Donald Trump has been memorialized in China as a giant rooster sporting the president-elect’s signature hair style. The Trump rooster, which is 23 feet tall, stands in front of the North America N1 Arts Shopping Center in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi Province, in Northern China.
The rooster statue was erected to commemorate the year of the rooster in China, but it has decidedly Trumpian features. Aside from the bright, bouffant-style hair that Trump is known for, the bird also mimics Trump’s hand gestures and disapproving scowl. Taiyuan’s rooster also has non-Trump qualities, including a waddle, large orange feet, a protruding feather belly, and wings.
According to the New York Times , the Trump rooster was designed by Casey Latiolais, an illustrator and animator based out of Seattle. The 30-year-old designer said he was commissioned by Beijing Reliance Commercial Land in November to create the piece. Although Latiolais made the rooster to have specific Trump features, the artist said that the company did not mention Trump when they requested his work.
Latiolais did not comment on why he made the rooster look like Trump, but he did comment about his surprise that the fiberglass statue was 23 feet tall.
“This was way more yuge than I expected,” Latiolais posted on Twitter, invoking Trump’s speech affectation.
The Trump rooster was erected this week and has so far delighted Chinese shoppers and people in the United States. The designer even commented that the Trump rooster was “sort of bipartisanly looked at as funny” in the United States, including Latiolais’ parents, who voted for Trump.
Although Latiolais didn’t comment on why he designed the Chinese rooster to look like Trump, he’s not the only one who was amused by the creation. Chinese overseers and the company that commissioned the artist’s work could have noticed the Trump similarities and still decided to keep the over 20-foot rooster statue.
Trump’s relationship with China has been strained since his campaign began. The president-elect would often invoke China when discussing Americans losing jobs to overseas labor. Trump would also use China as a catchall excuse for the decline of the United States economy and belittle China’s world standing.
Most recently, Trump shook more than 40 years of U.S.-China relations when he accepted a congratulatory call from Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen. The call went against decades of foreign policy agreements, which angered China and put Trump at odds with the world super power.
When the Trump rooster was erected, both Chinese and Taiwanese news sources reported on the Trump-esque fowl. Taiwan Times even tweeted about the rooster and used the hashtag #YearofTrump.
#TrumpRooster figure welcomes #ChineseNewYear in Shanxi, China. #YearoftheRooster #YearofTrump (Photo Credit: #chinatimes ) pic.twitter.com/hC6H389Kec
— Taiwan News (@TaiwanNews886) December 28, 2016
As CNN reported, China regards Taiwan as a “rogue province” since the country’s secession from Chinese rule. The United States has respected the “one China” policy since 1979, which recognizes Taiwan as a part of China when it comes to foreign policy. The United States still engages in trade with Taiwan, but the relationship between the three countries is delicate, to say the least.
Since Trump’s congratulatory phone call from Taiwan, China captured a U.S. underwater drone. China claimed it was standard procedure to capture the drone and eventually returned it, but Trump still took issue with China’s action. After China had already returned the underwater drone, Trump tweeted that China could “keep it.”
In mid-December, Chinese warships entered the South China sea near Taiwan in a show of force to the smaller country, demonstrating the strained relationship. The Taiwan-China relationship is allegedly so hostile that China will rip out pages of the dictionary that feature Taiwan’s entry. Donald Trump has continued to destabilize the delicate relationship between China, the United States, and Taiwan. Trump has made no indication that he will ease relationships after his inauguration.
Although Trump retaliates over perceived slights, he has yet to comment on the Trump rooster in Taiyuan, China. Even if the president-elect does notice, many people appear amused by the rooster’s signature Trump features.
[Featured Image by Evan Vucci/AP Images]