``Friends who visited the park said it's very small and too Westernized for us to enjoy it,'' Yu said as son Qitong bit the ear off an ice-cream bar shaped like Mickey Mouse's head.

Those perceptions helped fuel a 23 percent drop in attendance during the park's second year of operation and led one local lawmaker to advocate cutting public financing. The Hong Kong government is the majority owner.

Now Walt Disney Co., the world's biggest theme-park operator, is trying to make the site more Chinese. During Lunar New Year celebrations in February, also known as the Spring Festival, Mickey donned a Mao jacket and Minnie Mouse wore a cherry blossom-red silk dress by designer Vivienne Tam. Chinese music extolled the beauty of spring, and scrolls bearing good- luck messages lined the walkways.

``It should feel this way,'' Managing Director Bill Ernest said. ``This is a theme park based in the U.S., but we are in Hong Kong.''

Disney is striving to prevent the park from turning into a pumpkin after attendance dropped to 4 million in the year ended Sept. 29 from 5.2 million the previous 12 months.

Attendance at Disney resorts worldwide rose 6 percent during the period, according to the Burbank, California-based Themed Entertainment Association. The parks accounted for $1.7 billion, or 22 percent, of Disney's operating income in fiscal 2007.

``The theme park is important in helping position Disney for longer-term growth in China in terms of merchandise sales and films,'' said Michael Kupinski, an analyst at Noble Financial Group Inc. in Boca Raton, Florida.

`A Big Failure'

The Hong Kong government owns 57 percent of the park after investing HK$3.25 billion ($417 million). Local authorities also spent HK$13.6 billion on infrastructure including roads and a light-rail extension. The government initially projected attendance of 5 million to 10 million a year.

In December, lawmaker Emily Lau advocated turning off the public spigot for the ``big failure.'' In a Dec. 21 report to Hong Kong's Legislative Council the city's Tourism Commission said the government wasn't satisfied with the park's performance.

Disney has waived its management fees through September 2009 and pushed back repayment of some of the park's HK$8.4 billion debt. Company officials declined to provide details. On Jan. 21, Ernest said Disney may increase its 43 percent stake.

The Burbank, California-based company has been here before. Euro Disney SCA, which runs Disneyland Resort Paris, posted its first profit three years after the park opened in 1992.

``If you look at the history of Disney's international expansion, it took some time for them to get other parks running as well,'' Kupinski said.

Cultural Disconnect

Disney's biggest obstacle may be that it has little connection to older people in China and Hong Kong, said Michael Wu, head of the Hong Kong Association of Travel Agents. Chinese account for 70 percent of attendance, the government estimates.

``Disney's always talking about the culture of America,'' Wu said. ``When you come to Hong Kong to build a business you must know the culture of the Chinese people.''

Adults weren't inundated with Disney fare growing up in China and Hong Kong, so they idolized characters in Chinese novels such as ``The Water Margin.''

The second-largest U.S. media company didn't sign a major TV deal in China until 1986, when the ``Mickey and Donald'' cartoon show debuted on national broadcaster CCTV.

Recent efforts to target China include the 1998 animated film ``Mulan,'' based on an ancient Chinese folk tale. The Disney Channel now broadcasts in Chinese and English.

Year of the Mouse

At the park, Disney is promoting the Chinese Year of the Rat as the ``Year of the Mouse'' and restaurants offer local dishes such as fried turnip cake and coconut red-bean pudding.

``This feels like a real Spring Festival celebration,'' Yu, 55, said as vendors pushed carts making cotton candy and caramel popcorn. ``I know Disney is American, but as the Chinese saying goes, `He who enters a village should follow its customs.'''

There have been discussions about celebrating more Chinese holidays, including Mid-Autumn Festival in September, spokesman B.C. Lo said. The park has already added shows featuring Cantonese singers and put Chinese books in ``Mickey's House.''

Iconic Disney characters use Chinese names such as Shui Gongzhu, or ``Sleeping Princess,'' and Baixue Gongzhu, or ``White-Snow Princess.'' Mickey is known as ``Miqi,'' when his name is transliterated into Chinese characters.

Disney has also asked the government to help finance an expansion of the park, which can be covered in a few hours and is perceived as overpriced at HK$350 for adults.

Hong Kong Disneyland has 35 attractions, compared with 60 at the Magic Kingdom in Florida.

Improved Results

Results for the three months through December were promising, Disney said Feb. 6. Chief Financial Officer Thomas Staggs said visitor numbers rose by ``double digits'' from a year earlier as the park celebrated Chinese and Western holidays.

Attendance may have faltered during Lunar New Year after the worst snowstorms in 50 years crippled transportation, he said.

Still, Yu Qitong was a satisfied customer. He said his favorite ride was the Space Mountain roller coaster.

I used to enjoy Martin Lawrence's raucous craziness and irreverent unpredictability, as evidenced in his concert films and edgy comedies such as "National Security." But this movie, along with the recently released "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins," suggests Lawrence may have submitted to a show-biz version of prefrontal lobotomy.
His wonderfully raunchy persona has been replaced by a syrupy impostor out of "Make Room for Daddy," with script emphasis on conservative glee and the joys of suburbia

It not only looks like a television sitcom, it looks like an old television sitcom in which every character was white and, all things considered, quite dull.

Here, Lawrence is James Porter, the police chief of a sunny, clean town a safe distance west of Chicago. Since this is a Disney release, you get a lot of cute graphics to show various locations, along with the various ways the "trip" of the title is accomplished.

It is a crucial time in the life of James and his wife, Michelle (Kym Whitely), for their bright, vivacious daughter, Melanie (Raven-Symone), is ready to leave home for a university education. It's a problematic departure because James wants her to enroll at Northwestern, in nearby Evanston, so he can personally assure her safety (or so he thinks), while the girl has her heart set on a law degree from far-away Georgetown University in Washington.

She gets letters of encouragement from both institutions, but when she makes plans to travel east, Daddy insists on designing the trip and conducting the tour. First, they pay a surprise visit to the Evanston campus, where law enforcement chief James has enlisted the aid of several deputies to act as Northwestern students singing the praises of staying close to home.

Melanie sees through that farce, and they continue eastward. But, as in most "road" films since the invention of cinema, the car breaks down. Not only that, but James discovers his precocious son has stowed away in the trunk, along with the piglet he plays chess with. In search of screen-saving moments, director Roger Kumble throws in pig fiasco stuff every 10 or 15 minutes.

Halfway into their journey, they hitch a ride with another father-daughter team. Played as morons by Donny Osmond and Molly Ephraim, the Florida travelers manifest the family values of commercials and cliches, and every statement they make looks and sounds like karaoke.

"Path," a 2006 ABC miniseries critical of President Bill Clinton's handling of terrorist threats, was so controversial that leading Democrats asked Disney not to air the program. Disney, after making some hasty edits, ran it commercial-free.

At Disney's annual shareholders' meeting in Albuquerque, N.M., one mutual fund portfolio manager said it was high time Disney turned "Path" into a DVD and recouped some of the $40 million it spent on the project.

The fund manager, Tom Borelli, accused Iger of protecting Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign at the expense of shareholders, and pointed out that Iger has been a steady Clinton donor since before the former first lady was elected to the Senate.

He claimed to have a letter from a representative at indie studio Lionsgate proving that Disney has no intention of even selling the DVD rights to another company.

The "Path" question came shortly after another shareholder objected to foul language and persistent sexual innuendos on such ABC shows as "Ugly Betty" and "Good Morning America," prompting Iger to cite ABC's right of free speech. Borelli demanded to know why Iger seemed more interested in protecting curse words than he was in protecting political speech.

The fund manager noted Disney's reported $46 million profit on "Fahrenheit 9/11," also a politically controversial project -- though far more critical of Republicans than Democrats.

Seemingly taken-aback, Iger assured the shareholder that his decision on the DVD was based purely on business considerations and not on politics.

Contacted after the meeting, Lionsgate insiders said there was no serious interest in acquiring the DVD rights to "Path."

It's not the first time advocates have claimed that Disney's refusal to distribute a DVD of "Path" is motivated by politics. "Path" screenwriter Cyrus Nowrasteh has told reporters that a top executive at ABC Studios confided that "if Hillary weren't running for president, this wouldn't be a problem."

Although Iger handled that persistent line of questioning mostly solo, he let board chairman John Pepper Jr. address the issue of the CEO's pay.

Pepper said Iger made less than other CEOs of major media companies and that much of his pay was based on performance. Iger noted earlier -- to applause -- that Disney's stock has returned 15.3% annually to shareholders over the past five years, compared with just 11.5% annually for the S&P 500.

Apparently, Pepper's vigorous defense of Iger's pay wasn't sufficient, however, as another shareholder stood to address the same issue, claiming that Iger didn't deserve to make in three hours what a school teacher earns in a year.

Pepper countered that Iger is "what the doctor ordered" and is a better CEO than all his media counterparts. The issue was put to rest when another shareholder took the microphone to declare: "Mr. Iger's entitled to every damn penny he makes!"

Iger earned a similar endorsement Monday when Warren Buffett, the newly named richest man in the world, called Iger one of the best CEOs in the nation.

As has become customary at these events, yet another shareholder pleaded for Disney to release on DVD "Song of the South," the animated family film that is decidedly politically incorrect by today's standards. "We continue to discuss and debate it," Iger said diplomatically.

Iger also alluded to a concept he called "Classic Disney," which might, in the future, be a Web site for showing archived shows like "Davy Crockett" for free or to subscribers. 

Another investor, who said she has made money from buying shares of Disney, Apple and Pixar, wanted to know what companies Disney planned on buying or partnering with in the future. Iger said he has some in mind, but he wouldn't disclose them.