As China’s Lunar New Year holiday continues throughout this week, CDT Chinese editors have collected and republished over a dozen essays, articles, and other content reflecting the zeitgeist of the transition from 2023’s Year of...
Four years after the death from COVID of Dr. Li Wenliang, the young Wuhan ophthalmologist who alerted colleagues to the emerging novel coronavirus, tributes to the widely admired doctor continue to pour in, despite some online...
February 6 marked the four-year anniversary of the death of Dr. Li Wenliang, a young ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital whose attempts to warn colleagues of an emerging novel coronavirus made him an heroic symbol of free...
Mao Anying, Mao Zedong’s son, was killed by American bombers on November 25, 1950 while fighting in the Korean War. A persistent, unfounded, rumor (officially tagged as “historically nihilist”) holds that the younger Mao gave...
“Four Won’t Youth” (四不青年, sì bù qīngnián) is the latest appellation for discontented youth, who in this case “won’t date, won’t marry, won’t buy a home, and won’t have kids.” Four Won’t Youth, like other similar terms...
On July 7, the Chinese Quora-like Q&A site Zhihu announced that users will no longer be able to post questions and answers anonymously. For existing content posted anonymously, users will be able to choose whether to keep it...
Less than a month after the conclusion of China’s hypercompetitive annual university entrance examination (“gaokao”), a satirical meme about an imaginary university has been banned on Weibo. The meme and its censorship reveal...
Toys riffing on China’s hottest online idiom, “calling a rat a duck,” were yanked from online shelves this past week, a sign of the idiom’s continued political sensitivity. The tongue-in-cheek saying “calling a rat a duck”...
“I don’t raise pigs” (我不养猪 wǒ bù yǎng zhū), a Hunan police station’s nonsensical comment on the death of a woman in their custody, is the latest incidence of “gobsmacking rhetoric” (léi yǔ 雷语) to go viral. “Gobsmacking rhetoric”...
On March 25th, Guangdong-based rapper Liu Wanli, better known as Vyan (pronounced “vee-yen”) was invited to appear on “One Seat,” a lecture program that has been called “China’s TED Talks.” In his...
Nearly three years and two months after whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang’s death from COVID-19, the “Wailing Wall” that emerged in the comments section under his last Weibo post continues to serve as a repository for the hopes,...
People’s Daily Online breathed new life into a stale meme this past week with an opinion piece titled “We Cannot Let Vulgar Online Slang Poison Our Children” that railed against online slang and vloggers. The piece singled out...
Nearly three years after whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang’s death from COVID-19, the “Wailing Wall” that emerged in the comments section under his last Weibo post continues to serve as a repository for the hopes, dreams, worries,...
Some communities in Shanghai have embraced the viral trend of commissioning videos of dancing Africans sending well-wishes to Chinese residents in lockdown. The videos often feature groups of children or muscular African men...
Over two years after Dr. Li Wenliang’s death from COVID-19, the “Wailing Wall” attached to his Weibo account continues to act as a repository for the thoughts, hopes, fears and opinions of countless Chinese citizens. CDT editors...
Chinese internet users have just scored a rare win against censorship. On September 3, the swear word shǎbī 傻逼, politely translated as “dumbass,” was banned from Baidu’s messaging forum Tieba. In the aughts, a mythical creature...
In recent days, a number of major state and Party media outlets have simultaneously republished a relatively obscure essayist’s screed on sissy-boy celebrities, get-rich-quick capitalists, and lessons that the collapse of the...
The following censorship instructions, issued to the media and internet companies by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. The name of the issuing body has been omitted to protect the source. Hello...
Click on the image to download Firefly for circumvention
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