Obama, half-brother meet briefly in Beijing

• Source: Global Times
• [14:16 November 19 2009]
• Comments

US President Barack Obama briefly met with his half-brother Monday in Beijing during his first official visit to China.

"We had a big hug. And my wife and he had a big, big hug. He was very powerful, very intense, because he's my big brother," Mark Obama Ndesandjo said in an interview with CNN Wednesday.

Ndesandjo lives in Shenzhen, southern China and recently wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, Nairobi to Shenzhen about his abusive father, Barack Obama Sr, who died in an automobile accident in 1982 at the age 46.

Although Obama said he didn’t read his brother’s book, he admitted that their troubled father is not a secret, who Obama also wrote about in his best-selling memoir.

"What I can say is we talked about family." Ndesandjo told CNN after the five-minute visit. Meanwhile, Obama, told the television network: "I don't know him well. I met him for the first time a couple of years ago. He stopped by with his wife for about five minutes during the trip."

The two men did not grow up together. Ndesandjo's mother, Ruth Nidesand, was Barack Obama Sr.'s third wife. But Obama and Ndesanjo have met from time to time as adults, and always manage to reforge their bond, Ndesandjo said.

Ndesandjo runs a business consultancy in China. He said the last time he met Obama was when he visited the US during the presidential election.

"There's always that personal connection, and I honestly don't see him as president of the United States when I'm next to him," said Ndesandjo.