Quotable

"I am distressed because of what happened - there is no way I can measure the value of my loss."

Sculptor Zhu Bingren said on Friday. Four Buddha statues made by Zhu were stolen during an exhibition in Shizuoka, Japan, in April. He alerted Japanese police on July 31. They were among the exhibits brought from Zhejiang province to Shizuoka for a special show to celebrate the 30th anniversary of friendship between the two provinces. The missing Buddha statues, each 45 centimeters high and weighing 20 kilograms, are one-fifth-size replicas of those sitting in a copper Buddhism hall designed for the renowned Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou, in Zhejiang province.