One of Florentijn Hofman’s giant rubber ducks sat in Hong Kong’s harbor last year, inspiring knock-offs in China. Taking inspiration from the big bird, a 72-foot inflatable yellow toad arrived in Beijing’s Yuyuantan Park over the weekend. The toad’s creator, Guo Yongyao, meant to invoke the traditional symbolism of the “wealth-drawing golden toad” (招财金蟾). But the toad invokes something else for Chinese netizens: former president Jiang Zemin.
As soon as the connection was made, Xinhua and Sina deleted their stories about the giant toad. Related keywords do not seem to have been blocked on Weibo search, but a number of posts about the toad have been filtered, as FreeWeibo has documented.
Jiang Zemin is often called “The Toad” for his resemblance to the broad-faced amphibian. But even posts that make no reference to Jiang are being blocked.
A selection of deleted posts, archived by FreeWeibo and translated by CDT:
葱咯咯咯: On NetEase this morning I read that there’s a big inflatable toad in Beijing park. Everyone who commented on the news seemed to all know what’s up, but they wouldn’t say. Until I found this picture on [Baidu] Tieba…
早上在网易看到充气大蛤蟆入驻北京某公园的新闻,跟帖的各位似乎都知道些什么,但就是不说。直到我在贴吧发现了这张图。。
DC胖兔子: The inflatable toad in Beijing’s Yuyuantan Park is 22 meters tall. No wonder netizens say the toad got fat. He’s even bigger than the tiger.
北京玉淵潭公園的充氣大蛤蟆有22米高,難怪有網民說蛤蟆养肥了,比老虎还大。
常杀人的微博：I heard that in Beijing a big yellow duck was eaten by a big yellow toad!! Now the big yellow toad is flexing his muscles where the big yellow duck once sat! I heard there’s a grass-mud horse in Changsha’s pedestrian zone!! I heard the weekend will soon be over! I have to go to work today!! Life is so busy!!!
听说北京的大黄鸭被一只大黄癞蛤蟆吃掉了!!现在大黄鸭的位置,大黄癞蛤蟆在耀武扬威呢!听说长沙步行街上有草泥马!!听说周末很快就过了!今天又要上班了!!人生好喘啊!!!
北京生活杂志: #BeijingRevealed “Giant Golden Toad Leaks… Lies Down (Ha Ha)”: @宿迁老潘a That big toad in Yuyuantan just arrived two days ago, and now it’s deflating and lying down on its stomach.
#北京爆料#【大金蟾漏气儿了。。。趴下了[哈哈]】@宿迁老潘a 北京玉渊潭那只大蛤蟆,刚登场两天就漏气趴下了
胡媛: Aerial view of the big toad. I just want to say that this city’s taste is incorrigible…
高空俯瞰大蛤蟆。我只想说这个城市的审美没救了。。。
The inspiration for the toad attracted censors last year as well, when netizens edited the giant rubber duck into the famous “tank man” photo.
