This year’s World Cup would not have been as much fun without Paul the Octopus. Now in the Asian games 2010 hosted in Guangzhou , pandas have became the oracles of the game.
Paul was presented with two water tanks containing the same food and each marked with the national flag of the two competing teams. Paul’s choice of which one to eat shows its favor. But how pandas perform their “magic” is different. “Boss” the panda predicted the the first gold medal right by choosing bamboo shoots over apple. No, the food were not the same. No, they were not marked with national flags. It is just assumed that bamboo shoot represents China and apple represents other couturiers. I am not a panda expert but I think it is a common sense that panda eats bamboo.
There is not just one panda, there are twelve pandas. These pandas are now living in Guangzhou Chimelong Tourist Resort’s zoo, performing predictions as a part of the amusement park’s Asian games. According to their website, the twelve pandas has their own names and “characters”. The one which predicted the gold medal of martial art right was named Bosi, which has no literal meaning in Chinese but sounds like Boss and his nickname is “Big Brother”. On Guangzhou Daily, he was described as “Smart and quick” and therefore would be the representative of Chinese martial art team of Asian games. The second panda that is to perform predictions was named “Hui Hui” and her nickname is mermaid. She was said to love playing with water so she is the representative of Chinese diving team.
That’s how Chinese do things. Copy something from others and then mess them up. The idea of having animals to predict game result is cute. But Chinese do not like “bad luck” so we make it as biased as we can. The result is obvious at the beginning of the prediction and the fun of it is totally gone. Paul the octopus is just one octopus but the team of pandas has twelve members. Each panda was assigned name, nickname, character, and a Chinese sports team it represent. Who cares and who will remember? Paul became famous because he is the sole star. It would be hard to make people remember a panda team. Chinese like to make things big and complicated but this time it doesn’t help.
16 comments
When Paul the Octopus died last month (and became a tasty snack for all we know) it was revealed that it was all a publicity stunt by,, the name currently eludes me,, but that was that. At the time of the World Cup I tried my best to convince my girlfriend that Paul and his psychic abilities was a hoax but she and millions around the world refused to believe me and the rest of the rationally thinking representatives of the human race. This time I show her the article where the Paul’s owner and the media group behind it all step forward and admit that IT WASN’T REAL, and what happens? She STILL believes in the foretelling powers of octopi. It’ no wonder the world is full of religions and religious people. Plenty of intellectual infants around.
sorta funny you just called your gf an intellectual infant…
I claim the anonymity of the internet 🙂
I hope she’s pretty
I find that lz is a little bit like a fenqing? Although Chinese keep copy, we at least try our best to do something change, at least the final output doesn’t seem like exactly the same as the original one, in spite of the fact that the result of the changing is not satisfying.
haha, I suddently find that I have come here everyday. And I find myself very confused. If I want to read Chinese news, why don’t I just search Chinese blog and communities?
And, er, Jack is really charming.
Thanks, I love to read comments here. Views from different perspective are always inspiring.
Maybe the pandas actually represent the Chinese Football Team!!!
Pretty Boy, Elegant Boy, Fatty……about sums up that team!!
Good ideas!
Did you do a penis size check?
http://www.chinasmack.com/2010/stories/tianjin-locomotive-football-club-uses-penis-shape-to-find-new-players.html
Why do Chinese worship pandas but eat every other living creature in China?
We also worship turkey. Turkey is human’s friend. Only the most uncivillized people eat turkey.
I agree with you. This is probably due to Chinese pride of panda as a creature found exclusively in China. If other nations have panda, it would be not prized as much and would probably fall victim to Chinese wacky appetite.
On the other hand, I have to point out that not everyone has a wacky appetite. In fact, contrary to popular belief, many Chinese do not eat dog meat or bear’s paw or bugs and insects as is reported on news. Some rare animal food serve as a local specialty in parts of China.
yes they, contrary to experience you just haven’t met the right people. Amongt China’s older and or Poorer population you can find that dog meat amongst other street animals that can been seen scavaging for food can be and will be eaten said people of China. Bear’s paw is an illegal dish therefore if you are not a rich person of bill gates standard then you will never know where to find this. Insects are a great source of protein and everyone should acquire the ability to stomach certain bugs.
I never knew China was a couturier…
Looking at the people around me, though, they need to update their designs.
first of all,there have so many people come from different country,for example,me .i come from China.Not the every body can use English to leave the message ,they even can not read any words,but they can understand something from the pictures ,the original links or somewhere.if they want to know what’s you want to tell them know ,they need spend time to check the dictionary .so ,i think it’s too hard to leave a English comment here.