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A cartoon
panda and Tibetan antelope（藏羚羊） are the newest Olympic
players. They were among five mascots introduced last Friday for
the 2008 Summer Games.
The announcement（宣布） was made at a nationwide gala（庆典）,
marking the 1,000-day countdown（倒数计时） to the event.
The Five Friendlies
The five mascots are called the Five Friendlies. They are a
panda, fish, Tibetan antelope, swallow（燕子） and the Olympic
flame（火焰）. Each mascot the color of one of the Olympic rings,
they also represent the sea, forests, fire, earth and air.
The Five Friendlies are called “Beibei,” “Jingjing,”
“Huanhuan,” “Yingying” and “Nini,” which together mean
“Beijing Huanying Ni” or in English – “Welcome to
Beijing”.
The Five Friendlies will join the games slogan（口号） “One
World, One Dream” and running man symbol which looks like the
Chinese character for “capital.”
The Five Friendlies is the most number of mascots any Olympic
Games has had in more than 30 years. The Salt Lake City and Sydney
Games both had three.
"They are cute, but where is the monkey
king?”
Altogether Beijing has received 662 suggestions. Among those
that didn’t make the cut（被选上） were the dragon（龙） and the
monkey king out of Chinese folklore（民间传说）.
“The mascots are cute and can
represent（表现） our Chinese culture,” said Xu Mengyuan, a
student with Shanghai Foreign Languages School. “But it’s a pity
that the monkey king is not among the mascots.”
Lan Shixin, a student with the Pudong Foreign Languages School,
SISU, shared Xu’s opinion about the monkey king. “Monkey king
fights away bad guys and its cartoon image is famous. It should
have been included in the mascots,” Lan said.
Gift to the
world
Last Saturday, more than 300
licensed（获许可的） products bearing the mascots goes on sale at
the 188 shops across the country. They include key rings（钥匙扣）,
dolls, bags, T-shirts, caps, pens and medals.
The mascot products range from fluorescent pens（荧光笔） for 8
yuan to metals selling for tens of thousands of yuan.
“I would love to buy a cap bearing the Five Friendlies,” Xu
Mengyuan said.
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