Obama: The Chinese version

Why is the Democratic candidate for president throwing a net over the logo for China's biggest search engine?

Published April 8, 2008 10:30AM (EDT)

Google isn't the only search engine that likes to play arty games with its logo. Baidu, China's leading search engine, has been featuring "HomePage Heros" entwined with its corporate logo in recent months. The first five heroes, reports the Pacific Epoch blog, featured Hong Kong entertainers and survivors of the horrific snowstorms China experienced earlier this year.

But in April, the new hero is Barack Obama. Mysteriously, he is shown throwing a net across the latter half of the logo. He is also accompanied by a donkey. Shanghaiist suggests he is "fishing for the Asian-American vote."

How the World Works is unclear about how the Obama campaign managed to convince a Chinese search engine to join the Barack bandwagon, but if you want to read all about Obama, in Chinese, you can click on the drawing and immerse yourself. My own very rough translation of the headline on that page reads: "The black son/child" Obama -- he can do anything!"

UPDATE: Two readers suggest correctly that a better translation for the last clause is "anything is possible!"


By Andrew Leonard

Andrew Leonard is a staff writer at Salon. On Twitter, @koxinga21.

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2008 Elections Barack Obama China Globalization How The World Works