ChinaGeeks has translated a blog post by Han Han about the recent order banning “vulgar” text messages:
Aside from sending pornographic texts to males, beginning tomorrow, I will also be sending sexual harassment [text messages] to females. This is all in the name of making good on the government’s dereliction of duty. I strongly support the government policy, but they haven’t told us what the definition of “pornographic” and “inappropriate” are. The relevant government department should publish in the People’s Daily and read aloud on the TV news a list of the [banned] obscene and pornographic words. For exmaple, on the news, the female announcer could say that “the relevant department has initiated a stern crackdown on pornographic messages and the vulgar-ization of texting. Words to be banned include: Vagina,” then the male announcer says “penis”…that would be a truly responsible [way of handling it].
…Twenty years ago, China used the term “hoodlum” ［流氓］to label a group of people it wanted to eliminate. After sentencing and more sentencing, execution and more execution, we’ve come to today, and the vocabulary has changed [from “hoodlum”] to “vulgar”, they want to eliminate you because you’re vulgar. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the people who judge whether or not others are vulgar, where does their ‘high culture’ come from? For example, spending 100 RMB on a prostitute is vulgar, spending 100,000 RMB on an entertainer is high culture; if a person looks at a pornographic picture it’s vulgar, if a person looks at a classified government document it’s high culture; if a person buys a toy gun it’s vulgar, if a person uses a real gun to kill two people [probably a reference to this case] it’s high culture; if a person plays World of Warcraft it’s vulgar, if a person ‘plays’ with models it’s high culture. Of course, no one can say for sure [what’s vulgar and what isn’t], and as soon as you say for sure, you can’t do whatever you want. To prevent against a day when I might suddenly become a ‘vulgar person’, I will take the initiative, and become one now.
Read more about Han Han and about the anti-vulgarity campaign via CDT.
