Did you know that the 2008 Beijing Olympics have five color-coded little Teletubbies-esque mascots?

Their names are Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini. If you put those syllables together (Beijing Huanying Ni), it means "Beijing Welcomes You" (although three of the names use different characters -- see this post at Pinyin News for a more thorough explanation).

The hypermuffin is currently addicted to two of the promotional clips from this ad campaign.

Here's the Paralympics mascot (a cute, rainbow-colored cow) chasing dandelion fluff.

And here's the official introduction video for the "Fuwa" (福娃, literally something like "Good-luck Dolls").

I have to say that it's evident a lot of money and thought went into these little characters, and I think it works very well. Look at the elaborate associations that were built into the 5 characters. Combine that kind of symbolism with cute, colorful little characters, a la Teletubbies or Pokemon, and you can't fail to hit the target 3-year old demographic.

At least, it worked in the case of the hypermuffin, who has to watch these clips 20 times a day. And the more I watch them, the more I'm impressed.

Another big oil spill last Friday, this one off the west coast of South Korea. This is right across the Bohai Sea from Penglai, China, where I taught English in 1998. :-(

The Asian "goddess" on that little plastic dish I bought turned out to be Ma Gu, a legendary Daoist "immortal" (kind of like a saint). She's pictured with a big platter of the peaches of Immortality. The article about her on Wikipedia is actually quite interesting.

One of the old legends about Ma Gu quoted on that page mentions Penglai Mountain. Penglai is the town where I taught English in 1998.

The same section of the article quotes my favorite Chinese saying, canghai sangtian (滄海桑田). Literally, it means "blue ocean [turns to] mulberry fields." It expresses the thought "great changes over the course of time" -- because it would take a loooooooong time for an ocean to dry up and become fertile land for mulberry trees.

(Honestly, of the thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Chinese 4-character sayings, what are the odds that pretty much the only one I remember at all would be quoted in this article??)

For a not-very-good picture of my new little Daoist-immortal plate, click
( behind the cut )

The guy who oversaw the agency that should have regulated those Chinese pet food exports has been sentenced to death.

From TIME magazine:

"On Tuesday, a Beijing court handed down a death penalty for Zheng Xiaoyu, the former head of the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), after he was convicted of dereliction of duty and accepting some $850,000 in bribes, according to local media reports."

In America, someone in a similar situation would have to step down in disgrace (but still with a handsome severance package), and spend a couple years in a think tank before getting a position at a prestigious lobbying group.

Not that I'm saying that's better. It's just -- execution? Pretty extreme.