Satire: New Chinese Characters Created by Netizens

August 31, 2009 9:29 PM

Inspired by the revision of 44 Chinese characters proposed by China’s Ministry of Education, many Chinese netizens continue to create more characters as a form of online entertainment and political expression.  According to prominent blogger Hecaitou (???), on August 31, netizens created three new Chinese characters together with other digital artwork within twelve hours. CDT translates some of them:

Picture 5Adjective, Pronouced “nan“. This character is a combination of the characters for ?? (“naocan” brain damage).

Naocan is online lingo, used to describe someone who is not capable of thinking straight; often those whose thinking is crippled by party ideology.

Picture 6Noun?pronounced “wao.”  It is the combination of ?? (“wumao” fifty cents) is another common online lingo for government-trained and paid “commentators” who do not reveal their real identity and pretend to be ordinary netizens to spin government messages.

Picture 8

Noun, adjective and exclamation,  pronounced “diang”  It is a combination of ??? (“dangzhongyang” – ). Blogger , author of the hugely popular “Diary of the Digital Ocean (?????)”, interprets the character as “the ultimate, sacred, absolutely correct, cannot be questioned; you get the shit beaten out of you but cannot say a word.” “?????????????????????????????????”

Picture 9 This art work is entitled “LOST.”  Hecaitou describes it as: “Used for identification purposes among the Chinese who are traveling overseas.  Those who saw this picture and laughed hard at first, then shed tears silently, can be identified as mainland Chinese.” (“?????????????????????????????????????????????????????”) [The fonts used are compiled from the logos of popular web services blocked by the ]

Update: for example, one can say: “Diang, man! These nan waos must be working overtime.” (from Amy K. Bell’s blog)