Laowai of every stripe take to the ‘Net drumming up support to become one of only eight foreign Olympic torchbearers in China.

It’s been a sluggish couple of weeks on the Chinese Internet. Don’t get me wrong, I love absolutely everything about the CPC National Congress, but why do our Internet connections have to slow to a soul-crushing crawl? Thankfully these sad days without Youtube catharsis and high-speed social networking have not been a total loss with one diversion as entertaining as any I could dream of: the China Daily-Lenovo contest for Olympic torchbearers which will give eight lucky foreigners the chance to carry the torch.

Like any good election, you can't sit on your laurels; you have to get out on the Internet and kiss some cyber-babies. Most hopefuls started with run-of-the-mill mass e-mails to friends and family. “We sent out an email to about two dozen friends and relatives,” says Jaime Florcruz of CNN Beijing. “Many of them were friends among the media in China and overseas, as well as the two e-groups I belong to.” Others relied on Facebook to garner support, filling inboxes with requests for groups like “Mike Davie's Olympic Torchbearer Quest.”

Still, honest campaigners like Florcruz have been hindered by their unwillingness to game the voting system itself. Alan Paul, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal Online wrote that after sending out mass emails scrounging for votes, friends offered to rig computers to continuously cast votes for him. “I declined, but others may not have been so honest,” Paul writes. “One diplomat in Beijing signed up right before me. One day he had about 75 votes and I had about 200. The next day I had about 300 and he had over 5,000.”

Voting, however, is only one criteria for deciding who will carry the Olympic flame. A selection committee will determine the final eight Olympic torchbearers, but has not given any clues as to how those decisions will be made.

Therefore, although voting is officially over, I offer you my great eight. Selection Committee, please take note. (All candidate profiles can be found at www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/torch_page.html)

1) Jenny Bowen–The Deserving Bowen destroyed all the other candidates in the voting, and it’s not hard to see why. In 1998 she founded the Half the Sky Foundation, which has served close to 15,000 infants, toddlers, young children and teens in Chinese orphanages. If she wins, she will run with eight children from eight different provinces. C’mon, selection committee. This is a no-brainer. If she doesn’t win, Chris Crocker will throw a fit!

2) Marcos Antonio Torres–The Guilt-Tripper Marcos obviously knows what he’s doing:

Hope you can help me be the first Filipino torch bearer for the first time since the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. It is said that the first and only time a Filipino held the torch was during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics 44 years ago. If he doesn't carry it now, we may not have a Filipino in the next 50 years as it may take awhile again before the Olympics are held in Asia. Really, Marcos? I guess you're predicting disasters for Beijing ’08. Seriously though, no country that produced an actor of Weng Weng’s caliber should go 100 years without a torchbearer.

3) Serena Gao–The Impossibly Cute

Hi, I am Serena. I am 4 years old. I love watching TV, but Mommy said that I should go out and play. I want to be a Torchgirl because that will make Mommy proud. I am not joking around. This girl is so cute, it makes me want to go out and drown kittens.

4) Meena Barot – The “Us Against Them”

China and India are two countries the world is looking at with amazement. I couldn't be more fortunate to have been born in one (India) and have had an opportunity to stay in the other (China) for such a long time.

Meena successfully positions herself as a friend of China who knows the developing world. Strangely, similar strategies from Japanese contestants yielded comments like “YOU CAN WRITE 10000 comments, YOU STILL A BIG CHEATER! C H E A T E R!”

5) Claire Pearson–The Competent To be honest, there is nothing particularly impressive in Claire’s essay. However, in her picture she is holding a torch and looks convincing doing it. At least, Claire is unlikely to set herself on fire.

6) Liz Aab – The Overly-Honest In a contest marked by widespread cheating and Facebook pandering, Aab displayed her unwavering integrity by managing to secure only four votes. Seriously Liz, couldn’t you have written to your grandparents or something? Even Terry Kern got 20 votes as a write-in candidate.

7) Kook–The Hot Russian Kook didn’t actually get very many votes, but she got a lot of people asking for her phone number and e-mail address. Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem willing to write back, even when you write several times a day.

8) Andrew Church–The Scandal He's worth your vote if only because the well-fed Church is shown in the two most goofy "white foreigner in China” poses (dressed in a Chinese waiter suit and grinning on the Great Wall). Then you see the Shakespearean first line of his essay, “My first experience with China was as a young American consumer” and the choice is all the clearer. Then, when it can’t get any better, it turns out that Andrew Church is widely suspected of having cheated to get votes, inspiring posters like SMELLY FINGERS to write the following:

"Andy how does it feel to be an international Cheater, must be great. We are looking for you, until now we dindt know you where a CHEATER, but now hat we know, well be looking for you to kick some azz, babe.”

Please let Andrew Church run, but make him run in his waiter suit, and let SMELLY FINGERS chase him.

by Jonathan Haagen