Double Happiness in Olympics
In today’s NYTimes, some funny tidbits about Double Happiness (the design motif we break down here) in the 2012 London Olympics:
“The four gleaming [ping pong] courts at the competition, set in the middle of a 6,000-seat arena, were made in Shanghai by a company called Double Happiness Sports.”
And a fascinating explanation of why the sports company is named “Double Happiness”—an interesting remix on the marital celebration design motif:
China’s triumphs and Double Happiness have been linked for decades. The name of the company comes from the 1959 victory of a man named Rong Guotuan, who, at the World Table Tennis Championships, became the first citizen of the People’s Republic of China to win a world title in any sport. That was the first happiness. The second happiness? That the first happiness occurred on the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic.
