The Word of the Week comes from the Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon, a glossary of terms created by Chinese netizens or encountered in online political discussions. These are the words of China’s online “resistance discourse,” used to mock and subvert the official language around censorship and political correctness.
Tǒngjī Jú 捅鸡局
Pejorative, homophonous nickname for the National Bureau of Statistics (Tǒngjì Jú 统计局), long criticized for providing unreliable data.
In a post made in January 2012, Sina blogger Tan Haishi poked fun at the bureau for making the usual far-fetched claims about economic development:
National Bureau of Dicking Around Reports 2011 “Chicken Butt” Increased 9.2% from Previous Year~Haha~~
国家捅鸡局报告，2011年“鸡滴屁”比上年增长9.2%，很鼓舞人心啊~~哈哈~~ [Chinese]
“Chicken butt” is GDP (jī dī pì 鸡滴屁).
Amid Xi Jinping’s crackdown on Party corruption, an investigation into director of the National Bureau of Statistics Wang Bao’an was announced in January 2016. The announcement came just after Wang delivered a press conference on the state of China’s economy in 2015, and is expected to do little to raise long-damaged public faith in official economic statistics.
As of January 28, 2016, “Bureau of Dicking Around” was blocked from search results on Sina Weibo.
Can’t get enough of subversive Chinese netspeak? Check out our latest ebook, “Decoding the Chinese Internet: A Glossary of Political Slang.” Includes dozens of new terms and classic catchphrases, presented in a new, image-rich format. Available for pay-what-you-want (including nothing). All proceeds support CDT.
