Note 26 — CHAPTER EIGHT Mei Lan-fang—China’s Greatest Actor

This popular figure, called also “big stomach” or “cloth sack” Buddha, is laughing in anticipation of the happiness to come. His image is found in practically all Buddhist temples and frequently among the bibelots collected by foreigners. In regard to the taste of collectors, Baron de Staël-Holstein, a Russian scholar versed in Buddhist lore, remarked to me one day, “The ugliest of all these figures is the one most sought after by Westerners.”