Absolutely Fobulous

Give an inch and the Chinese will take a mile. Ever since people in China received access to Obama’s Google+ page, they’ve been bombarding it with Mandarin comments, calling him nicknames like “Big Brother Ma.” I guess it’s good to have fans all around the world?

The Chinese are calling it Occupy Obama, in reference to the Occupy Wall Street movement, and it’s actually pretty hilarious. Here are some of my favorite comments, translated into English:

• Obama brother, your ipad3 is too expensive, I can’t afford it, can you please make it cheaper.
• Big brother ma, do you eat noodles?
• Big brother ma, can you please introduce an American to be my wife?
• Obama, what’s a good tv drama to watch? let me know.
• Uncle Obama, quite handsome
• Obama uncle, we should play basketball sometimes.
• Little Obama brother, I hope you are reborn in in the mainland and become the emperor.
• Pay us our money!

Oh man, so busted!  Last week, the Chinese government put up a pic of county officials inspecting a newly-constructed road in Lihong Town of the Sichuan Province. Do you notice anything fishy about the picture?

Yup, the three guys have been obviously photoshopped in.  Soon after the picture went up, a blogger posted about the shameless blunder, causing such a massive flood of traffic to the Huili County Government website that it crashed.

Obviously, the picture has since been removed from the website, but what’s probably even more awesome than government officials levitating over a road is…government officials levitating in space, swimming with dinosaurs, and the ongoing slew of satirical images popping up as a result of the photoshop disaster.

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Welcome to the world, Facebook Jamal Ibrahim!  A man in Egypt has named his baby daughter after the social networking site because of the role that it played in the country’s recent anti-government protests.

Egyptians used Facebook to plan the initial January 25th protest in Tahrir Square.  The uprising eventually led to the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak, an event that has inspired people in other Muslim countries in the region, including Libya and Bahrain, to fire up their own anti-government protests.

(Thanks, Hubie!)

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These days, who isn’t on Facebook?  Even North Korea’s got a fb profile and Vietnam has created its own communist version of the website.

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OK, not to make light of the Chinese president’s visit to the US, and I don’t know if it’s just me, but everytime I read an article on it, tons of bad Hu Jintao puns run through my head. Here are snippets of what comes to mind:

• Knock, knock. Who’s there. Hu. Who? Hu!
• I said, “Huuu do you think you are, some kind of superstar?” Swing it, shake it, move it, make it. Hu do you think you are?
• Hu’s the biggest loser? (Not China!)
• Hu’s in the house…the White House!

Yes, I know…these are corny beyond belief, but you know how sometimes you get a song stuck in your head? Well, this time it’s bad Hu Jintao jokes that I can’t get out of my head.

For kids of undocumented immigrants, being born in the US might not mean automatic citizenship.  Conservative state lawmakers have outlined plans to end birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants.

Some say it’s crazy talk — particularly since the 14th Amendment of the Constitution explicitly states that citizenship is a right granted to anyone born on US soil.  That’ll make the bill pretty hard to pass, but the NY Times calls the issue “the next immigration battle.”

The bill has stirred an uproar, with some blaming birthright citizenship for the country’s influx of undocumented immigrants, and others saying that the bill will create a “modern-day caste system.”

But my all-time favorite quote is from Daryl Metcalfe, a Republican state representative from Pennsylvania.

“We want to bring an end to the illegal alien invasion that is having such a negative impact on our states.”

Did you hear that, people?!  Aliens are invading!

But really, beyond all the extraterrestrial talk, the debate is actually pretty thought-provoking for me personally.  I was born in England, but the Brits made it really hard for kids of immigrants to get citizenship and so I’m still from the motherland, Hong Kong.  I wonder if my life would have been any different if I were of British citizenship…

Read the heated back and forth among NY Times readers here.

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Immigration issues always gets Emily, Amy and I talking.  Read about green cards for international students, the startup visa for fobby entrepreneurs, and my thoughts on Arizona’s anti-fob laws.

Aussie Julian Assange didn’t win the title of Time’s Person of the Year, but who cares about Time magazine when you’re Editor in Chief of WikiLeaks? OK, so I have to admit, the guy is oozes creepiness, what with his freaky, stalkerish emails to love interests in the past. Unable to face rejection, he flooded 19-year-old Elizabeth, whom he met at a bar, with repeated calls and emails, which slowly grew hostile as she spurned his advances. Then, he somehow obtained the license plate number of her car. To top it all off, he’s been accused of several rape charges.

Assange has definitely turned the world on its head, and we have yet to find out if that’s a good or bad thing. I’m still waiting to hear more about which bank he claims he’s going to bring down.

What do you think — do you support this troublemaking fob?

One reason why I love blogging is being able to share with our fans news from around the world, particularly news from sections of the paper that people might not typically flip to or click through.  I’ve long been drawn to and saddened by news from the African country of Zimbabwe — its economic potential has been razed by corruption and destructive decision-making, and in this case, by its dictator, Robert Mugabe.

NYTimes has an inspiring short clip on how Chidamoyo Christian Hospital, a small rural hospital, has kept itself and its patients alive by using a bartering system.  Cash is scarce in Zimbabwe, which currently uses the American dollar.  In 2008, inflation increased by 500 billion percent, leaving the country’s currency worthless.

Instead of cash, patients at the hospital trade medical services for peanuts, pigs and chickens. Check out this fascinating story!

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There are turning points in every communist country that reflects progress and a step towards modernization — the opening of its borders, establishing of private enterprises and…allowing of its citizens the access to porn. There is a growing number of porn sites becoming available to residents in China, a country where it is illegal to even surf the web for porn. Is the country becoming more liberal or are they running out of resources to police the internet?

Beijing-based internet analyst, Zhao Jing, said that he’s never seen such freedom before and speculated that perhaps the government is “thinking that if Internet users have some porn to look at, then they won’t pay so much attention to political matter.”

(Thanks, Hubes!)

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Senator Benigno Aquino, 50, the Philippines president-elect, smokes a pack of cigs a day and he’s not ready to quit anytime soon. Aquino, who will succeed Gloria Arroyo on June 30, insists that he should be free to smoke and wishes to preserve one of the the “few remaining freedoms” he has left. This comes after health activists started campaigning for Aquino to quit his smoking habit in order to set a good example for the rest of the country.

Aquino says:

“I will be coming under a lot of pressure. Should I add another unnecessary pressure? Maybe that might even affect my decisions on what I should do.”

The man is under stress people!

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Sure, Japan is known for some pretty weird fashion, but this one is just downright hideous.  Japan’s Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, sported this eyesore of a shirt during his recent BBQ, which he hosted at his home and opened up to the public.  He dubbed the event the “Real Hato Café,” an attempt to reconnect with ordinary voters in light of his waning popularity with voters.  Unfortunately, the earnest attempt backfired -  famous critic Don Konishi pointed out in a national magazine that Hatoyama’s retro-inspired shirt simply reflected how out of touch he is.

“This shirt comes from the ’80s or ’90s. His ideas and philosophy are old,” Konishi said. “Japan is facing a crisis and we can’t overcome it with a prime minister like this.”

Man, his shirt is pretty bad though – like some kind of technicolor dreamcoat meets country bumpkin.  I wonder if there’s a fobby version of gofugyourself.com… Hatoyama would totally qualify!

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