First Lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha took in the sights while visiting the Great Wall of China on Sunday. But thing they didn’t see was t-shirt featuring President Barack Obama wearing a Chairman Mao Zedong hat.
According to a First Lady press pool report, the vendors at the historical site had been advised not to display or sell the shirts.
That tip turned out to be true. Several merchants denied carrying such items, but one merchant quietly took this correspondent to the back of her tent and showed off a whole box of the popular, normally seen t-shirts. As we were negotiating prices – she wanted 360 yuan, or roughly $60, an outrageous starting price – other merchants came by, and in Chinese, told her to be careful. The merchant became visibly rattled and put the t-shirts away.
Another reporter in the pool had a similar experience with a separate vender, but managed to snap a photo of one of the t-shirts.
“We don’t have them anymore,” a peddler told Wall Street Journal reporter Laurie Burkitt. “But if you come back next time, you might find them. You could come tomorrow.”
Burkitt was able to find one ‘Obamao’ t-shirt hidden behind others, but the vendor said it was not for sale on Sundays. The Obama-Mao t-shirts were also hidden during the President’s visit to the country in 2009, Burkitt reported.
Zedong was the first chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.
(h/t The Weekly Standard)
