CHINESE KNOCKOFFS

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"

OK take a look at this picture and tell me what you see:


They are from Beijing, and the images are of a mascot for the Olympics in China. The locals all think it's Mickey Mouse (Youtube video) Chinese officials insist it's not Mickey, that the square holes in the ears represent Chinese coins, that it is a rat, for the astrological year of the rat.

This is particularly troubling in a country where cheap knockoffs of products are a standard export and they actually had a knockoff of Disneyland called Shijingshan Amusement Park that recently had to change blatant copies of Disney copyrighted images and products. They had the magic castle (very un-Chinese in design), they had people dressed up in... well take a look and you decide:

Note the Not Hello Kitty, they had other popular Japanese cartoon figures as well. The park even had a slogan: "Disneyland is too far." Their response? No, that's not Minnie Mouse, that's a cat with big ears. Eventually they changed the slogan, took down the Disney rip off statues and the costumes went away. Until the Olympic stadium statues showed up in Beijing, that is.

Yeah. Let's keep giving these guys Most Favored Nation Status. Let's have the Olympics in China. What a great idea.

*big tip of the hat to Japan Probe for several stories on this.

China, Olympics, Disney