{"id":12717,"date":"2014-06-04T16:37:41","date_gmt":"2014-06-04T21:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=12717"},"modified":"2014-06-05T05:47:14","modified_gmt":"2014-06-05T10:47:14","slug":"banned-in-beijing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=12717","title":{"rendered":"Banned in Beijing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone knows that the Chinese government goes to extraordinary lengths to police the internet (see: <a title=\"Permanent link to Blocked on Weibo\" href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=6163\" rel=\"bookmark\">\"Blocked on Weibo\"<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>And most sentient beings are aware of the awesome fame of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Grass_Mud_Horse\">Grass-Mud Horse,<\/a> the notorious <a href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=1225\">Franco-Croatian Squid<\/a>, and and the mysterious <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/River_crab_%28Internet_slang%29\">River Crab<\/a>.\u00a0 You can find all of them in <a title=\"Permanent link to Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon Classics\" href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=6538\" rel=\"bookmark\">\"Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon Classics\".<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sometimes, the censors begin to look pretty ridiculous, as when they <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2011_Chinese_protests\">outlawed the word \"jasmine\" in 2011<\/a>, particularly since it refers not just to the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jasmine_Revolution\">Jasmine Revolution<\/a>, but also to a favorite flower, tea, and folk song.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">m\u00f2l\u00ec \u8309\u8389 (\"jasmine\")<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">m\u00f2l\u00ec ch\u00e1 \u8309\u8389\u8336 (\"jasmine tea\") OR m\u00f2l\u00echu\u0101 ch\u00e1 \u8309\u8389\u82b1\u8336 (\"jasmine tea\") OR xi\u0101ngpi\u00e0n \u9999\u7247 (\"scented [usually with jasmine] tea\")<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/zh.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/%E8%8C%89%E8%8E%89%E8%8A%B1_%28%E6%B0%91%E6%AD%8C%29\">m\u00f2l\u00echu\u0101 \u8309\u8389\u82b1<\/a> (\"jasmine flower\", <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mo_Li_Hua\">name of a popular folk song<\/a>; presidents <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/blogs\/scocca\/2011\/02\/23\/kenny_g_and_hu_jintao_make_protest_music_tunisia_s_choice_of_revolutionary_symbols_confounds_chinese_censors_video.html\">Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao<\/a> were both excessively fond of this song, and there are videos of them singing it, so it becomes especially awkward to try to forbid citizens to use the word m\u00f2l\u00ec \u8309\u8389 (\"jasmine\")<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Today, of all days in the year, however, the CCP censors are out in fuller force than usual, with the result that a goodly portion of written Chinese has been eviscerated.<\/p>\n<p>Here, as presented on <a href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2014\/06\/sensitive-words-june-4th\/\">China Digital Times<\/a>, are some of the words that have been disappeared for the duration of the current paranoia over the 25th anniversary commemoration of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989\">Tiananmen Massacre:<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u4eca\u5929: today<\/li>\n<li>89\uff0b\uff08\u4efb\u610f\u5b57\u7b26\uff09: 89+(any keyword)<\/li>\n<li>\u5eff\u4e94\u5468\u5e74: twenty-fifth anniversary<\/li>\n<li>\u81f4\u656c: pay respects<\/li>\n<li>anniversary<\/li>\n<li>viiv: Roman numerals for six and four, i.e. June 4th (\u201cSix Four\u201d \u516d\u56db).<\/li>\n<li>\u5df1\u5df3\u6708+\u4e59\u672a\u65e5: Jisi month+Yiwei day. In the traditional 60-year cycle, the first term is equivalent to May-June 1989, the second to a number of dates in the same year including June 4.<\/li>\n<li>june 4<\/li>\n<li>Jun+4th<\/li>\n<li>6+4<\/li>\n<li>63+1<\/li>\n<li>65-1<\/li>\n<li>\u516d+\u56db: six+four<\/li>\n<li>\u516d4: six4<\/li>\n<li>6\u56db: 6four<\/li>\n<li>liusi: pinyin for \u201cSix Four\u201d (\u516d\u56db Li\u00f9 S\u00ec)<\/li>\n<li>bajiu: pinyin for \u201cEight Nine\u201d (\u516b\u4e5d B\u0101 Ji\u01d4), i.e. 1989<\/li>\n<li>\u9646\u8086: six four<\/li>\n<li>\u9646\u56db: six four<\/li>\n<li>\u516d\u8086: six four<\/li>\n<li>\u634c\u7396: eight nine<\/li>\n<li>\u634c\u4e5d: eight nine<\/li>\n<li>\u516b\u7396: eight nine<\/li>\n<li>\u516dfour: six FOUR (combination of Chinese character and English)<\/li>\n<li>six\u56db: SIX four (combination of character and English)<\/li>\n<li>six+four<\/li>\n<li>8\u7684\u5e73\u65b9: square of 8, i.e. 64<\/li>\n<li>\u516b\u7684\u5e73\u65b9: square of eight<\/li>\n<li>\u796d\u5960: memorial ceremony<\/li>\n<li>\u9ed1\u886b: <a href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/06\/preventing-tiananmen-mourning-at-shenzhen-u\/\">black shirt<\/a><\/li>\n<li>\u70db\u5149: candlelight<\/li>\n<li>\u7ef4\u56ed: Victoria Park \u2013 a candlelight vigil for victims of the crackdown is held every year in Victoria Park, Hong Kong.<\/li>\n<li>\u8721\u70db: candle<\/li>\n<li>\u5e73\u53cd: redress<\/li>\n<li>tank man<\/li>\n<li>TAM: short for Tiananmen<\/li>\n<li>tiananmen<\/li>\n<li>\u5929\u5b89\u95e8: Tiananmen<\/li>\n<li>\u5e7f\u573a: square<\/li>\n<li>\u5360\u5360\u4eba: characters used as pictures to respresent a person standing in front of tanks<\/li>\n<li>\u5360\u5360\u70b9: person being crushed by tanks<\/li>\n<li>\u5360\u70b9\u5360: person being crushed by tanks<\/li>\n<li>\u53cd\u5b98\u5012: oppose official profiteering<\/li>\n<li>\u5766\u514b: tank<\/li>\n<li>\u6212\u4e25: impose martial law<\/li>\n<li>\u5b66\u8fd0: student movement<\/li>\n<li>\u5b66\u6f6e: student strike<\/li>\n<li>\u5317\u4eac\uff0b\u5c60\u57ce: Beijing+massacre all the inhabitants of a conquered city<\/li>\n<li>\u4e01\u5b50\u9716: Ding Zilin \u2013 Mother of a teenager killed on June 4th and founder of the organization Tiananmen Mothers.<\/li>\n<li>\u9093\u5c60\u592b: Deng The Butcher \u2013 i.e.\u00a0Deng Xiaoping<\/li>\n<li>\u80e1\u8000\u90a6: Hu Yaobang \u2013 Liberal Party leader whose death on April 8, 1989 sparked pro-democracy protests<\/li>\n<li>\u8d75\u7d2b\u9633: Zhao Ziyang \u2013 Hu\u2019s successor as Party General Secretary. For his support of the student protesters, Zhao was purged from the Party and put under house arrest for the rest of his life.<\/li>\n<li>\u8881\u6728: <a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=Qd_ZhpEamBUC&amp;pg=PA20&amp;dq=%22yuan+mu%22&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=nEiPU5z-Bu_KsQSYgoHgAQ&amp;ved=0CEUQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&amp;q=%22yuan%20mu%22&amp;f=false\">Yuan Mu<\/a> \u2013 State Council Information Office spokesman during the 1989 protests and apologist for the regime.<\/li>\n<li>\u4e25\u5bb6\u5176: Yan Jiaqi \u2013 sociology student who went into exile in the US.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Do the Chinese authorities really believe that by forbidding and blocking the use of these words they can prevent the citizens of their country from thinking about the horrible events that took place in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foreignpolicy.com\/articles\/2014\/06\/03\/mapping_the_protests_that_swept_china_before_and_after_tiananmen\">Beijing and many other cities <\/a>on this day a quarter of a century ago?\u00a0 It seems to me that they grossly underestimate the intelligence and resourcefulness of China's netizens.\u00a0 The latter will always think of a way to outwit the thought police and language cops.\u00a0 Will the censors be able to catch every new punning reference to June 4, e.g., b\u00e0ba w\u00e0nsu\u00ec \u7238\u7238\u4e07\u5c81 (\"long live daddy!\") || b\u0101b\u0101 w\u00e0n su\u00ec \u516b\u516b\u4e07\u5c81 (\"long live 8 X 8 = 64\" &#8211;&gt; \"long live 6-4 \/ June 4\")?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone knows that the Chinese government goes to extraordinary lengths to police the internet (see: \"Blocked on Weibo\"). And most sentient beings are aware of the awesome fame of the Grass-Mud Horse, the notorious Franco-Croatian Squid, and and the mysterious River Crab.\u00a0 You can find all of them in \"Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon Classics\". Sometimes, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,87,208],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-and-politics","category-language-on-the-internets","category-puns"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12717"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12797,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12717\/revisions\/12797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}