MCLC: dissent speaks code

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Rowena He <rowenahe at gmail.com>
Subject: dissent speaks code
***********************************************************

Source: Wall Street Journal (1/4/13):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323874204578219832868014140.h
tml

In China's Cyberspace, Dissent Speaks Code
Want to escape the censor's scrutiny? Call the regime a 'heavenly
dynasty.' Just don't get 'happiness-ified'
By XIAO QIANG and PERRY LINK

The rise of online platforms in China has given the Chinese people an
unprecedented capacity for self-publishing and communication. Because they
speak in a heavily monitored environment, however, these "netizens" must
often voice their demands for greater freedom in coded language and
metaphors that allow them to avoid outright censorship. Chinese cyberspace
has given rise to a surprising number of new terms for exposing,
criticizing and ridiculing the Communist Party. Largely invented by young
gadflies, this lively discourse has begun to spread widely.

Some of the new terms grow from temporary code words used in order to
evade word filters. The term zhengfu (government), for example, counts as
"sensitive," and efforts to skirt it have given rise to a number of new
terms. One of these is tianchao (heavenly dynasty), which, besides
avoiding filters, delivers the mischievous suggestion that the government
is hardly modern. In a nod to George Orwell, the Party's Department of
Propaganda is referred to as the zhenlibu (Ministry of Truth).

Another widespread term is hexie, which means "river crab" but is a
near-homonym of the word for "harmony." The regime of recently retired PRC
President Hu Jintao, in its public rhetoric, put great stress on the idea
of a hexie shehui or "harmonious society." By recasting this official
phrase to turn "harmonious society" into "river-crab society," netizens
are evoking Chinese folklore, in which the crab appears as a bully known
for scuttling sideways. Netizens use hexie as a verb as well as a noun.
When a website is shut down or a computer screen goes blank, the victims
might say "We have been river-crabbed!" or, in other words, "harmonized"
into silence.

A few years ago, a netizen with a sly sense of humor began using the terms
guidang (your [honorable] party) and guiguo (your [honorable] state). Gui
literally means "noble" or "expensive" and has long been placed before
nouns as a polite way of saying "your": Thus guixing means "your honorable
surname," and so on. Guiguo has also, for a long time, been an established
way of saying "your country" when people from different countries are
talking to each other in a formal way.

But now, in some circles on the Internet, guiguo has taken on the
sarcastic meaning of "your state"—in other words, the state that belongs
to you rulers, not to me. The question "What is guiguo?" has popped up in
Internet chat rooms. In one of these, in October 2010, a netizen wrote:
"It turns out that this guo is not our guo, but the guo of a certain dang
[that is, the Communist Party]. This fact makes the terms guiguo and
guidang appropriate."

But if netizens are putting ironic distance between themselves and "your
state," the question arises of what they do identify with at the national
level. What is it, in the new day, to be Chinese? This is a big question,
and the answers that are beginning to appear are only tentative.

Consider pimin or "fart people," a playful tag that has come to stand in
opposition to guiguo. The pimin usage comes from a notorious incident that
took place on Oct. 29, 2008, when Lin Jiaxiang, a 58-year-old Communist
Party official, was eating at a seafood restaurant in Shenzhen City. He
asked an 11-year-old girl for directions to the men's room, and she led
him there. According to a police report, he grabbed her near the entrance;
she escaped and ran to her parents. Her father confronted Mr. Lin, and an
argument ensued, during which the official pointed at the father and
yelled, "I was sent here by the Ministry of Transportation! My rank is the
same as your mayor's! I did grab her neck and so what? You people are
farts to me! You wanna take me on? You wanna test what I can do to you?"

Unfortunately for Mr. Lin, the episode was captured by a security camera
and leaked to the Internet, where it went viral. Mr. Lin eventually was
fired and "fart people" became a standard term. Gradually it morphed into
a term of pride. Fart people came to mean "us" netizens and ordinary
people, the ones on the receiving end of abuse, the ones who have no vote,
the ones who empathize and identify with one another—the ones who, in
short, form the polar opposite of guiguo.

The imbalance in power between guiguo and pimin is sometimes highlighted
by the satirical use of bei, which originally meant "quilt" or, as a verb,
"to cover," but about a century ago became a grammatical device used for
translating the passive voice in Western languages—like the English phrase
"my wallet has been stolen." Now, wo bei hexie le, or "I have been
harmonized," has become a standard quip when censors strike. The role of
bei in this phrase is important. It signals that I suffered the action; it
was done to me, and I in no way willed it.

This "involuntarily passive" implication has led to a range of other
sarcastic uses. One is bei xingfu, which literally means
"happiness-ified." In the Mao era, it was said that the Great Leader mou
xingfu (sought happiness) for the people; to be on the receiving end of
this search, then as now, is to be bei xingfu. We look at the officials
who "represent" us and see ourselves as bei daibiao or "undergoing
representation." In each case, the point is that the "esteemed country"
acts upon the "fart people," not the other way around.

Guiguo, pimin, bei hexie and other terms of this kind have powerful
implications. They suggest that the 21st-century answer to the question
"What is it to be Chinese?" doesn't have to be the formula "China equals
the Party" and that there is now a terrain upon which people can explore
alternatives.

—Mr. Xiao is adjunct professor in the School of Information at the
University of California, Berkeley, and chief editor of China Digital
Times. Mr. Link is Chancellorial Chair for Teaching Across Disciplines at
the University of California, Riverside. This piece is adapted from the
January issue of the Journal of Democracy. A version of this article
appeared January 5, 2013, on page C3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall
Street Journal, with the headline: In China's Cyberspace, Dissent Speaks
Code.