Chinese Road Apples

Nicholas Kristof writes:

China now dazzles visitors with luxury skyscrapers, five-star hotels and modern freeways. This boom is real and spectacular, but for China to be an advanced nation it needs not only spaceships, but also freedom.

Otherwise, all that dazzle is just a mirage. The Chinese leaders might recall an old peasant expression, "Lu fen dan'r, biaomian'r guang." It means, "On the outside, even donkey droppings gleam."

I can't disagree with the sentiment, but I believe this talk is going to make the blood of more sensitive Chinese boil. As far as the quotation, of course it should be Lü, not Lu. Can't the NYT handle umlauts? (I wonder when we'll transcribe Chinese with tones in writings for general readers [Lǘ fèn dàn'r wàimian guāng]. Probably never. Look at how accents are left off French.) The quote is also far more likely not to have the final r (驴粪蛋儿外面光). Apparently it's quite an old expression. The 國語辭典 credits Zhèng Tíngyù (鄭廷玉, 1279-1368) with 驢糞毬兒外面光 (Lǘ fèn qiú'r wàimian guāng), a similar expression.