Digital Journalism Review | Chinese netizens turn to metaphors to condemn, evade censorship
Living in a country with harsh online censorship, you need to understand Chinese metaphors or you won't understand the country.
If you think an ability to read Chinese is the prime skill required to understand China, you are wrong. Living in a country with harsh online censorship, you also need to understand Chinese metaphors.
For example, Kai-Fu Lee, former president of Google China who has more than 25 million followers on Sina Weibo, a Chinese Twitter-like social media platform, posted online comments on Wednesday saying that “from now on, I will only talk about east, west and north, as well as Monday through to Friday”.
He also uploaded a photo online, showing a bottle of black tea and a tea set.
What on earth did Lee really mean? The answer is in the words he intentionally missed out in the post: “south” and “weekend”. And the photo suggests he was invited to tea - meaning he was warned by the authorities - another open secret to Chinese netizens.
Lee was one of China’s online celebrities who openly expressed support for the Southern Weekend, also known as Southern Weekly, an outspoken Guangzhou-based newspaper.
After Guangdong’s propaganda department ordered the paper to change its new year edition, journalists at the paper went on strike. Others threatened to join them if the propaganda authorities kept trying to censor them.