s been elected again, the sculpture has exploded in popularity once more,” Hong said.
Perhaps, he added, it was because “Trump is someone with a lot of backstory.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS