Obama arrives: Town halls and hair statues

That's right: the man everyone's been waiting for with baited breath has finally landed in Shanghai. After starting his first Asia tour with a somewhat difficult and controversial trip to Japan, Obama will settle into what should be a more pleasant, warm reception here in the Middle Kingdom.

At 12:45, the long awaited town hall forum with Chinese students will begin. The event was questionable for a while due to questions of censorship, but it seems like some sort of happy medium was reached. In any case, the event will be streamed live over the internet here, as well as here. A few hundred students were chosen to participate, and questions will be selected from the crowd as well as from submissions from internet users, some of which have been translated by China Smack.

Funnily, though, it seems the White House has decided to completely ignore the conventional translation of Obama's name (奥巴马) in favor of their own translation (欧巴马). A politically motivated jab at freedom of speech and press, perhaps?

We'll be watching to see what sort of questions make it through the censorship filter and how Obama will answer them. If anything, we're sure the event will be rather politically correct: much more so than Huang Xin's famous commemorative hair statues, the ranks of which Obama has now joined for better or for worse.

Photo from Daylife