Opinion: Don’t get ‘river-crabbed!’ How China is cracking down on punny dissent

An online blogger in China recently asked: how do you clean a flask? But the Mandarin word for flask is xi-jing-ping, which sounds like the name of China’s leader, Xi Jin Ping. Government censors suspected the writer was really asking, “How do you get rid the president of China?” They took down the query.

If someone online in China refers to President Xi as a “paratrooper,” they may not be hailing him as rugged and resourceful. Paratrooper in Mandarin is san bing, which sounds much like the word for “idiot.”

China’s Cyberspace Administration and Ministry of Education has begun what they call the Clear and Bright Campaign to prune the web in China of what they consider “irregular and uncivilized language.”

The language bureaucrats aren’t just watching for criticism of President Xi, mentions of the Tiananmen Square massacre, or demonstrations in Hong Kong. They want to extinguish the seemingly innocuous phrases many Chinese have ingenuously appropriated to express dissent.

Wen’guang Huang, the Chinese writer, translator, and author of the honored memoir, The Little Red Guard, who now lives in Chicago, gave us several examples.

Xiang jiao pi, which is banana peel in Mandarin, has the same acronym as the name of President Xi. The word for shrimp moss is xia tai, similar to the Mandarin phrase for “step down.” When someone on the Chinese web dares to declare, “Banana peel shrimp moss!” it is heard as a call for President Xi to step down.

When a Chinese censor finds an “irregular” phrase, they eliminate it, but call it “harmonizing”. He-xie, the Mandarin word for harmony, sounds like the word for river crab, and so people who have been censored report they have been “river-crabbed.”

Then there’s Cao Ni Ma, the Mandarin name for the mythical grass mud horse. It sounds similar to a phrase that is so profane, I can’t even hint at it. The Mandarin phrase for “cover your middle parts”, dang zhong yang, sounds close to the name of the Chinese Party Central Committee. And so the artist Ai Weiwei created a music video in which voices sing out, “Grass mud horse and cover your middle part!” in “Gangnam Style,” and, “Grass mud horse and river crab!”

Wen’guang Huang says the video can’t be seen in China, of course. But people there have heard about it, and might hum it in hushed tones. The tune is catchy and appealing — like free speech.