Obama supermarkets, Obama sex dolls, Buddhobama, and now this. more ›

The hurt feelings of the Chinese people, caused by the meeting between US President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, dramatised by the one and only Next Media Animation: more ›

It's been a while since Presidents Hu and Obama met in a Next Media Animation video. In this clip, Hu flies into Washington on China’s new stealth jet and raises hell for his hosts. Only for those with a sense of humour: more ›

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It's one thing to be worried about fake identity cards in China, but nothing drives the point home quite as hard as actually creating a great fake... with U.S. President Obama as your avatar of choice. Reporters investigating the matter made this fake which, besides being Obama, is virtually indistinguishable from a real Chinese identity card. more ›

American taxpayers, listen up! Your presence at the world's biggest World Expo is costing you $61 million -- that's over four times the cost of Shanghai's new nightlife monstrosity named after your current president. more ›

And quite frankly it looks like it's going to be yet another cheesy karaoke place (despite what they'd like us to think). At least that's the impression we got from the website, which doesn't allow you to turn off its very annoying music. But like the guys from Huffington Post and Vanity Fair, we're still looking forward to their soft opening on April 26. It's just, it's just... we haven't gotten their invitations yet. more ›

• Who knew that one simple gesture, like holding your own umbrella, could mean so much? Obama made an awesome first impression by shielding himself from rain on Sunday evening, thanks partially to the habit of Chinese officials usually having a flukey to hold their umbrellas, P. Diddy style. [Wall Street Journal]
• The LA Times has a great look at the story behild Jiyuan, a place known for manufacturing lead batteries where lead poisoning has gotten so bad that entire villages are being evacuated. [LA Times]
• So should we be calling President Obama 奥巴马 (àobāmǎ) or 欧巴马 (ōubāmǎ)? Both have been used in press releases, though the U.S. Embassy said it was now standardizing the Chinese translation of Barack's last name and should now be using the latter exclusively. [Danwei]

U.S. President Barack Obama’s China-residing half-brother, Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo, has now launched his first novel, “Nairobi to Shenzhen.” in Guangdong province. The book is “semi-autobiographial” and about his life rather than that of his slightly more famous kin. more ›

While his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has been busy meeting up with former US President George Bush, Singapore's ever so feisty and sprightly 86 year old Minister Mentor¹ Lee Kuan Yew has gone halfway around the globe to meet US President Barack Obama in Washington ahead of his debut Asian tour that will include China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. Lee's tour also saw him meeting two key Cabinet members of the Obama administration - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. more ›

• Confucius? No, Yao Ming [Reuters] "Instead of a cultural icon, well-known author or scholar, President Barack Obama sought the advice of ... a basketball player as he talked of the importance of strong U.S.-Chinese economic ties. In a speech opening the Strategic Economic Dialogue between the United States and China, Obama - an avid basketball fan and player - quoted China's most popular sports star and Houston Rockets center, Yao Ming."
• Tenenbaum heads to China [The State] "Inez Tenenbaum, the nation's new consumer-safety chief, will make her debut on the world stage this week to warn Chinese and other major Asian exporters to expect tougher regulation of toys, drywall and other products found to have recent defects after entering the United States."
• Key to Chinese mayor's corruption hidden in Buddha's ear [People's Daily Online] "A former north China mayor and his wife concealed about 300,000 U.S. dollars in bribe money in a safe deposit box in a Buddhist temple, hiding the key in a Buddha statue's ear, a court heard Monday. Xu Guoyuan, former mayor of Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is accused of taking bribes worth more than 1 million U.S. dollars."

The case of jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo flared up in the American media this weekend, after Liu's wife Liu Xia published a Washington Post editorial asking President Barack Obama to help get him released from jail. more ›

• Top 10 Billionaire Cities [Forbes.com] "Hong Kong retains its title as the most popular city for Asian billionaires, with 21 living in the former British colony. … There are two new locales in our list of the top 10 billionaire cities: Chicago and Sao Paulo, which tied for ninth place with Mumbai and Tokyo."
• Thousands of Chinese athletes faking ages in Guangdong [Reuters] Thousands! "The sports ministry in Guangdong Province says it has undertaken X-Ray bone analysis on 15,000 youth athletes and found a fifth of them had misrepresented their age, local media reported. … The result showed 3,000 were older than they claimed, 2,000 of whom were no longer eligible for any youth sport and 1,000 who should have competed in different age categories. Ye said 16 athletes in one event had faked their age and the worst offenders were up to seven years older than they were allowed to be."
• Will China’s Food Safety Law Prevent THIS? [Cleaner Greener China] "Until a couple weeks ago when I picked up this pomelo near my house, cracked it open, and saw the injection mark. As you can clearly see from the pictures below, there is an injection mark and there was an absorption. I must admit that I got lucky when cutting the flesh of the fruit as it came out so clearly, and what is striking about it is the fact that whatever was injected… it did not bleed through to the fruit."

Rebecca MacKinnon, formerly CNN's Beijing bureau chief and now Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong, writes an open letter to President Barack Obama in the Huffington Post, In Talking to China, Remember its People. She encourages the president to adopt a more nuanced view of the Chinese citizenry:

The point is that while these people are not citizens of a democracy, they are by no means an undifferentiated mass of brainwashed drones. Despite often crude censorship of the Internet and state-run media, despite manipulation, intimidation of dissidents and political astro-turfing of the blogosphere by paid commentators, there is no unity of thought in China today. Civic minded citizens manage to hold wide-ranging debates on the Chinese Internet, in living rooms, dormitories, office break rooms, and classrooms about many public issues. Reading the Chinese blogs I've found all kinds of views about you and your new administration. Many are inspired by your personal story and the idea of truly equal opportunity that you represent. Others hope that you will be more forthright and principled on human rights issues than the Bush administration was. Others are very concerned that you will be protectionist in order to help the American people in the short run, and that this will hurt the Chinese people economically. Others lament cynically that no matter what happens, the rich and powerful in both countries will be the relationship's main beneficiaries.

Just as you have used new technology to engage with the American electorate, your China policy can be greatly strengthened if you conduct a real conversation with the Chinese people. Listen as much as you talk; provide a much-needed platform for open discussion. The U.S. embassy in Beijing should build a Chinese-language website modeled after change.gov, focused not just on U.S.-China relations, but on the range of concerns and interests - from environment, to food safety, to factory safety standards, to education and real estate law -- shared by ordinary Chinese and Americans. Some linguistically talented State Department employees should start blogging in Chinese. Open up the comments sections, see how the Chinese blogosphere responds, then respond to them in turn. Translate some of the Chinese conversation into English for Americans to read and react, then translate it back. Sure there will be censorship problems on the Chinese side, but if enough Chinese find the conversation important and relevant to their lives, the censors ultimately won't be able to stop it. Nor should they want to if they're wise - because the resulting conversation would help both governments build a more stable and rational relationship that would truly benefit the people of both countries.

Chinese volunteers have organised a charity event and donated over 100 tonnes of rice to Sarah Obama, the relatively poor step-grandmother of US President Barack Obama who "only recently got electricity in her metal-roofed shack" in Kenya. The rice was for her 82 adopted orphans aged between four and 18 most of whose parents have died from AIDS, as well as other impoverished, starving Kenyans. Said Julius Ole Sunkuli, Kenya's ambassador to China, "She will be very happy to see the support from China after she returns from Obama's inauguration." more ›

Because we know you've all been searching high and low for it, here's a video of President Obama's inaugural address with Chinese subtitles that we found on Chinese video site Youku. The video is complete and includes Obama's references to "fascism and communism" (censored by Chinese media) but the Chinese subtitles leaves "fascism" intact, editing out only the "communism" [insert whatever joke you like here]. For your convenience the full transcripts of Obama's speech, in English and Chinese are included after the jump: more ›

If you were jam packed into Glamour Bar with 600 other people earlier this morning, watching President Barack Obama being sworn in, you might have been a little too dizzy with euphoria (and possibly heatstroke) to notice particular segments of his 18-minute inauguration address -- specifically, ones that likely caused the head honchos in Beijing to collectively cringe. more ›

Luckily for us here in Shanghai, U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama's inauguration happens at around the midnight hour. That means, basically, that it's completely acceptable to drink to this historical event more ›

Thomas Crampton points us to a special fundraiser held Friday night in Shenzhen by the American Chamber of Commerce in South China to benefit orphans. Star of the evening was none other than Presidential-elect Barack Obama's half-brother Mark Ndesandjo. The media spotlight was firmly on him as reporters turned up in full force to get close to Ndesandjo. more ›

Edison Chen was narrowly beaten by Barack Obama for "Person of the Year 2008" in Radio Television Hong Kong's poll. The public was "cordially invited to vote for the most outstanding personality of the year at RTHK or by calling in during the program "Backchat". The results of the poll were announced on Radio 3, on Friday, January 2nd. The RTHK nominees were as follows: more ›

A 16 year old Sichuan schoolgirl has been invited to attend the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama on January 20. The girl, Li Zizi (李紫子) was actually born and raised in Japan but returned to her family home in Sichuan to attend the Chengdu Experimental Foreign Language School, close to some of the areas hit hardest by the great Sichuan earthquake in May. more ›

The road to Obama's inauguration has the world equally fixated as the election itself. Jeffrey Garten, former undersecretary of commerce under the Clinton administration poses an interesting proposition: that the President-elect, in his first presidential trip abroad, makes China the first stop. Not only that, Garten says Obama should bring his all-star cast to Beijing: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and his appointed ambassador. more ›

President-elect Barack Obama has a half-brother by the name of Mark Ndesandjo who's been in Shenzhen for a few years now. According to this video report by a Shenzhen TV station (we think), on the day of Obama's victory, Mark Ndesandjo sent a text message to all his friends announcing "新美国来了！” ("The new America has come!"). The video also shows Ndesandjo teaching kids piano at an orphanage and practising calligraphy in his free time when he's not running his Internet company World Nexus. And, oh, he seems to speak very fluent Mandarin too. more ›

What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than to read "U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s election day victory speech translated into '半白化文,' a version of written Chinese considered somewhere between the classical and modern-day scripts, maybe closer to the former"? OK, there are likely much better ways to celebrate Turkey Day. But aren't you curious? Click here. [56minus1.com] more ›

Reuters has of late been collecting "video postcards" from people around the world sending their wishes and advice to US President-Elect Barack Obama. Here's what they filed from people on the streets of Beijing. more ›

Just in case you were looking for it. more ›

Thanks to the couple hundred people who attended our Election Hangover get-together last night at Sasha's, co-hosted by American Craft Beer Partners. It was a great end to a wonderful day (unless, of course, you wanted the other guy to win). more ›

Looks like many (most?) of us will have reason to celebrate tonight at Election Hangover. We'll be on the third floor of Sasha's (11 Dongping Lu, near Hengshan Lu, 东平路11号, 近衡山路) from 7 pm onwards. Drinks are half price including these fine beers from American Craft Beer Partners: Kona Longboard (from Obama's Hawaii), Brooklyn Lager, Brooklyn IPA, and Rogue American Amber Ale. (If you drink enough, perhaps Pennsylvania will begin to take its proper shape on this map.) more ›

It's almost over! By Wednesday evening — assuming there are no hanging chads — we should know who the next leader of the free world will be. And, either way, there will be reason to drink. Some will want to celebrate ... others will want to drown their sorrows ... and many will just be relieved the damn U.S. election is finally done and dusted. And all of them — be they Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Socialists, Communists, Whigs, Tories or just thirsty — are welcome to attend Election Hangover on the 3rd floor at Sasha's (11 Dongping Lu, near Hengshan Lu, 东平路11号, 近衡山路), an extended happy hour presented by Shanghaiist.com and American Craft Beer Partners on Wednesday, Nov. 5 from 7 to 11 pm. Drinks, including ACB's fine American microbrews, are half price ... political discourse is free. more ›