'Girl in red' excites ever-more tabloid Chinese press
'Girl in red' excites ever-more tabloid Chinese press
13:38, November 30, 2009 
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He met with Chinese President Hu Jintao to discuss a laundry list of issues ranging from climate change to trade protectionism. Though abstract, each deserves serious investigative reporting.
But this was sadly absent from the Chinese press. He also visited the Great Wall. Looking at it, he sighed, "It gives you a good perspective on a lot of the day-to-day things. They don't amount to much in the scope of history." He clearly had things in mind that were important for his own political career. But no one in the Chinese media cared to spend much time analyzing or explaining.
Illustration: Liu Rui
He had a widely reported conversation with Chinese students in Shanghai and answered eight questions from the students, which dealt with topics like Internet freedom and student exchanges. But besides noting the rather dull conversation between him and the lackluster students, the Chinese press did little else.
In sharp contrast to all these though, now, weeks after US president Obama's visit to China, the story of the "Obama Girl" is still being updated and running rampant across the Internet and unofficial media in China. The US president probably never expected this.
The story goes like this. A female graduate student from Shanghai Jiaotong University happened to sit behind Obama at his town hall event. The girl took off her red jacket and sat there in a formal black shirt and dress.
Later, she wrote in her blog that the reason she took off the red jacket was not because of the temperature in the hall, rather "In fact the temperature was not very high in the room, I really wanted to keep wearing my coat, but if I really wore the red coat, people are going to say I want to be famous like crazy."
However, the effect was exactly the opposite. Cameras recorded the entire process of her taking off her coat in slow motion and have spread like wildfire on the Internet. Overnight, she became an Internet sensation.
Of course, next she was the target of a "human flesh search engine." Now, one can find anenormous amount of online information about her, ranging from her identity to her hobbies and even her address.
There are also questions being put in chat rooms and forums,wondering why she took off her red jacket and what agenda she had.
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But this was sadly absent from the Chinese press. He also visited the Great Wall. Looking at it, he sighed, "It gives you a good perspective on a lot of the day-to-day things. They don't amount to much in the scope of history." He clearly had things in mind that were important for his own political career. But no one in the Chinese media cared to spend much time analyzing or explaining.
Illustration: Liu Rui
He had a widely reported conversation with Chinese students in Shanghai and answered eight questions from the students, which dealt with topics like Internet freedom and student exchanges. But besides noting the rather dull conversation between him and the lackluster students, the Chinese press did little else.
In sharp contrast to all these though, now, weeks after US president Obama's visit to China, the story of the "Obama Girl" is still being updated and running rampant across the Internet and unofficial media in China. The US president probably never expected this.
The story goes like this. A female graduate student from Shanghai Jiaotong University happened to sit behind Obama at his town hall event. The girl took off her red jacket and sat there in a formal black shirt and dress.
Later, she wrote in her blog that the reason she took off the red jacket was not because of the temperature in the hall, rather "In fact the temperature was not very high in the room, I really wanted to keep wearing my coat, but if I really wore the red coat, people are going to say I want to be famous like crazy."
However, the effect was exactly the opposite. Cameras recorded the entire process of her taking off her coat in slow motion and have spread like wildfire on the Internet. Overnight, she became an Internet sensation.
Of course, next she was the target of a "human flesh search engine." Now, one can find anenormous amount of online information about her, ranging from her identity to her hobbies and even her address.
There are also questions being put in chat rooms and forums,wondering why she took off her red jacket and what agenda she had.
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