Results tagged “fivefriendlies”

If Shanghaiist had a yuan for every time someone back home asked "So, you have tickets to the Olympics yet?!", we would be rolling in the coinage like Scrooge McDuck. Beijing, Shanghai, it's all the same to them. On Monday, Olympic fever hit another high as the Beijing Olympic committee unveiled the official "pictographs" that will represent each of the events to be held at the 2008 games. In addition to the official "running man" logo that has been plastered all over official and counterfeit souvenirs since the Beijing games were announced, 35 other designs were created with the same idea in mind.

The “Five Friendlies” themselves have received a warm welcome (meaning that people spent far too much money on them when they first came out) but no one seems to like that they're called "The Five Friendlies". Although in Chinese their names spell out “Beijing Welcomes You,” (Bei bei+Jing jing+Huan huan+Ying ying+Ni ni=Beijing huan ying ni) nothing quite so “clever” is done with their English name, which to Shanghaiist bears too much connection to a place where we used to get ice cream shaped like a clown’s head when we were young.

With 999 days to go, the Beijing Olympics' official mascots have been chosen. There was much debate over who should be the mascot. Hot favourites were the Tibetan Antelope and the Monkey King, with the King finally being cast aside, and the Antelope finally joining the bunch of five.