Picture of the Day: Obamao

The Tea Party may get a chuckle out of this:

Available at Nanluoguxiang

Read of the day: Howard French on China-Obama

French's interview on Columbia Journalism Review, via CN Reviews's Kai Pan, who I quote here:

I say this because too often — not always — these efforts are premised upon amplifying the complaints instead of considering feasible solutions to very real challenges. Too often, these efforts seem more about assuaging selfish consciences (and moralities) or sending messages to audiences back home instead of really communicating with the Chinese that actually hold any real power in driving change. It’s more about “look at me, this is what I stand for”. It’s about “we need more outrage and more outside pressure on China”. It’s about “we need to get them to change for us now!”

Obama endorses Xian real estate

Okay, not really. It's just the latest example of what adept Chinese counterfeiters can whip up, and not the first nvolving the popular American president's image.

Barack, my black friend

China Daily's front page today:


(The title of the post alludes, of course, to The Colbert Report.)

More from our favorite newspaper:

• Unreadably long report on Tibet (check it out for its unreadabilility)
• U.S. praises China's efforts on climate
  

Late words and pictures from Obama's inauguration

I got in on Tuesday night feeling sickly and exhausted, with one of my suitcases left behind in Minneapolis, but I wasn't going to miss this...

Pictures from Rickshaw, which was jam-packed with foreigners who had to shush up the Chinese bartenders who spoke during Obama's speech:



It's a proud time to be an American. Obama's unabashed confidence and optimism is contagious, and these uncertain times, our best defense as a collective may just be something as abstract as "hope." Then again -- and this is me writing three days after the fact, as opposed to the day after -- I think it's fair to say we should all be just a little more skeptical.

About the aforementioned sickness: I can't figure out if my current illness is due to some pathogen I bore over from the U.S. or the bug going around Beijing as we speak. I hope it's the former, otherwise I may get sick again, say, next week. Ugh.

POSTSCRIPT: This was a happy sight: