{"id":168044,"date":"2014-01-22T14:44:06","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T22:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=168044"},"modified":"2014-01-22T14:44:06","modified_gmt":"2014-01-22T22:44:06","slug":"cuddly-protest-icon-says-neigh-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2014\/01\/cuddly-protest-icon-says-neigh-censorship\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuddly Protest Icon Says ‘Neigh’ To Censorship"},"content":{"rendered":"
With the Year of the Horse beginning next week, The South China Morning Post reports from Hong Kong, where plush “Grass-Mud Horse<\/a>” trinkets are becoming popular in joint celebration of free speech and the imminent Chinese zodiac<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n […A] new cuddly protest icon has hit town: the “grass mud horse”.<\/p>\n The mainland symbol of dissent against censorship is proving a popular choice of product for stalls at the Lunar New Year fairs, which will welcome the Year of the Horse from Saturday.<\/p>\n With a moniker that sounds in Chinese like a phrase suggesting an unspeakable act with one’s mother, the grass mud horse – supposedly a species of alpaca – has been adopted by mainland internet users to mock the government’s efforts to crack down on obscenity<\/p>\n […]Tommy Yip Kwan-yeung, who will run a stall with his classmates from City University’s department of management, will sell a cushion shaped like the head of the grass mud horse. With a space inside, the cushion can be used as a hand warmer.<\/p>\n […] The team picked the animal for its funny face rather than its vulgar links, he said, but if buyers chose it for another reason, “we have nothing against it”. [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For more on the Grass-Mud Horse, see prior CDT coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the Year of the Horse beginning next week, The South China Morning Post reports from Hong Kong, where plush “Grass-Mud Horse” trinkets are becoming popular in joint celebration of free speech and the imminent Chinese zodiac: […A] new cuddly protest icon has hit town: the “grass mud horse”. The mainland symbol of dissent against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":985,"featured_media":168045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[35,14744,14745,14746,100],"tags":[2731,478,7777,17004,16142,828,16429],"class_list":["post-168044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hong-kong","category-level-2-article","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","category-politics","tag-anti-censorship-tools","tag-freedom-of-expression","tag-grass-mud-horse","tag-hong-kong","tag-internet-culture","tag-lunar-new-year","tag-year-of-the-horse","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n