e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Obama Adorns Chinese Search Engine, But Something’s Lost in Translation

April 7th, 2008

How The World Works noticed an interesting little eddy in the endless flow of globalization today: popular Chinese search engine Baidu is featuring a cartoon Barack Obama and donkey combo fishing for voters(?) on its front page this month:

HTWW’s Andrew Leonard notes that Obama joins a short parade of HomePage Heros on Baidu, though it’s a mystery why:

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!”

E.politics also notes the computer mouse attached to the fishing net — metaphor alert. For more, see the HTWW piece on Salon. BTW, does this make Obama an actual Manchurian candidate now?

– cpd

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