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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.

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Chinese netizens turn to metaphors to condemn, evade censorship

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.

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