Well, that didn't take long: replicas of the YUGE Trump Rooster erected outside a Chinese shopping mall are now on sale at Taobao, China's leading online marketplace.
The 23-foot tall statue of a rooster obviously modeled after President-Elect (at press time) Donald J Trump stands outside the North America N1 Art Shopping Center in Taiyuan, China, and it could be there for a while: according to Cao Mingliang, Deputy Director of Planning at N1 ArtWalk Mall, the sculpture will be its official mascot.
Installed outside the mall's front entrance on December 24th, the statue has made a big impression on those who've seen it. How big, you ask? Let's just say demand for replicas has been YUUUGE... and sellers at Taobao have wasted no time in meeting the market's demand.
One of the first sellers out of the gate is Sichuan Sheng and Yang Thai Trading Company, who offered the “2017 Trump Chicken Inflatable” in a range of sizes up to 10 meters (32 feet) tall! Prices ranged from 120 yuan to 12,000 yuan, or roughly $17.30 to a whopping $1,730 each – plus shipping. As China-based online sellers come and go like Trump cabinet members, the Alibaba website can be counted upon to feature a regularly updated roster of Inflatable Trump Chicken retailers.
One fun fact about the notorious original statue: it was designed by an American, Seattle-based illustrator and animator Casey Latiolais. The 30-year-old explained in a telephone interview that Chinese real estate company Beijing Reliance Commercial Land commissioned the design, which he completed and submitted in early November of 2016. “This was way more yuge than I expected,” commented Latiolais on Twitter. One wonders whether his royalty payments will be yuge as well once there's a Trump Rooster in millions of Chinese homes.
