Still searching for the right word in China
An increasing list of phrases are giving Chinese Google users grief with error messages and frozen pages.
Willis Sparks, The Age (Australia)
June 24, 2012
GOOGLE recently introduced a tool that warns its users inside China about the hundreds of sensitive words and phrases that can produce an error message or even freeze the site, at least for a moment. China Digital Times has since compiled a list of the most interesting (sometimes surprising) terms. Taken together, they offer a glimpse of the wide range of things China’s internet monitors don’t want Chinese citizens reading and talking about. Translations are provided by CDT.
All the terms below in quotation marks are apparently considered sensitive subjects.
Why are Chinese authorities worried about ”truth”, ”benevolence” and ”forbearance?” Because these words are associated with the outlawed spiritual movement Falun Gong. Watch out for the phrase ”snow lion”; it’s a reference to the flag of Tibet. Not surprisingly, searches for ”Taiwan Political Talk”, ”Xinjiang + independence”, and the ”Tibetan government-in-exile” produce similar reactions. References to dissidents such as ”Chen Guangcheng” and ”Ai Weiwei” can get you bounced. So can entering the words ”Liu Xiaobo” or the ”Nobel peace prize” he won in 2010. In fact, you might want to avoid the word ”dissident”.
Other words and phrases are dangerously suggestive for different reasons. The expression ”blood house”, which refers to forced evictions, is a problem. Perhaps that’s because it can encourage curiosity about ”assembly”, a ”student strike” and a ”people’s movement”. As these kinds of events take on a life of their own, it can lead young people to explore the so-called ”three leaves” – leave the party, leave the Youth League, leave the Young Pioneers – the 21st-century Chinese equivalent of turning on, tuning in and dropping out. It can also lead students into the ”public square”, trigger a ”rebellion”, a ”coup d’etat” or even a ”revolution”. These kinds of things can provoke ”martial law”.
It has happened before, though you won’t learn much about that simply by searching for ”Tiananmen”, ”tankman”, ”block tank” or by entering ”89 + student movement”, ”Beijing + something happened”, or ”what happened to Beijing”. Lately, these sorts of spontaneous insurrections have been popping up in places such as ”Egypt” and ”Tunisia”, stoking fears in Beijing of ”Jasmine + revolution”, a ”Beijing spring” or a ”China spring”.
Then there is ”Twitter” and ”Facebook”. Expect problems if you hunt for ”WikiLeaks + China”. China Digital Times is on the list, along with traditional foreign troublemakers such as ”Voice of America” and ”Radio Free Asia”. Expect glitches if you investigate the country’s ”great firewall”, the ”web brigade” of internet censors who help hold it in place, and ”freegate”, ”dynapass” or ”ultrasurf”, tools for those who want to ”climb over the wall”.
It’s clear Chinese authorities don’t want citizens reading ”Mein Kampf”. It’s less clear why they appear to frown on the Coen brother’s film Burn After Reading. It’s easier to understand sensitivity about the phrase ”best actor”, when you learn that’s it a derisive nickname for the Premier, Wen Jiabao. But one mustn’t get too curious about another of his popular nicknames: ”Teletubbies”.
Taken together, these and hundreds more words and phrases demonstrate how hard it is to manage communications in a country of 1.4 billion people, more than half of whom have already found their way online.