One of our team members leaving the project got a pair of fuwa dolls as a gift (first picture).
The Fuwa in the second picture (Chinese: 福娃; pinyin: Fúwá; literally “good-luck dolls”, also known as “Friendlies”), were the mascots of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The designs were created by Han Meilin, a famous Chinese artist. Check out more interesting detail on Wikipedia’s entry for ‘Fuwa’.
Finally, this also solves the mystery of my March 23 posting. The Hong Kong picture actually had three of the Beijing Olympics fuwa characters on it.
