The Rise of the Grass Mud Horse

It's not often you hear about the majestic Grass Mud Horse, nor about their victory over the evil River Crabs... but you will.

Here in the real world, the Grass Mud Horse - of course - doesn't exist. It's only online, in the virtual cracks between the Chinese Censors, that this rare, but growing animal exists, teetering on the edge of oblivion. This is because the Grass Mud Horse is a symbol - a symbol of the Chinese internet users', or "netizens" as they go by, growing frustration with the restrictive censorship that has a chokehold over their information access.

It's certainly a real issue. There are many websites that, when being accessed from China, simply do not exist. This has sporadically included the likes of Wikipedia, and news outlets which have "offended the Chinese people," along with the less controversially-blocked sites such as porn sites.

And this is where the Horses and Crabs come in.

You see, Chinese blogs are censored as well... fairly tightly. But this is primarily done through automated means. Enter the Grass Mud Horse... or as it's known in Chinese, the Cao Ni Ma (草泥马). Now, this might seem a pretty innocent meme... until you realize that the Grass Mud Horse is, in fact a homophone for the phrase "Go fuck your mother." (操你妈).

The Mud Horses' arch-enemies are the River Crabs, or He Xie (河蟹), which is another homophone for "harmonization." Harmonization, or harmony, is a catch-phrase for the Chinese government... "glorious and harmonious." It's been so over- and misused, though, that any reference (outside of official channels) to harmony or glory is almost certainly nothing but a jab at the very notion. In this instance, on Chinese websites, if the Censors find "inappropriate" content, they will delete it in the name of "harmonizing" the Chinese people.

You can start to see where this is going, right? The Horses fight (and win) over the Crabs.

It's a very interesting evolution; a new take on an old idea... and it's taking the internet by force. The Chinese Netizens have - thanks to the pecularities of their own language - created a system for dissent much harder to control.

From here, we'll see where it goes.

Je n'ai pas le temps de perdre la tí ªte