White House, Dark Horse

Xiamen Economic Daily
January 21, 2009

Barack Obama’s swearing-in ceremony that took place yesterday is all over today’s Chinese newspaper front pages. Among them, Xiamen Economic Daily announced the news with the headline “White House, Dark Horse” (白宫黑马).

The headline puns on new president’s last name and race: the last syllable of the Chinese transliteration of Obama is “马” which means horse, and the “black” obviously refers to his skin color.

“黑马” (“literally black horse”) means the same as the English expression “dark horse”. It may be coincidence, but the “dark horse” headline is quite telling about the general response of the Chinese public to Obama’s seemingly surprising ascendancy.