The statues stand on opposite sides of Honolulu's historic Chinatown, bronze halves of a life of purpose.

Sun Yat-sen as student. Sun Yat-sen as teacher.

The father of modern China as a boy. The leader of a revolution as a man.

Both statues — one new, one with a new, impressive pedestal — offer reminders of Sun's legacy in Hawai'i as the Chinese community here marks the 141st anniversary of the leader's birth.

Today, the Sun Yat-sen Foundation for Peace & Education will dedicate a $30,000 black granite and gold-leaf pedestal placed under the Sun statue at the Chinatown Cultural Plaza.

Tomorrow, the actual anniversary of his birth, the Sun Yat-sen Hawaii Foundation will dedicate a $150,000 statue at Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Park — the tiny pocket-park that used to be Chinatown Gateway Park until it was renamed for the leader this past summer.

Each memorial was bought with private money, then donated to the city. Their donations represent a happy coincidence pegged to Sun's birthday.

"It is like a beginning and an end," said Yen Chun, who is Sun's grandniece and a Makiki resident. "It's two parts of his life. They are both very, very important. It just celebrates his success and reflects how many people love him and adore him."

It's unlikely that members of either organization will attend the other's ceremony. Both foundations involved seek to honor Sun, but they are quiet rivals.

Considering Sun's role in Chinese history, there is irony in that.

"He was the only Chinese man who could unite every Chinese man in the whole world," Chun said. "There is no controversy that he was a great leader."

HAWAI'I INFLUENCE

Born in 1866 to a farming family in southeast China, Sun received much of his early education at O'ahu schools, learning English and democracy during his boyhood days in Honolulu. He traveled to Hawai'i six times in his life.

Sun founded a revolutionary group here — the Revive China Society — and became a leader in the Nationalist movement that overthrew China's imperial Manchu rulers in 1911. China still remained divided after that and Sun died in 1925 while working to unify the nation.

It is widely believed that Sun's revolutionary spirit had roots in the lessons he learned about Western democracy, including those absorbed in Hawai'i.

He remains one of the most recognized figures for Chinese everywhere, with statues and sites named in his honor around the world. Almost every major city in China has a park or a road named after him. Both China and Taiwan boast hundreds of statues.

STATUE'S INSPIRATION

The new statue of Sun, on a mound near the Hawai'i Theatre, depicts him as a 13-year-old boy. It is the sixth Sun statue in Hawai'i.

Chun, a founding director of the Sun Yat-sen Hawaii Foundation, said she and other foundation members were traveling through China last year when they got the idea to create a new statue. Everywhere they went, they saw Sun statues, but at a Hong Kong museum devoted to Sun, the group saw an incredible piece by artist Chu Tat Shing.

"His statue was the most lively statue," said Chun, a 52-year-old China business consultant. "It has his being in it."

The Hong Kong statue depicted a Sun they had rarely seen, even in photographs — the leader as a young man. They wanted an identical statue for Hawai'i, but the museum frowned on that, so the artist agreed to make something new, Chun said.

That's when the foundation hit on the idea of depicting Sun at the age he arrived in Hawai'i.

There was only one problem with that: No one had any idea what Sun looked like at that age.

"The earliest photo we could find was when he was 17," Chun said. "So the sculptor used his imagination and made him look younger. The artist is very good at modifying people's faces."

Most statues of Sun depict him standing or sitting, but this one deliberately shows him walking, said Steven Ai, president of the Sun Yat-sen Hawaii Foundation.

"The motion is a strong point," Ai said. "He is going somewhere. He is someone with a sense of purpose and a definite goal."

Sun attended 'Iolani School with Ai's grandfather, and the two boys were good friends, said Ai, the 53-year-old president and chief executive officer of City Mill.

Sun was a driven student, Ai said. He spoke no English at first, but mastered the language to such an extent that he received a prize from King David Kalakaua.

"He just didn't want to learn it so he could communicate," Ai said. "It wasn't just to get by and pass his classes. He wanted to excel."

BIGGER, BETTER PEDESTAL

The older Sun likeness stands a few blocks north of the new statue, on a mall beside Nu'uanu Stream. The nearly 700-pound statue was put there in 1976 and ever since has been draped with lei to mark important anniversaries in the leader's life.

But the bolts that secured it had corroded, and it was in danger of toppling, said Sun's granddaughter, Honolulu resident Lily Sui-Fong Sun, who serves as president of the Sun Yat-sen Foundation For Peace & Education.

The base also was damaged by skateboarders who cracked its marble veneer, she said.

The city could have simply replaced the bolts, but Lily Sun stepped forward and bought a new granite base for the statue. She also paid for the installation.

"It's beautiful," she said of the eight-sided base that she designed. "It's like a work of heaven."

Lily Sun, 71, has donated books, artwork and photographs to Hawai'i collections that honor her grandfather — one at Kapi'olani Community College and another at Hawai'i Pacific University. She has also given more than 900 lectures on his life to audiences worldwide.

Her goal is to educate people about the things her grandfather stood for, she said.

"Almost all of my life I have been doing Grandfather's work," she said. "I have to bring back Grandfather's teachings. I have to bring back the Chinese culture and the moral background."

The old pedestal said very little about Sun's teachings, so it was decided to include as much as possible in the larger design, said Charles Wong, Lily Sun's son.

For example, a section of the pedestal displays eight Chinese virtues: loyalty, filial piety, kindness or benevolence, love, faithfulness, justice, harmony and peace.

"Sun Yat-sen has become such a famous name, but what is missing is his spirit and his teachings," said the 39-year-old Wong, who has a camping equipment factory in China. "People have forgotten what he stood for.

"This pedestal is designed to reinfuse his spirit and his teachings."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.