Chinese basketball fans are elated over the China men’s team 59-55 victory over Germany. Looks like the triple play of Yao Ming, Yi Jianlian, and Sun Yue are keeping China in the running for a basketball medal. Meanwhile, off the courts Chinese are getting a kick out of the Google logo that gets into the Olympic spirit of things by depicting a dragon dunking on a mouse.
While we realize the mouse could just be a nod to the current Year of the Rat, some Chinese are gloating a bit by drawing comparisons between the “very cute” rodent and the German team, while another cheekily asks if there isn’t actually more of a likeness to Spaniards.
But before anyone goes up in arms against Google’s artistic team, it should be noted that the logo has changed almost daily since the games started, and this particular one was up well before the China victory. And a quick glance below at some of the previous logos will show you that they are, in fact, rotating through each of the Chinese zodiac animals, and not taking stabs at anyone in particular. Maybe this will help those over at Toytown trying to guess what will be the next logo — parrots, raccoons, and kangaroos, while amusing, don’t exactly play a big role in Chinese astrology. Has anyone seen a rooster, snake, or rabbit yet?
UPDATE: Here comes the rabbit, only the rooster left
UPDATE (8.22.08): Another tiger makes an appearance, no love for the rooster?
UPDATE (8.23.08): The twelve animal zodiac is finally complete.
UPDATE (8.25.08): In honor of the Olympics coming to a close, here are the opening and closing logos. Congratulations to all the athletes who participated in the Beijing 2008 Summer Games!
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for the record, this post was written before the loss to Greece. looks like the dragon got pwnd
Very nice. We’ll have to update with the newest logos as they come up!
where are the rabbit and rooster logos?
Still looking for those, maybe they haven’t been released yet? Only 11 days into the Olympics, and the first day was a special logo for the opening ceremony featuring the Fuwa
In the swimming snake one, what are all the other animals? I enlarged it and it looks like there’s a rat to the far right of the picture, and it looks like there’s a dragon in left lane closest to the snake. But I can’t tell what those other two are supposed to be. The one in the right lane closest to the snake looks kind of like a fox, which wouldn’t make sense.
Wow, good eyes. It looks like monkey in the far left and the one you think is a fox is probably a dog.
Judging by today’s logo, I’m going to say that the one on the far left was a rabbit, because it looks a little like the rabbit today. But I think you’re right about the dog!
Also enlarged, the other animal in the rowing logo looks like a ram.
My favourite one of these is the little pig doing a backflip as he’s diving. Adorable!
Yay, finally! A tiger!
I know it’s difficult to tell (I thought it was an old man at first) but the one playing badminton is a tiger too!
Whoa, I totally didn’t notice that it was supposed to be a tiger. Whoops! I was wondering why they randomly had a human in the logo.
Rooster today. :D
I’m a bit saddened, because it looks like today’s Olympic logo is the last one. :( The dragon, rabbit and goat won medals (and it looks like they’re all gold medals.) Go rabbit! That’s my zodiac sign. :D
No dog. He doesn’t have his own logo, poor thing.
He’s in the rowing logo! There might be another animal in the background though rowing the other boat.
Yes, it’s the ram in the background. :)
Hehe, looks like Google was very diplomatic, every animal is wearing a gold medal. :)