10 Chinese code words to avoid censorship (part 2)

Unlike in Western countries **shifty eyes**, censorship in China is rampant, with the Chinese regime removing anything and everything from the internet if they think it might be even a tiny bit critical of their authoritarian actions.

This week the Charles Fudgemuffin blog takes a look at c*de words
used to beat c***orship by the authoritarian Chinese gove***ent.

So to fight back, clever Chinese people have created an ever growing list of code words and phrases to get around the censorship. Here are a few more examples...

1) Sensitive porcelain = Censored words

In a move worthy of a scene from the movie Inception, even the phrase 'censored words' is censored by the Chinese regime! So to get around the censorship, Chinese internet users refer to censored words as 'sensitive porcelain'.

It may at first seem like a strange term, but the reason for this coded phrase is that the Chinese words for 'words' and 'porcelain' are homophones, i.e. they are pronounced the same, but they are written with different kanji symbols.

Tweet! Tweet! I'm back again!

2) Reincarnation = Creating a new account after your previous one was deleted

This is a problem we also face in the West from the increasingly authoritarian behaviour of companies like facebook and twitter who sometimes ban or shadow ban accounts that don't follow the official establishment approved narrative.

However, in China the problem is even worse, so Chinese internet users have come up with a clever way to describe the process of having to set up a new social media account. Reincarnation!

3) Brickspert = Fake expert

The Western establishment Chinese government employ numerous media 'experts' to repeat whatever narrative they instruct them to push, and the Chinese people refer to these fake experts as bricksperts.

To explain the reasoning, the Chinese kanji for brick is made up of the symbols for 'expert' and 'rock'.  'Brickspert' is therefore a pun to suggest that these fake experts are like rocks who refuse to budge from the orders of their establishment masters.

4) Rice bunnies = #MeToo

Rice bunnies

Sadly, when it comes to covering up sexual harassment of women, the Chinese government is just as bad as Hollywood, and just as bad as the BBC, with the Chinese regime censoring mention of any sexual harrassment by those in power.

However, Chinese internet users cleverly came up with a way around the censorship. The Chinese word for rice is pronounced 'Mi' and the Chinese word for rabbit is pronounced 'Tu'. 'Rice bunnies' therefore became the obvious logical choice to refer to sexual harassment by the Chinese establishment against women.

"Be careful you don't suffer a fatal head injury!"

5) Hide and seek = To die in police custody

Some of the official stories used to explain deaths in police custody in China have been utterly ridiculous. One example of this was when a man died from head injuries, and the police claimed he received the injuries while playing hide and seek with other detainees.

To mock the ridiculousness of the official explanation, Chinese free speech proponents took to describing subsequent deaths in police custody as 'hide and seek'.

6) Chernobyl = Wuhan corona virus outbreak

Unsurprisingly, any online criticism of the way the Chinese government handled the Wuhan corona virus is censored in China. So to get around this, Chinese internet users have used Chernobyl as a code word for the Wuhan corona virus.

The code is inspired by a comparison of the Chinese government's handling of the Wuhan corona virus outbreak with the way the then-Soviet government covered up the full scale of the Chernobyl disaster.

7) Red Ten = Red Cross

"Red Ten standing by."

When Chinese officials were caught misappropriating China's National Red Cross supplies, the Chinese regime even censored mention of the Red Cross!

The Chinese kanji for ten is a slightly long plus sign, so the obvious code word chosen to beat the censors was 'Red Ten'.

8) Take a walk = Protest

Official protests are clamped down upon by the Chinese regime, so it's no surprise to find that anyone attempting to organise a protest using the internet will face heavy censorship.

To get around this the Chinese public have on occasion arranged to go for a walk on masse all at the same time. If the police attempt to arrest anyone, the protestors, or rather 'walkers' will then point out that it is not illegal to go for a walk.

When planning these covert protests online, the terminology used is therefore 'to take a walk'.

This photo is banned in China.

9) To board a plane = Ascend the throne

When President Xi removed the two term limit for a serving president of the Chinese Commnist Party, many Chinese netizens discussed the theory that Xi wanted to make himself emperor. As you'd expect all such discussion was quickly censored, so to get around this, Chinese citizens began using the phrase 'to board a plane', as it sounds very similar to 'ascend the throne'.*

* Not in English obviously. I mean in Chinese.

Sadly, it wasn't long before even the coded phrase 'to board a plane' was censored, which must make it awkward for Chinese internet users who do genuinely want to discuss boarding a plane!

Freedom!

10) Eye field = Freedom

Rather unsurprisingly, even the word 'freedom' itself is censored in China (much like the actual concept), so Chinese internet users get around this by using the code word 'eye field' to mean freedom.

The explanation for this is fairly straight forward. The Chinese kanji for 'eye field' is very similar to the kanji for freedom.

- - - - - - - - - -

My scifi themed short story, 'For The Greater Good', doesn't feature Emperor Xi. Neither does it feature Winnie The Pooh. However, it does feature an authoritarian dictator on the ficititious planet Norko.

You can find more code words to avoid Chinese censorship in my original blog post:
10 Chinese code words to avoid censorship (part 1)