I have to confess, dirty jokes are very hard to pass. So here we are, two screenshots I saw this morning on Twitter:
Some Chinese twitter said: “Things are going from bad to mystifying. “
“A very particular set of skills” indeed.
Thanos is giving a Valentine gift to half of lives in the universe:
(rough translation): Thanos has achieved his goal.
He has given oral sex to half of lives in the universe.
Many people noticed that Yan Geling, a famous Chinese American novelist and screenwriter, who has a few movies adapted from her novels in China, is disappeared on Weibo. RFI reported here in Chinese.
The trouble is caused by a YouTube interview where the writer echoed the host, saying, “Yes, Xi Jinping is a human trafficker, mother fucker.” It happened around 3:30.
In case you wonder who is this Mr. Xi, he is the dear supreme leader we have been talking about here.
So, it is not a light matter to accuse our dear supreme leader.
Luckily Ms. Yan lives in the USA, she is safe. For now.
Last Friday, Friends became available on major Chinese streaming video providers including iQiyi, Tencent Video, Youku and Bilibili. The show was available before on Chinese streaming platforms Sohu video and iQiyi from 2012 to 2013, when its streaming agreement ended.
But the top news on Weibo is about what is being censored. On Twitter, I saw people complaining.
Both Southern China Morning Post: China’s censors scrub multiple scenes of lesbian character in US sitcom Friends, sparking outrage among fans on mainland and BBC: Chinese sites accused of censoring LGBT content from Friends have reported in English. BBC also said that the discussion on the censorship itself have been removed from Weibo.
In the very second episode of season 1, Ross tried to explain to his parents that his ex-wife is lesbian and married a woman. The entire explanation was cut out and a gaping hole was left in the plot.
You can see the clip on twitter here.
Others commented that all lesbian related topics have been cut out. And they guess the reason being that women have always been viewed as resources for bearing children, and the idea of lesbians would undermine this goal.
Some people commented that in 1994 when Friends depicted the lesbian/gay community as normal people, it was ahead of the time when majority of the American public were still homophobic. What the Chinese censorship is doing, is, of course to roll back time.
No one knows why the globe was blurred out. But careful viewers show you what they see in the Chinese version:
versus the original version:
What we can see is that the visible part of the globe has China on it.
For anyone who thinks China knows its boundary of censorship, this story is a good wake-up call.
Five days ago, the cross-country skier Katri Lylynperä posted several videos and photos of her leaky dorm in the Olympic village on Instagram (you have to click next many times to reach that video, which is chronically ordered from older posts to newer). She had “Help” flashed on the screen.
According to the media, she received messages from the Chinese authority to delete her posts. Of course she said no.
Meanwhile, in comparison, two women who went to see the woman in chain ware detained by police on criminal charge for “making trouble”. Their Weibo accounts have been silenced, according to Chinese social media.
In the past few days, Olympic athletes have problems with human rights in CHina, but prefer not to talk too much about it.
One of them is Germany’s luge gold medallist Natalie Geisenberger, when asked about human rights issues in China, said, “You have to be careful when you say what and where you say it,” Geisenberger told a news conference a day after her victory that earned her gold for the third consecutive Games. “Upon my return (to Germany) there may be a few more things to be said but here on site I am not going to say something.”
Another one is Swedish gold medalist Nils van der Poel, here in Swedish: He said that “it was very irresponsible to let China, a country without respect to human rights, to host the Olympic games. ” Since there are stilll Swedish athlets in China, he stopped there.
This really does not cast good image of China, when these athlets are worried about their own or their colleagues’ safety.
Despite all the censorship, tomorrow is the last day of the Spring Festival (aka Lunar New Year holiday) when people go out to show and appreciate beautiful lantern works. And today is a Western celebration that some Chinese people still like and want to enjoy.
An English review of the movie Myth of Love (aka B for Busy) is now available, if you want to read, ‘B for Busy’ challenges the male gaze, wins Chinese audiences. We talked about it in our newsletter 19. We will let you know when it is available outside China.
On twitter, I saw a mix of modern music and Peking opera here, you can click it and see if you like it. Many Chinese, including yours truly, enjoy it very much.