U.S. President-elect Barack Obama is being honored in China in a unique way, as dozens of entrepreneurs have applied to use his name on a range of products. From The Telegraph:
In the famously entrepreneurial and cut-throat coastal city of Wenzhou, a trademark application was made by an unnamed shoe manufacturer in March, according to the Oriental Morning Post newspaper. The paper quoted employees who said the idea came from their boss “who believes there is great market value in the name”.
[…] In Guangzhou, a pharmaceutical company was the first to register “Obama” in February as a brand name for its lines of iodine, surgical spirit and traditional medicine. Meanwhile, requests for “Barack Obama” have come from companies producing instant noodles, coffee and even wooden logs.
None of the applications has so far been approved, and the likelihood of success is slim: all politician’s names are censored in China. To get around the block, some companies are already producing clothes marked “Aobama”, which is phonetically similar in Chinese.
The article also reveals that Obama’s half-brother lives in Shenzhen, where he runs a company helping Chinese export companies set up websites for foreign customers.
