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China news tagged with: satire (56)

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Video: “网瘾战争 War of Internet Addiction” (Updated)
DigiCha has posted links to YouTube videos, now with English subtitles, mocking government efforts to crackdown on gaming (Videos embedded below). DigiCha points out that episode 6 (of 7) has the most obvious discussion of Internet controls. This video has already had more than million visits inside of China. From their introduction:
It is an hour long video, “shot” almost entirely with in-game video from World of Warcraft, satirizing the government’s attempt to “harmonize” China’s Internet with forced installations of “Green Dam Youth Escort” and the travails of Chinese World of Warcraft players over the last several months.
…The film tracks the fight between The9 ($NCTY) and Netease ($NTES) over the renewal rights to Activision Blizzard’s ($ATVI) World of Warcraft, the requirement that skulls be removed from World of Warcraft (hence the Skull Party), the bureaucratic battles between GAPP and the Ministry of Culture over the re-approval of WoW in China, the money-obsessed Uncle Yang and his Internet addiction camps and electro-shock therapy (see this forthcoming Feb 2010 Wired article on China’s Internet addiction camps), and the attempts to impose “Green Dam Youth Escort” software on Chinese web users. The movie concludes with an impassioned speech calling for Chinese World of Warcraft players to end their silence and fight the attempts to keep them away from World of Warcraft, followed by an agreement between the warring bureaucracies-GAPP and MOC–to put aside their dispute and go after Netease for more money.
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- January 26, 2010 4:28 PM
BlogTD: Cartoons About Recent News Events
Guangzhou-based cartoonist Guaiguai is an extremely popular and prolific blogger. His work and name is all over Chinese cyberspace, as well as his brand name BlogTD. Here are some examples of his recent work:
Hillary Leading the People, a photo-shopped version of Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People.
Man: Darling, my cell phone service was cut off because I did not pay the bill, really not because I sent out those dirty jokes.” (As part of the recent anti-vulgarity campaign, China Mobile stopped clients’ service if they sent out porn jokes by text message.)
Watch out! He is backing out!
“Are you saying this slogan is vulgar?” (The slogan reads “Building a Socialist Country with Chinese Characteristics!” The circled characters, “characteristics” (te se) sounds like “very pornographic.”)
Helping people in Haiti. (Chinese official media’s reporting of earthquake aid for Haiti carries a nationalistic, self-promotional tune.)
Google walked away. (TMD is an abbreviation for Tamade (他妈的) or “Fuck it!”)
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- January 21, 2010 9:49 PM
Music Video: “My Brother’s at the Bare Bottom” (我哥在光腚)
The Orwellian control efforts of Chinese Internet censors have not only generated an attention-getting pushback from Google, but on the heavily policed Chinese Internet, there are plenty of signs for resistance as well. The following music video parody shows that coded resistance from Chinese netizens is alive and well. In this bitter winter of the Chinese Internet, even the most self-censored Chinese search engine Baidu still can find over 29,000 copies of this song, including on one of the nation’s largest news and game portals, Netease. If you search the title of the song on Google? Over 830,000 webpages show up. (Lyrics translated by CDT’s E. Shih.)
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- January 18, 2010 10:10 PM
How Chinese People See Their Compatriots
The following maps, illustrating how people from various regions of China supposedly view their compatriots, are floating around the Internet:
The view from Beijing:

Hong Kong

And Guangzhou:

More maps can be seen here, from jinjec.com, via Veggie Discourse.
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- November 11, 2009 11:23 PM
Computer Technology Float for National Day Parade
Participants in the October 1st National Day celebrations, mostly students and soldiers, have been working hard to prepare for the big show. But Chinese netizens are creating their own parallel celebration as well. Here is an example currently being sent around the blogosphere: A Parade Float exhibiting China’s most advanced computer technology:
(The board shows the computer screenshot: “Internet Explorer cannot exhibit this page” – a common experience of Chinese netizens when they try to open some “undesirable content” online.)
Image source: photo.sina.com.cn.
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- September 19, 2009 9:26 PM
Satire: New Chinese Characters Created by Netizens
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 (和菜头), on August 31, netizens created three new Chinese characters together with other digital artwork within twelve hours. CDT translates some of them:
Adjective, Pronouced “nan“. This character is a combination of the characters for 脑残 (“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.
Noun，pronounced “wao.” It is the combination of 五毛 (“wumao” fifty cents) Fifty cent party 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.
Noun, adjective and exclamation, pronounced “diang” It is a combination of 党中央 (“dangzhongyang” – CCP Central Committee). Blogger hecaitou, author of the hugely popular “Diary of the Digital Ocean (比特海日志)”, 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.” “意思是至高无上的，神圣的，绝对正确的，不容质疑的，抽你丫没商量的。”
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.” (“它用于在海外旅行的华人之间相互辨别身份。凡是看到这张图片先是哈哈大笑，然后黯然落泪的，可以判断为大陆同胞。”) [The fonts used are compiled from the logos of popular web services blocked by the Great Firewall]
Update: for example, one can say: “Diang, man! These nan waos must be working overtime.” (from Amy K. Bell’s blog)
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- August 31, 2009 9:29 PM
The Onion on China
The satirical U.S. newspaper The Onion has devoted it recent issue to China after claiming it was bought out by a Chinese corporation called Fish Time 鱼完美 (“Almagamated Salvaged Fisheries and Polymer Injection Corp”).
Articles in the issue include:
China Strong
Nothing At All Happens To 28 Tibetan Protesters, Their Families
Potato-Faced Youngster Lauded For Memorizing Primitive 26-Character Alphabet
Yao Ming!
Workers Protest Over-Ventilation Of U.S. Factories
Clear American Sky A Constant Reminder Of Industrial Inferiority
From China Strong:
In other news, the Chinese government is fair, all-knowing, and wise, propelled by the strength of two billion loyal hands, all pulling together as one under the Great Celestial Bureaucracy high above.
Experts all agreed that there can be no question of this claim, as this claim is the truth.
Two video reports are below:

China Celebrates Its Status As World’s Number One Air Polluter

China’s Andy Rooney Has Some Funny Opinions About How Great The Chinese Government Is
» Read more
- July 20, 2009 3:42 PM
Blogger: Google’s Recent Troubles
In response to the recent uproar over escalating Internet controls in China, and in particular the blocking of various Google services, Chinese bloggers are sending around the following spoof of the Google logos:
Everyone in the world knows Google…
地球人都知道Google……
Google says “doing no evil” is in their DNA….
Google说它不作恶是它的DNA……
Google is just a platform, the contents are produced by users….
Google只是平台，内容是用户生成的……
But Big Brother is always watching…..
老大哥其实一直在盯着……
Actually, Google.cn was self-censored a long time ago
其实，Google.cn早已经“嫣然”……
But they still don’t want to let Google go, even though they are in the midst of a whirlpool….
可他们还是不想放过Google，哪怕它早已在漩涡之中……
They accuse Google of pornography…
他们控诉Google涉黄……
Some people say, porn is porn, just use protection [homonym for Web proxy Tor]…
有人建议说，黄就黄吧，带套（tor）就行……
But early on the detectives discovered that Google had been framed….
其实早有侦探发现Google是被诬陷……
Soon the rogues were running wild….
一时间群魔乱舞……
But rumor had it that one company in particular was especially pleased…
坊间传言说有一家公司特别高兴……
Suddenly one night Google and Google Books disappeared…
突然有一天晚上Google不见啦，Google Book也没了……
Not long after Google came back, but people were still very scared….
没一会儿Google就又回来了，可是人们还是非常害怕……
One day, will we need to use Morse Code to read Google?
难道有一天我们要用摩斯码看Google？
Or Braille?
还是我们要用布雷码？
Oh, I know, we can all become frogs, and leap over the wall….
哦，想起来了，其实我们早就变成了青蛙，会翻墙……
Is this really the end for Google?
难道Google真的在沦陷？
Sooner or later will it just leave its remains?
还是早晚只剩下尸骨残骸？
Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream and so do I…
马丁路德金有的我也有……
That when I get old, I’ll still be able to use Google….
到我老的时候还是能用Google……
And we will always be able to see what we want to see…
我们总是或者总会能看到我们想看到的……
» Read more
- June 26, 2009 11:31 AM
Shanghaiist: More Ballads to the Grass Mud Horse (with Video)
The grass-mud horse (草泥马) meme has been spreading like wildfire over the Internet in China and shows no signs of banking. Shanghaiist has collected three more original songs and videos of the mythical creature which has become the mascot for Chinese netizens’ defiance of official censorship online.
We’ve already reported on the current darling of the internets, the Grass Mud Horse (草泥马), last week. But after a bout of Youtube surfing over the weekend, we realized that we weren’t doing the almost religious fanaticism to this new meme justice. So we’ve included some more “Cao Ni Ma” ballads to lighten up your Monday morning.
First off, a girl sings about love relationships amongst the Grass Mud Horses. When Male and Gebi bred, they produced an offspring they named “法克泥马（Fa Ke Ni Ma）”
Two other videos feature the grass-mud horse in a Chinese folk song sung by a children’s chorus accompanied by a full orchestra.
See more of CDT’s previous grass-mud horse coverage here and here.
» Read more
- March 16, 2009 12:29 AM
China State Broadcaster Apologizes for Hotel Fire; Netizens React (Images Added)
Authorities have now acknowledged that the devastating fire at the CCTV complex in Beijing, which killed one firefighter and injured several others, was caused by an illegal fireworks display set off by CCTV itself. The broadcaster has issued a statement of apology. From AP:
CCTV said it was deeply grieved “for the severe damage the fire caused to the country’s property.”
“According to the Beijing fire department, this fire occurred because the person in charge of the construction of the new building project of CCTV, without permission, hired staff to set off fireworks that violated regulations,” the broadcaster said in a statement on its Web site.
The fireworks used were classified as grade “A,” making them powerful and dangerous enough that a special permit was needed to set them off downtown.
However, the display’s organizers did not obtain such permits and ignored police warnings, CCTV said. Because the building was still under construction, fire fighting systems were not yet functioning, it said.
Meanwhile, Chinese netizens are busy finding humor in an otherwise tragic situation and spreading Photoshopped images, mostly at CCTV’s expense. While many netizens have expressed their sorrow for the losses in the fire, including the firefighter’s death, a large number of commentaries and spoofs (often using the trendy image of “Grass Mud Horse“) also reflect netizens’ common critical view of CCTV as a powerful propaganda machine. Some of the sharper and more critical posts are quickly being deleted, but many humorous images and cartoons are being widely spread. Many images and cartoons are here, here and here.

“Big Underpants“; “Grass Mud Horse” & “Firebird”
Zuola, a well-known citizen blogger, set up a collaborative aggregation page for the CCTV Big Fire, with BBS and twitter reports, photos, cartoons, news and blog commentaries.
Han Han, China’s most popular young writer and leading blogger had an immediate comment on his blog when he heard about the fire, in his typical witty, sarcastic style (the post has already been censored, but is still being reposted by many of his fellow bloggers):
“It’s said that the building had not been put into service when the fire took place, which was a fortunate thing in this disaster. I hope nobody got injured or killed in this accident. …… As for CCTV, this is so hard to imagine, such a always truth-speaking media, how could it be hit by such a tragic event? The gods must have been blind.”
The full translation of Han Han’s censored text is here.
Grass Mud Horse?
Update: See also a post from the Time China blog and “China’s CCTV network gets little sympathy after hotel fire” from the Los Angeles Times:
Even before it was revealed Tuesday that an unauthorized fireworks display organized by China Central Television caused the spectacular fire that destroyed one of Beijing’s new glass-and-steel landmarks, the state-run broadcaster was already the subject of its own firestorm on the Internet.
The inferno at CCTV’s new, still-unoccupied headquarters complex laid bare simmering anger and resentment toward the network both for spending public money on grand construction projects and for continuing to broadcast government propaganda.
“As long as there aren’t any injuries, let it burn. They don’t need so many buildings [in]the first place,” wrote one typical anonymous poster at the popular news portal Sohu.com. “CCTV enjoys too much luxury already. They will always have enough buildings, even though this building is down.”
» Read more
- February 10, 2009 10:46 AM
Charter 08 Still Alive in the Chinese Blogosphere － Xia Yeliang (夏业良) etc.
Despite the severe and targeted censorship, posts about Charter 08 are still quietly popping up in the Chinese blogosphere. Here are two examples:
Xia Yeliang (夏业良), Ph.D., Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Peking University Foreign Economics Research Center, wrote a post “In the year of the ox I want to be a happy pig.” Excerpts translated by CDT’s Japhet Weeks.
At the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 I was called in for chats, twice. The first time the subject was Charter 08. They wanted to know whether or not I was one of the original authors of the document, why I had signed it, etc. The chat wasn’t with the Public Security Bureau — I was already celebrating my good luck, even though they hadn’t offered me either tea or coffee. The person in charge of the chat said: You shouldn’t think that you’re smarter than other people. Peking University has so many professors, why is it that only you and He Weifang signed the charter? This is proof that everyone else trusts the Party and the government. You should stick to doing research in economics; don’t get involved in political science or constitutional studies. You should treasure your position at Peking University. (I imagine that keeping that position depends on how I behave and what I do after this talk.)
The second example is a joke entitled “General Secretary Hu on Charter 08.” The text is being circulated among many instant messaging service groups, and re-posted by “For a Laugh” (博笑) at a blog called Words Not Caught by the Net, translated by CDT’s Japhet Weeks:
Party Secretary Hu Jintao was pleased to learn that the special investigative team had already discovered the source of Charter 08. A feast had been arranged in the the Great Hall of the People, and the special investigative team was gathered.
Hu asked: “Has Liu Xiaobo explained everything?”
The special investigative team: “He coughed up everything, and his story checks out.”
Hu asked: “So where does the idea of a ‘federal republic’ come from?”
The special investigative team: “It comes from a communique of the second general assembly of Chinese Communist Party. The wording of the original text is: ‘build a free federal republic,’ with an extra word ‘free’.”
Hu asked: “Then, then what about ‘nationalization of the military’?”
The special investigative team: “We also figured that out! It comes from an anthology of Zhou Enlai’s thought. The wording of the original text is: ‘We must achieve nationalization of the military,’ with extra wording ‘We must achieve’.”
Hu asked: “Then, then praising ‘western-style democracy,’ where does that come from?”
The special investigative team: “An editorial in the the Xinhua Daily Newspaper. The wording of the original text is: ‘America represents democratic society,’ with extra wording ‘America represents’.”
Hu asked: “Then, then, then, what about ‘abolishing the ban on organizing political parties’?”
The special investigative team: “It’s a saying that Emperor Mao coined when he was fighting the Kuomintang! The original text had an extra ‘down with one-party dictatorship!’”
Hu asked: “Then, then, then, then what about ‘freedom of association, freedom of speech and freedom of the press’?”
The special investigative team: “They’re all in the PRC Constitution!”
Hu asked with great concern: “What recourse is left for everyone then?”
The special investigative team: “One way to solve this once and for all is to make Emperor Mao, Zhou Enlai, Chinese Communist Party, Xinhua Daily and the Constitution all politically sensitive words, ban each and every one of them without exception!”
Hu said angrily: “You idiot! You might as well ban me too!”
The special investigative team: “That’s just what they say, ban you and there’ll be no need to ban any of the ideas included in the Charter!”
» Read more
- February 9, 2009 11:02 PM
Chinese Go Online With Food Safety Jokes
From Reuters:
Fed up with an almost constant diet of bad news about quality and safety problems, some Chinese are taking out their frustrations with biting jokes on the Internet about the seemingly never-ending scandals.
In the latest health scare, thousands of Chinese babies have fallen ill and three have died after drinking contaminated milk formula, prompting some Chinese to wonder if there is anything safe to use, and to go online to voice their frustrations.
One joke, entitled “The lucky day of a Chinese“, takes a look at all the dangerous or unsanitary goods the average Zhou could run into on a daily basis.
“Get up early, clean your teeth with carcinogenic toothpaste, and drink a glass of expired milk with excess levels of iodine and contaminated with melamine,” it starts, melamine being the compound found tainting the baby milk powder.
» Read more
- September 23, 2008 4:06 AM
Satire: A Happy Day in the Life of an Ordinary Chinese Person (Sanlu edition)
Here is another popular online satire piece, translated by Prof Christopher R Hughes:
I wake up in the morning and throw off my ‘black heart’ quilt[1]. I turn on the renovated TV that was a prize given when I bought my suit (using a special prize voucher that came with the newspaper). The TV weather forecast says the air condition will be good. I look at the sky for a while – Oh! A very yellow sun! I will not need to wear my acid rain proof raincoat today. After I get out of bed and put on my carcinogenic ‘amine scented’ Walmart clothes[2], and my suit that has been dry cleaned with carcinogenic acetylene tetrachloride, I feel that there is a slight odour on my body and burning in my eyes. Luckily I can freely use my scent for non-pregnant men and the sparkle immediately returns to my eyes. I pick up the toothpaste with its slight traces of the chemical Triclosan[3] and let it react in my mouth with the chlorinated tap water to produce carcinogenic Trichloromethane. I always eat well in the morning and after using the carcinogenic toothpaste I wipe my face with the Benzidine contaminated towel, have a cup of Melamine polluted milk, eat some fried bread sticks (youtiao) cooked in diesel, dipped in some chile source died with Sudan Red, added to a bowl of duck egg gruel with poison rice and egg with large amounts of Lead Oxide, not forgetting of course do add some condiments made with chemical ingredients. After a belch, I put on the helmet I bought for 10 renminbi to keep away the traffic cops and go out. I get on the motorbike which has just had its cut price famous brand brake pads changed and carefully go off to work.
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- September 22, 2008 8:16 PM
China’s Tainted Food Products Only Harm the Average People, High-Ranking Officials Have Their Own Specially-Supplied Food Sources
While China’s food security crisis has resulted in Chinese people fearing that nothing is safe to eat, a source has revealed that China has always had one special source of food and supply network: that which serves national Communist Party and government officials. This food is specially produced, transported, and examined, according to especially strict standards, translated by CDT.
On August 18, 2008, State Council (China’s Cabinet) Party and State Organizations Special Food Supply Center Director Zhu Yonglan （祝咏兰）gave the following address:
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- September 20, 2008 7:12 PM
Tainted Milk Scandal: The Official and Unofficial Response (Updated)
More developments in the contaminated milk case. Reuters reports that the government has ordered more checks on dairy companies and recalled faulty products:
The State Council, or cabinet, also called on medical authorities to give free examinations and treatment to infants who fell ill after drinking milk contaminated with potentially deadly melamine, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The council vowed to punish enterprises and government leaders responsible for the scandal.
[...] Panicked parents have crowded hospitals and demanded redress since officials and the Sanlu Group, China’s biggest maker of infant milk powder, said last week that babies developed kidney stones and complications after drinking milk made from powder contaminated with melamine, a compound used in making plastics.
- Danwei translates a news report about an acknowledgment of wrongdoing from the vice governor of Hebei Province, Yang Chongyong:
In the news conference, Yang Chongyong admitted that the local government is responsible for the Sanlu scandal. Yang also said after knowing the truth, Sanlu did try to to hush it up by paying the victims’ families and the media up until the time it submited a report to the Shijiazhuang Municipal Government on August 2. Shijiazhuang is the capital city of Hebei Province.
However, after the Shijiazhuang government received the report, it did not, as protocol requires, relay the report immediately to its superior body, the Hebei provincial governments. It was on September 9th that the provincial government finally received the report from the municipal government. But the provincial government, which was supposed to turn the report to the central government immediately, failed to do it.
If trying to cover things up is what was in the mind of the both governments, there was little point, because word of the problems had already spread, and an investigative committee from Beijing had already arrived.
- As more dismissals of people held responsible for the tainted milk are reported, the Time China blog asks, “What About Sichuan Schools?”:
…The authorities are reacting with a swiftness and decisiveness that we have commented recently appears to be very much the central government’s new prime policy when dealing with issues of this nature, a big change from the secrecy and protectiveness that characterized past reactions. But each time this happens it leaves me with a nagging thought: what about the Sichuan earthquake and the schools that collapsed because of corruption and shoddy construction? The government acknowledged that poor construction lay at the root of the problem earlier this month (see here). But so far not a single official or businessman has been detained or questioned, at least to my knowledge. Instead, police have forcibly broken up protests by grieving parents and sometimes forced parents to accept compensation and promise not to raise the issue any further.
Meanwhile, the New York Times published an editorial about the indirect threat posed to American consumers by the contamination:
We had been assured by Chinese authorities that their regulators and manufacturers were cracking down on the negligent procedures and criminal acts that have produced lead-laced toys and poisoned pet food, toothpaste and other dangerous goods. But a new scandal involving contaminated baby formula is a frightening reminder that China still is not doing enough to ensure the safety of its products — and a reminder that American importers and regulators cannot let down their guard.
The tainted milk powder has killed several babies in China and injured more than 6,000 others, many with kidney stones or kidney failure. This is an unconscionable toll and a shameful betrayal of families who relied on their government and corporate leaders to protect them.
Also from the South China Morning Post:
Days after the first revelations about babies being poisoned from industrial chemical melamine being added to milk on the mainland, its two biggest producers were still buying substandard milk from suppliers.
Investigations in Inner Mongolia, the hub of the industry, show that safety loopholes exist in almost every link of the dairy produce chain – from farms to milk-collection stations to major dairies.
Owners of collection stations that are the middlemen between farmers and production plants say they were only told this week by Mengniu Group and Yili Dairy, the mainland’s top two dairy producers, that the companies would no longer buy discounted milk that failed quality tests.
» Read more
- September 19, 2008 9:08 PM