It was supposed to be the world’s biggest bronze statue of Guan Yu.
It is 58m tall.
That is about as tall as a 20-storey building.
Who knows how much it weighs!
1197 tons. I googled.
It took 4 years to assemble.
It costs US$25m to build and now US$23m to relocate.
They rushed the approval because they were anxious to break the world record.
Apparently, they broke the rules.
The area that the statue was placed should not have any structures taller than 24m.
Guan Yu is almost double of that.
Who’s Guan Yu?
He is a legendary general in Chinese history and is kind of a god that is worshipped by many generations after.
He become the heavenly god of war and his legacy is truly magnificent.
Maybe I will share more about Guan Yu in the future.
But back to the giant statue.
How did the builders not check with the authorities beforehand?
Didn’t approvals and checks need to be done prior to construction?
It was completed in 2016 and only now the authorities are howling about it?
No worries though.
Apparently the statue, however heavy it is, can be uprooted and transported to its new location a few miles away.
Question: if it costs almost the same to transport and build, would it be better to just rebuild it at the new location, possibly even taller?
Who cares, what is crucial is the morale of the story.
Startups and founders, don’t build blindly.
Building your product and hoping your customers will love it is a oldest fallacy in the book of startup lore.
Don’t fall into the trap of loving your own product and building it obsessively, ignoring the outside world.
Always be iterating and checking with regulators, users and the market.
If the owners of this massive statue had done so, they would have avoided this calamity altogether.
Man, it does look beautiful though.
Wonder if we can do one of Usain Bolt striking his infamous pose too.
Assuming rebuilding a new one and transporting the old one to the new location costs the same (US$25m). Which is better?
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