The banner reads “Tibetans and Han are One Family”. Shanghaiist’s Kenneth Tan points out a satirically photoshopped image of an identical vehicle outside Hong Kong’s Sogo department store in, supposedly, 2015, its banner reading “China and Hong Kong are One Family”.

If a declaration of fraternity hanging from the side of an armoured vehicle isn’t ironic enough, the blog Mountain Phoenix over Tibet notes (in a different context) the historical background of the name “Kangding” 康定. It replaced “Dajianlu” 打箭炉 (based on the Tibetan “Dartsedo”) in the early twentieth century, and is widely held to refer to the stabilisation or pacification of Kham (eastern Tibet).

A friend, who hails from Kardze town, tells me the name is a contraction of the Tibetan karpo (“white”) and dzebo (“graceful”) – actually a rather unlikely and funny name for a macho Khampa place. It sounds more like a name for a Tibetan cosmetics line: “Fair & Lovely”!

The town Kardze, however, is not the capital of the Prefecture Kardze. That privilege goes to Dartse(m)do, a formerly important trading-town on the old Sino-Tibetan border. But in present-day Tibet, folks who hail from Dartsedo would tell you they are from Kangding.

How Dartsedowas can be so brainless and voluntarily use that dreadful Chinese name is a mystery only they are able to penetrate. Doesn’t it mean “subjugation of Kham”? Arrog Khampa, what happened to your famous pride? Linguistics is a political battlefield, if you still haven’t noticed. Why do you shoot yourself in the foot?

The BBC’s Michael Bristow describes the extensive security operation currently in place in the area, following a series of self-immolations:

A BBC team was stopped and held at the roadblock [on the way to Kangding]. “Foreigners are not allowed into Tibetan areas,” said one security man.

We were then escorted back into Ya’an, where we were questioned at government offices by an official, surnamed Ma, who veered from friendly to threatening.

“You need to make a confession and sign a statement saying you will not go back into Tibetan areas,” he barked at one point ….

Robert Barnett, of New York’s Columbia University, said this region of western Sichuan, historically known to Tibetans as Kham, was relatively peaceful until a few years ago.

“We are talking about an area where China had a working relationship with Tibetans,” said Mr Barnett.

But he said trust started to disappear just over a decade ago when the central government began introducing hardline policies that were already in place in Tibet proper.

Kristin Jones at the Committee to Protect Journalists suggests that the policy of denying media access may be counterproductive:

Placing travel restrictions on journalists may have one unintended effect. It means that when it comes to unofficial news from China, activists and advocacy groups play a vital role in collecting and disseminating information.

Chinese authorities are hard on activists–even harder than they are on journalists. But by preventing reporters from doing their jobs, Chinese officials all but guarantee that activists are the ones reporting the news.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: history, language, media conditions, Robert Barnett, Sichuan, Tibet coverage
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Alongside jokes about the former vice mayor of Chongqing’s “vacation-style therapy,” netizens are comparing Wang to Lin Biao, the man once assumed to be Mao Zedong’s successor but condemned as a traitor after his mysterious death in 1971. “Weibers” are also exploiting the “Wang Lijun Incident” to poke fun at the Fifty Cent Party.

U.S. Department of State spokesperson Victoria Nuland confirmed on February 8 that Wang made and kept an appointment at the U.S. consulate in Chengdu and that he left “of his own volition.” The nature of his visit is under investigation. Wang may be dragging Bo along in his fall from grace.

Read previously translated comments here.

@i0301: Why did Wang Lijun flee to the American consulate instead of flying away like Lin Biao? Because he’d read the news and knew the Development and Reform Commission raised the price of oil again.
@i0301：王立军为什么跑到美领馆而不是如林彪一样坐飞机飞走？因为他看过新闻，知道发改委又上调油价了。

@gongminyaoyao: Wang Lijun teaches us that no matter how much of a fifty-center you are, at the moment of truth the Americans are boss.
@gongminyaoyao：王立军教育我们，不管怎么当五毛，关键时刻还是美国人才是亲爹啊！

@hesuoge: Weibo quote: Protective-style demolition, vacation-style therapy, condom-style rape, Chinese-style democracy.
@hesuoge：微博语录：保护性拆除、休假式疗养、带套式强奸、中国式民主。

@ChenQiye: Chengdu, the end point of the Fang-Han War.
@陈琦业：成都，一个终结方韩之争的城市。

@StarKnight: The law is not a shield, nor is the consulate an umbrella.
@StarKnight：法律不是挡箭牌，领馆亦非保护伞。

@hnjhj: To the Fifty-Centers and National Treasures “wiping screens” at this moment:  I am really worried about you guys. This is a very dangerous profession. You need to leave a way out, to give yourselves a lead. You should ensure that at the critical moment you can move freely in and out of America. If that’s not possible, you should ensure that you will not be refused asylum when you seek it at the consulate. And if that’s not possible, you should ensure that your application for a U.S. visa won’t be denied.
@hnjhj：此时此刻在推上刷屏的五毛、国保们啊，真替你们捉鸡啊，都是高风险行业啊，留后路很重要啊，要留足提前量啊。务必确保关键时刻可以自由进出美国啊，不行也要确保去领馆寻求庇护不能拒收啊，实在不行也要确保申请美国签证不能拒签啊。

@YeYing: [Chongqing Model #1]: : Let some people get nervous first (a play on Deng Xiaoping’s “Let some people get rich first”). [Chongqing Model #2]: Let some people fight with each other first. [Chongqing Model #3]: Let some people get vacation-style therapy first.
@叶隐：【重庆模式之一】：让一部分人先紧张起来。【重庆模式之二】让一部分人先咬起来。【重庆模式之三】让一部分人先休假式治疗起来。

@shmueloy: Before Bo Xilai was ready to play Mao Zedong, Wang Lijun was already playing Lin Biao.
@shmueloy：薄熙来还没准备好演毛贼东，王立军就已经入戏演林彪了。

@HistoricalTeacherYuanReturns: “Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.” –Claud Cockburn
@历史袁老师归来：任何消息未经官方否认之前，都不能轻易相信。 ——克劳德·柯克本

© fionasmith for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Wang Lijun, weibo
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

February 4:

“Wang Lijun” (王立军): “Wang Lijun” was found to be unblocked during a re-test on February 8.

February 7:

“Political asylum” (政治庇护): Wang is rumored to have sought political asylum in the U.S. Consulate at Chengdu.

“U.S. Consulate” (美领馆): Found unblocked in a February 8 re-test.

February 8:

“Pingxi Wang” (平西王, which literally means “King Who Pacifies the West”): Pingxi Wang is a title that Wu Sangui, a military general during late Ming Dynasty, was rewarded after he betrayed his country. It’s also a popular online nickname for Bo Xilai.

“Governor Bo”(薄督): Another alias for Bo Xilai.

“Lai Junchen” (来俊臣): A secret police official during Tang Dynasty; netizens often refer to Wang as Lai Junchen because of their similarity.

“U.S. Consulate at Chengdu” (成都美领馆)

Note: CDT Chinese has launched a project to crowd-source filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search. CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information.

© fionasmith for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Internet censorship, sensitive words, Wang Lijun
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

In the brief time since the Chongqing government announced that Wang Lijun would be taking time away from his post as vice-mayor of Chongqing for “vacation-style therapy,” the phrase has risen to meme status. Weibo alone returns almost 50,000 results for the search term. Below are some sample netizen comments collected by the China Digital Times editors from Weibo, Google+, and Twitter. Read the original comments here.

From Weibo:

@ZhouXingxing: Maintenance-style demolition, vacation-style therapy, let’s continue: consoling-style rape, harmony-style looting, environmental-style murder, scientific-style theft…

@ChangCheng: What gives? Protective-style demolition, vacation-style therapy, condom-wearing rape, suicidal dismemberment.

@SnowInChina: Top couplet: Beijing–”Maintenance-style demolition,” Bottom couplet: Chongqing: “Vacation-style therapy.”

@OldGhostADing: This scroll may not be the best: “Autonomous Innovation.”

@ZhaoWenkui: Scroll: “Spring has come.”

@PanYuejianWritesSongs: “The great motherland’s spring has come.” “Happy Chinese people, spring has come!”

From Google+:

Bender Fly: I recommend Vice-Mayor Wang sing red songs. Even the vegetative are revived by red songs. I can’t imagine they wouldn’t cure Vice-Mayor Wang’s sickness.

Peng Cong: President Fang, why don’t you go take a vacation, too?

From Twitter:

@krislc: I want #vacation-styletherapy, too… Everyone else go to the American embassy. I’m not picky, the British consulate works for me.

@BillGatesCN: All these years I’ve been getting #vacation-styletherapy.

@AdeySO: Nature’s spring has come. Let’s take some more #vacation-styletherapy.

@sk0207: @krislc @28481k #British scholars have lately discovered that, in order to be invited to undergo #vacation-styletherapy, one must be intercepted en route to the embassy! Visas and such are all meaningless.

© fionasmith for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Wang Lijun
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

@Journalist Li Guosheng: Hunan Provincial Discipline and Inspection Commission Order to Detain Petitioner: Li Xiang is from Kaifu District in Changsha. In 2006, her village land was reclaimed and her house was demolished.  She then began to petition.  In July of 2011, she once again petitioned the Hunan Provincial Discipline and Inspection Commission.  Shockingly, the provincial Discipline and Inspection Commission’s petitioning office sent the following letter to the Kaifu District Discipline and Inspection Commission: “If she goes to Beijing to petition, you may detain her.”  After this news got on the web, the head of the petitioning office found Li Xiang and implored her to delete the post, saying, “I’m begging you.”¹

¹ Literally “I’m calling you Grandma and Grandpa.” To be a “grandchild” is to humble yourself before your elder. It implies kneeling to someone in supplication.

© fionasmith for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: weibo
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

- A female colleague just came back from a blind date. She is quite excited. She said to me, this man is quite accomplished. He is just over thirty and is already the Chief Manager of the China Office of the Facebook. I said to her: grab him, don’t miss this one.

Following are some of the comments under this post:

- We are in the same business then. I am the CEO of the China office of Youtube*.

- I won’t tell you that I am the chief representative of the China office of Twitter*.

- I am exactly 30 this year. My father is the Commander-in-Chief of Mongolia’s Navy.

- Facebook’s prospectus has listed four countries which limited their citizens to visit their website: Syria, Iran, China, and North Korea. These are what in history books will be called the “four ancient civilizations.”

- The acronym [of the "four ancient civilizations"] is SICK.

- The sin of Facebook is that it lets people meet whom they want to meet. The sin of Twitter is that it lets people say what they want to say. The sin of Google is that it lets people know what they want to know. The sin of YouTube is that it lets people show the reality which needs to be shown. Almost all the world’s top ten websites are blocked in China. Why do we want to be the enemy of those technologies that have changed the world?

* [YouTube and Twitter are also blocked inside China]

© Xiao Qiang for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Facebook, Internet censorship, jokes, Twitter
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

• forced demolition
• elderly not helped when they have fallen
• chengguan brutality
• ditch oil
• Yao Jiaxin
• China-Africa Hope Project
• demolition of schools for children of migrant workers
• boozing, womanizing cadres
• Wenzhou train crash
• collapsed bridge
• “It’s not rape if you wear a condom“
• Guo Meimei
• Sinopec spending on luxury liquor

Click “CC” for English subtitles. (Translated by Harriet Xu)

© fionasmith for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2011, chengguan. high-speed rail crash, guo meimei
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The first one refers to recent tensions over the East China Sea.

[Diaoyu Islands belong to which country?] Answer: Bring a laptop computer there. If you can open Twitter, they belong to Japan. If you can’t open Twitter, they belong to China!
【钓鱼岛属于哪个国家？】答：带台电脑去钓鱼岛，如果能打开twitter就属于日本，打不开就属于中国！

The second one references a recent order that homes, temples and schools in Tibet must display portraits of China’s leaders.

Cadres went from house to house to ask: Have you hung all the leaders [portraits]? They all answer: Hung, we hung them all!*

* The word 挂 (gua) literally means to hang, but is also online slang for “dead.” So the double-entendre is: “The leaders are all dead!”
干部挨家挨户问：领导人都挂了吗？那边答：挂了，都挂了！

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: diaoyu islands, jokes, political satire
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Zhou Yunpeng, the blind folk rocker from the northeastern city of Shenyang, serves up tart satire in his songs. Performing at small venues in Beijing, Zhou sings about the darker side of the new China: coal mining accidents, the Karamay Fire, and the drifting lives of the unemployed have all reared their heads in his lyrical music. In his music and poetry, he sighs at what is lost in our modern lives.

Zhou’s editorial, “We Want to Sign in Dialect,” appeared in December 22, 2011 edition of Nanfang Daily. As is common, Zhou uses the term fangyan to refer both to dialects of Mandarin, such as is spoken in Guizhou Province, and non-Mandarin languages, such as Shanghainese. Original text here. (Translated by Harriet Xu)

As all cities are building their own Tian’anmen, and everyone must speak Mandarin, there is no longer a place for theater or a home for folk ballads. Chinese musicians have already made a conscious about-face. Their mouths are no longer full with foreign words, and their eyes are no longer fixed on the Beatles or Pink Floyd. At the end of the 90s, a man from northern Guangdong Province, Yang Yi, rode a 28 bike to northern Shaanxi Province, singing Shaanxi folk music in a Shaanxi accent, as home-grown as it gets. Jiangsu eccentric Zuoxiao Zuzhou simply invented an out-of-tune dialect with an absurd accent. It was like the sound of a seller’s voice in a small southern city alley, buzzing and crashing, an honorable refusal of Mandarin.

Our ancestors left us treasures embedded in these dialects: a unique family inheritance, a bag of tricks, inexhaustible. With the start of the new century, the band from open-skied Gansu Province Wild Children sang “Ballad of the Yellow River” and “If I Had Known Earlier” on the road as they entered Beijing. Following this, respectable underground rock and roll bands that used the Lanzhou dialect began to arise. These performers called out, changing their greetings to “Hǎo zhe ne? Qù nǎ ha? (好着呢? 去哪哈?)”

Does singing rock and roll require the din of northern dialects? The Shanghai band Top Floor Circus sings in authentic Shanghainese, using a sissy accent for big punk music. They declare, “I am Shanghainese, and if I die, I want to die in beautiful Shanghai.” In 2010, they made jabs at the Shanghai World Expo Their shows were banned and they paid 20,000 yuan in fines. Setting a precedent for heavy penalties for underground music in China.

The band Wu Tiao Ren, from Haifeng County in Guangdong, is all about the Haifeng dialect. Their album Memories of the County Town is incredibly beautiful, funny, and violent, as if to remind us, “I am a peaceful ‘southern barbarian,’ but you’d better not mess with me.”

A new folk star from Guizhou, Yao Thirteen, has translated Liu Yong’s “Bells Ringing in the Rain” into the Guizhou Zhijin County dialect. Simply put, it is in no way second to the classic translation. Entranced, you’ll feel like Liu Yong is an old Guizhou buddy who eats sour soup fish.

As I think of my voyage through a thousand miles of mists and waves
Where the evening clouds are somber and the distant skies vast
Lovers has suffered since ancient times the sorrows of parting.
How can I further bear my solitude in this clear autumn season?
Where shall I be when I wake from my drink tonight?
Willow banks, the breeze at dawn, and the waning moon. (trans. Liu Wu-chi)

Middle Chinese:

Niàn qù qù qiānlǐ yānbō, mù’ǎi chénchén chǔ tiān kuò.
Duōqíng zìgǔ shāng líbié
Gèng nǎkān lěngluò qīngqiū jié!
Jīnxiāo jiǔ xǐng héchù? Yāngliǔ àn, xiǎofēngcányuè.

念去去千里烟波，暮霭沉沉楚天阔。
多情自古伤离别，
更哪堪冷落清秋节！
今宵酒醒何处？杨柳岸，晓风残月。

Guizhou Dialect:

Wǒ yào shuō zǒu lei, zhī qiānlǐ lei yānwù bōlàng lei
A hēi bábá de tiān, hǎo dà o…
Lāmen jiǎng, shì zhī yàngzi lei, líbié shì zuì nánzài lei
Gèng qiú búyào jiǎng, xiànzài shì qiūtiān lei
Wǒ yī hā jiǔ xǐnglái, wǒ zài nǎ diǎn
Yángliǔ lei ànbiān, fēng chuī yíge xiǎo yuèliàng lei…

我要说走嘞，之千里嘞烟雾波浪嘞
啊黑拔拔的天，好大哦。。。
拉们讲，是之样子嘞，离别是最难在嘞
更球不要讲，现在是秋天嘞
我一哈酒醒来，我在哪点
杨柳嘞岸边，风吹一个小月亮嘞。。。

Dialects have a definite power and give us deep satisfaction. Mandarin is only suitable for explaining the “animal world” or for reading eulogies. If you were to come back home for the Spring Festival and use proper Mandarin to tactfully state, “Father, Mother, happy Spring Festival,” everyone would laugh at you and think you had just come from the Spring Festival Gala.

I’ve heard that some offices have issued orders restricting the Guangzhou media from using Cantonese on television channels. To me, this is a crime. We are already familiar with how to tear things down. Let us not raze languages to build a grand plaza. Our parents’ generation and our ancestors lived within their dialects. If I just open my mouth, you’ll immediately know where I’m from. True enough, the ground below my feet is no longer is mine. But within the realm of these dialects, my ancestors and I can rest in peace.

© fionasmith for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dialect, music, Zhou Yunpeng
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Faced with the largest outbreak of Tibetan unrest since riots in Lhasa and elsewhere in 2008, the government is taking no chances that the turmoil — which has included Chinese forces firing on and killing some demonstrators — will spread.

Armed soldiers in dun-colored camouflage trooped up and down Wuhouci Hengjie, a tree-shaded lane that is home to two government offices. Police cars, vans and even tow trucks, their red-and-blue light bars flashing, were stationed every 50 to 100 yards. Bands of police officers patrolled the sidewalks; on one corner, they upbraided an angry Tibetan man as anxious women grabbed his arms, pulling him away.

Asked about the heavy security, one shopkeeper sarcastically suggested the forces were in town to prevent rowdiness during the spring festival, a traditional Chinese holiday.

He added quietly: “I don’t dare talk. The police came to my shop and told me not to spread the word.”

While authorities have acknowledged at least one death in the violence, without providing details of who killed whom, they are launching a media campaign to blast “distortions” by the Dalai Lama and his Western supporters. From China Daily:

The clashes caused at least one death and others, including policemen, were injured.

As usual, Western government officials and the self-proclaimed Tibetan government-in-exile spared no effort in taking the opportunity to criticize the Chinese central government.

The London-based Free Tibet advocacy group claimed that police opened fire on Tibetans peacefully protesting against religious repression in the southwestern province of Sichuan, killing at least one and injuring more than 30.

This was refuted by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, which said the true cause of the clash was a mob intent on storming stores and the police station.

“Overseas forces promoting ‘independence for Tibet’ have always fabricated rumors and distorted the truth to discredit the Chinese government with issues involving Tibet,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei.

Meanwhile, political cartoonists in China have taken up the story with some hard-hitting images about the current situation. From Rebel Pepper (变态辣椒):

And from Hexie Farm:

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Sichuan, Tibet protests
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall