November 5th 2008 in Beijing. We are 12 hours ahead of the East Coast of America, so only this morning we start hearing the first results. Thankfully I find a online CNN live video report that manages to stream fairly smoothly. The I-reporters all sound excited, the tone of the coverage is hyper. What will all these journalists do after the election is over? As the results start pouring in, it becomes clear that Obama is the big winner, and the reporters all rant on about how we are witnessing history in the making. Which is true, it is a big deal that America now has it’s first afro-american president. I’m sure that may people in the States, certainly my friends there, are extremely relieved. For now. But now of course the real work comes. After months and months (if not years) of election campaign coverage, which I must admit I was rather addicted to, things have to start really getting fixed.

And what about Beijing? Well, I decided to go out and buy some papers to see. Sure enough, on the frontpages there are headlines saying:

UNITED STATES ELECTS OBAMA HARVESTS VICTORY (mei guo da xuan obama huo sheng).
OBAMA AMERICA FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT (obama, mei guo shou wei hei ren zong tou)

In an effort to see what evidence I can find in the street of the election results I head to a street where I know they hang the newspapers for the Beijing people to read. (This used to be a very normal sight, on every street corner people could stand and read. Now these facilities are scarce, and used mainly by the older generation. I guess the young generation gets their news from internet, or just buys one of the many newspapers available at kiosks on every street corner.)

These guys are reading one of the two articles that I found on the whole stretch of the reading gallery that are about Obama winning the election. And the Obama article was not the biggest headline on the page!

Here’s the paper they’re reading, and as you can see, the Obama headline (the green vertical one) is not nearly as big as the top headline. The headline says: AMERICA TODAY ELECTS NEW PRESIDENT (mei guo jin ri xuan xin zong tou)