Google China, along with Google Taiwan, Google Hong Kong, celebrates Chinese New Year today. Google has put up firecracker graphics around their result AdWords. Google also put up a special logo showing a calendar page being turned from the year of the pig to the year of the rat. Clicking on the logo will return a search result as shown above which, using a onebox, promotes a Google Rebang site to send free, predefined SMS holiday greetings. This onebox also pops up for some other queries, like ?? (new year).

Chinese New Year is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is sometimes called the Lunar New Year, especially by people outside China. It is an important holiday in East Asia. [Wikipedia]

This year is the Year of the Rat, that’s why you are seeing the rats up there. The Chinese character on the logo (?), loosely translates as luck and wealth. Google Translate returns something else.

Google, Google China, China, New Year, Chinese New Year, Celebration, Logo, Rat Year