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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!

Kai Pan, frequent CN Reviews commenter and Shanghai entrepreneur, joins CN Reviews with a guest post.  Kai also works in the advertising industry in Shanghai.  In my discussions with Kai, who grew up in California, I’ve learned a lot from his observations about life in China from his point of view as a Chinese-American, expat, and social critic! - Elliott

The 80,000-seat Shanghai Stadium played host to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games Promotional Concert Tour last Saturday, replete with (mostly) minor celebrities providing wholesome entertainment to get everyone’s patriotic juices flowing. Hometown Shanghai Olympic athletes, Sun Wen (women’s soccer football) and Le Jingyi (women’s swimming) both made appearances, but commercial darlings Liu Xiang (110 metre hurdles world-record holder) and Yao Ming (really tall Chinese guy on the NBA’s Houston Rockets) were notably absent. Despite the hosts repeatedly emphasizing “80,000 seats” to the cameras, at least 75,000 members of the audience were also absent. 

Personal highlights for the show included watching the audience members that weren’t absent disregard their assigned seats to move front and center, and the excellent music video that accompanied pop-rock band Blue Garden’s performance…until I realized it was just a bunch of Warcraft III cut-scenes with their lyrics overlaid.

Nonetheless and with all sincerity, there were plenty of worthwhile performances and personalities. Nothing quite guilts you into being inspired like appearances by 2007 Special Olympics participants. Plus, my ticket was completely free.

Hell, I would’ve even paid the 5 RMB the ticket scalpers were asking for outside.

More:
- Sohu.com coverage here (video, Chinese).
- QQ.com coverage here (text, Chinese, distracting scantily-clad ladies in sidebar).