Don't Watch This: Confucius
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Olympics mascot merchandising is a multi-million dollar business, but since the mascots for the Beijing Olympics were announced nearly three years ago they have met with mixed reviews. A nationwide survey conducted by Nielsen Co. showed that only 60% of Chinese liked the Fuwa characters.
According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, even their creator, folk artist Han Meilin, seems to want no part of the Fuwa as they continue to build up negative publicity and become the center of an increasing number of spoofs.
Beijing residents created their own Fuwa -- a duck, a dragonfly and a taxi -- whose names spell out "bastard" in Beijing slang. Something similar happened during the Sydney Games in 2000, when the three official mascots were overshadowed unofficially by "Fatso, the Fat-Arsed Wombat," created by a local TV station.
In recent months Chinese have also begun circulating the idea of a Fuwa curse, with each character representing a national disaster. AngryChineseBlogger gives a full account of "The Five Fuwa of the Apocalypse" in this article. Since the article was written there has been no shortage of flooding in Southern China which have since been pinned onto Beibei.
Some more optimistic Chinese, believe that with all five of the bad omens fulfilled, the Olympics will at least be able to take place without any more catastrophes.
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I know I know!
I know you are the smartest of all, on the bashing bandwagon.
But can you allow yourself to be a little bit smarter to tell what you are driving at, "meaningfully" as beloved Daliar said?
Above post is obviously in wrong place, sorry.
--"only 60% of Chinese liked the characters."?
Though I dont like these Fuwa very much, but its not bad the mascots still are still favored by 60% Chinese, considering 3 year after its release and compared with London Olympic logo liked by only 57% of british.
Meanwhile all the well educated take this so-called "The Five Fuwa of the Apocalypse" is farfetched and forced interpretated, without least fun, as you feel.
I think they turned evil the day the names were changed from "The Friendlies" for some stupid reason.
@eastman Apologies if my cheekiness was not well conveyed. I thought the "Five Fuwa of the Apocalypse" was pretty funny, considering the circumstances. (Where was your first comment supposed to go, how did it get misplaced?)
haha, I heart taxi driver Fuwa !
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I think the best part of any Olympic mascot is when they're made fun of... I mean who cares, they're not people! What are we going to hurt their feelings? In any case, as difficult as they are to differentiate from the 25 kazillion Japaneses anime characters they look like, they're not as bad, or ugly as previous Olympic mascots you'll find on this list!. Check out Izzy, ha ha ha ha!!! Canada's beaver mascot looks like a lump of turd with a red Olympic band on it... sad sad sad...
Even sadder how some people can actually get so defensive about their country's Olympic mascots though... ahem...
Oh, Cedric M. I thought you were so much more high-class than to post comment spam...
Seriously... someone please explain what the freaking obsession is in this country with these doggone mascots!? I swear I've seen more stories about these things than about actual athletes and the Olympics themselves. WHY?? WHY DO THEY CARE SOOOOOO MUCH ABOUT THE MASCOTS???! What have I missed? Are the mascots actually going to COMPETE in the games or something?
What happened to having one mascot? Why the hell do there need to be five?
Five mascots is supposed to generate five times more revenue, and revenue is the only reason I can see for having more than one. I was ticked the moment they came out with them for such an obvious money grab.
That said, I think they're cute - there surely have been worse mascots. Now Vancouver's gone and essentially copied them for the 2010 Winter Olympics (which gets blank stares from Chinese people I talk to about it - 'What, Canada has the Olympics?', 'There's an Olympics in 2010?', 'Oh, the Winter Olympics... we don't really care.' The mascots are: Quatchi the Sasquatch, Miga the Sea Bear, and Sumi the Thunderbird.
http://www.vancouver2010.com/mascot/en/