Re: China's Kungfu Champions 1996 U.S. Tour

I hope this letter finds you well.

I have received a letter from Mr. Yan Jianchang requesting the performace fee for the China's Kungfu Champions 1996 U.S. Tour, and I would like to make several clarifications in this letter regarding the background, difficulties, and mutual obligations concerning the tour.

Background

Mr. Zhang Yao Ting and I began discussing the arrangements for a Chinese Wushu tour in the U.S. at the 1995 World Wushu Championships. He told me that Minister Wu Shao Zu initiated the ideas of fundraising for the USAWKF after he learned about the financial loss we suffered from organizing the World Wushu Championships in Baltimore, Maryland, USA in 1995. We initially arranged the tour for May 1996. However, as requested by the Chinese Wushu Association, the date was later moved to September 1996.

Difficulties Suffered by USAWKF and its Organizers

1. Late arrival of marketing materials. Perhaps the most serious problem was caused by the late arrival of the marketing materials. I first requested information about the performers for marketing purposes on January 5, 1996 (See Exhibit A). I made this request again on March 19, April 29, and May 22, 1997 (see Exhibits B-D). In addition to these letters, I made numerous telephone calls to further request the materials we needed. I did not receive this information from Chinese Wushu Association until July 5, 1997, when it was sent by Mr. Yan Jianchang. Please note that even though in my letter I stated approximately 15 cities agreed to sponsor performances, none of the physical arrangements could be made until we received the marketing materials from the Chinese Wushu Association. The late arrival of marketing materials caused the following problems, which in turn contributed to the financial losses:

i) Venues could not be confirmed early enough
ii) There was not enough time to market the event.
iii) There was not enough time to properly organize the event.

The organizers had an average of five weeks to promote the show. In the U.S., it normally takes several months of promotions to generate public response to attend a show. Also, please keep in mind that in the U.S., we do not have the government support and structure that you have in China.

2. Delay in response from the Chinese Wushu Association. In May of 1996, I was extremely frustrated by the lack of response from the Chinese Wushu Association, which I found quite unusual based on my past experiences in dealing with your association. Even though you might find many letters that made urgent requests of marking materials, it was impossible to write any more without it becoming harassment. I also made many personal phone calls, but to no avail. At that time I called Counselor Peng Zhangdong of the Chinese Embassy to see if the Embassy could help, as I needed to determine whether to proceed or cancel the tour. Mr. Peng advised me to continue to work with the Chinese Wushu Association, since we have worked with you in the past few years. Mr. Peng had also attended four performances of the show and understands the difficulties we encountered.

3. Change of plans to exclude the Shaolin monks. It was initially agreed that this would be a Shaolin Monk tour, then changed to just include some Shaolin Monks. It was not until I received the marketing materials on July 5 that i realized that there were no Shaolin Monks whatsoever on the touring team. All along, local organizers were informed that this would include Shaolin Monk performances. Please note that Shaolin Monk movies are very popular in the U.S. and it was a lot easier for USAWKF and the local organizers to market the show with Shaolin Monk performances. When we found out that the Shaolin Monks were not involved, the promoters had to contradict what they had been announcing in their local communities, and realized it would be much harder to market the event. Some organizers were very upset that these changes were made without notice, but they still unhappily followed through on their commitment to support USAWKF's fundraising event.

4. Replacement of Chan Xiao Long. We were led to believe that the Shaolin Monk movie star, Chen Xiao Long, would be touring with the team, because his picture was sent to us with the marketing materials on July 5. Chen Xiao Long is a very popular child movie star in the U.S., especially among the Asian-American community. Because the publicity for Chen Xiao Long's performance had already been in progress (see Exhibit E), and promises about his appearance had been used to solicit advertisers, the replacement of Chen Xiao Long by someone with the same name created difficulties and confusion. This could seriously jeopardize our credibility and could make us legally liable for false advertising. As a result, we had to post notices and make announcements about this change before every performance (See Exhibit F). Problems occurred in locations with more Asian communities such as Philadelphia and San Francisco, and especially in Dallas, where ticket and advertising sales were mainly focused on Chen Xiao Long's appearance (see Exhibit I ).

Results

Although we had to deal with some unpleasant experiences in organizing the show, the China's Kungfu Champions 1996 U.S. Tour was successful in promoting the sport in the U.S., which I believe is a common goal that both the USAWKF and CWA share. In several cities, the performers spent over an hour signing autographs for the excited audience members.

However, as a fundraiser, the tour was unsuccessful. I have enclosed copies of organizer's reports detailing losses for each individual organizer (see Exibits G-T), a summary chart of the total losses (see Exhibit U), and a list of the expenses incurred by USAWKF (see Exhibit V).

The attached reports, submitted voluntarily by the local organizers, indicate the following facts:

1. The late arrival of the marketing materials was the most important factor contributing to the financial losses suffered by the organizers.

2. The venues were rented an average of 4 weeks before the show due to the late notice. Please note that it is impossible to advertise a show without confirmation of the venue.

3. Nine of the thirteen organizers suffered losses of between $1,500 and $6,460 each, and the total loss to all the organizers combined was $40,094.

4. A number of organizers were unable to pay the $4,000.00 performance fee to USAWKF.

5. The total amount lost by USAWKF was $11,141.69.

6. The combined losses of USAWKF and its organizers were $51,235.69.

The tour was organized completely by volunteer efforts, by people who devoted their time and money for the love of the sport. The local volunteer organizers, who are members of USAWKF, suffered financial losses in the process of trying to support the Federation. Due to this loss, it was impossible for me to enforce the $4,000 fee arrangement. I must appreciate their efforts, commitment, and willingness to act under such inconvenience and rushed circumstances. As you can see from the organizer reports, USAWKF did not receive the full $4,000 fee from every organizer. Mr Zhang Yao Ting was present to witness first-hand the difficulties of making ends meet during the tour, and was repeatedly apologetic regarding the failure of the fundraising. It was common that the audience was enthusiastic about the performance, but we constantly had to deal with the problems of organization behinds the scenes. I have enclosed the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of all the local organizers(see Exhibit W) for your information.

Responsibilities

From the above account, I think you can understand that many agreements, including many verbal ones that were not recorded, were not fulfilled. There were a lot of changes and resulting chain reaction in the whole arrangement from the beginning of the negotiations until the tour was completed. Therefore, my letter dated April 3(see Exhibit X) stating the fee of $750-$1,000 per performance, is one of the offers, and does not constitute the entire agreement. As many of the terms of the agreement were not fulfilled by the Chinese Wushu Association, and USAWKF and its organizers incurred tremendous financial losses from our fulfillment of all other obligations including international and domestic travel, lodging, food and other necessary expenses, I feel that it is fair for USAWKF to be exempt from paying the performance fee.

During May 1996, I debated about whether to proceed with the tour, as I sensed that things were not proceeding as I wished. However, I have had a very good working relationship with Mr. Zhang Yao Ting and the Chinese Wushu Association during the past several years, and we have worked on many projects together, including the huge project of running the 1995 World Wushu Championships. There were reasons for me to believe that even though a lot of things were not happening as I wished, we could work out the differences and come up with something fair for both parties. Therefore, befone Mr. Zhang's departure, I requested that the performance fee be waived, and I also wrote a letter regarding this request, which I believe you have received. It is unfair to expect USAWKF to fulfill all its commitments when the Chinese Wushu Association did not honor its own. This request was made to Mr. Zhang, who had full knowledge of the purpose of the tour, its initiation, unfulfillment of promses, confusion and difficulties, and the results thereof. He had represented CWA from the beginning to the end of this project. Should the lack of understanding of this whole matter be due to inadequate communication within CWA, USAWKF cannot be held responsible.

I have delayed the response in this matter as I was extremely frustrated with the whole arrangement, and the waste of time and energy that was unnecessarily caused by the inefficiency of the parties involved. However, I wish to continue to have a good working relationship with the Chinese Wushu Association. It is for this reason that I have assembled this package of detailed information for you in hopes that you will see what we went through and our view regarding this whole event.

I am sorry things turned out differently than we anticipated, and I understand that you probably had no direct involvement with the dealings. I welcome any comments and suggestions you may have, and I am looking forward to meeting you in Rome. If you wish, we may discuss this matter further then.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Sincerely,
Anthony Goh
President