Blocked on Weibo

翻墙 (over the Great Firewall / fānqiáng) literally means crossing the wall, but is commonly translated as climbing over the Great Firewell—that is evading China’s network of structural, social, and legal controls by which it regulates Internet content.

Why it is blocked: China doesn’t deny that the Internet is tightly controlled in the country—with specific websites like Facebook and Twitter blocked, “immoral” content like pornography restricted, search results filtered, and individual blog posts containing politically sensitive material deleted. In fact, China openly admits and defends its Internet regulations, which are often implemented by private companies as a form of self-censorship at the government’s behest. However, criticizing this system is not acceptable.* A number of tools allow netizens to circumvent the blocks, giving them unfettered access to the Internet. (If you want to climb inside the Great Firewall and experience life as a Chinese Internet user, you can install China Channel, a Firefox add-on.) The U.S. government has been involved with funding some of these tools, including the controversial Falun Gong-designed Ultrasurf.

According to a 2010 survey, most climbers are university students who simply want to use Google search. Other findings show that only a small share of Chinese Internet users bother to use anti-censorship tools and are mostly satisfied with the domestic offerings available to them. However, even these users are often passively involved in anti-censorship measures when they engage in practices like using coded language on social media sites to evade censors.

*Fun fact: Though references to the Great Firewall are blocked on Weibo, Fang Binxing, the vilified architect and grand designer of it, is not. He was forced to close his Weibo account after irate Internet users showered him with abuse. The vitriol for him even extended into real life, with a student throwing a shoe at him and becoming a folk hero for it.

亡国 (conquered nation / wángguó) can be translated as “vanished country” or “a state heading for destruction/downfall.” It’s generally used to describe when an outside power has defeated a nation in war, either wiping it out or causing it to lose its independence. Examples include the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S., the conquering of the First Persian Empire by Alexander the Great, and the subjugation of the Korean Empire by Imperial Japan in 1910. It is also the Chinese title of the somewhat controversial 2005 Japanese action thriller Aegis (Bôkoku no îjisu).

Why it is blocked: Perhaps the term is used by Tibetans or citizens in Xinjiang to describe Chinese control of their provinces? Or maybe netizens use it to insult the future state of China or to describe instances of China appearing to bow to outside/American influences? The term popped up in several news reports related to China’s recent dispute with the Philippines in the South China Seas. However, it is also widely used in an apolitical manner, often to describe something that is extinct or a situation wherein someone is suppressing another.

天葬 (sky burial / tiānzàng) is a Tibetan funeral practice where the corpse is placed on a mountainside and ritually cut with cleavers. The dead body is then left exposed, oftentimes eaten by awaiting vultures. It is a practice that is both practical (the ground in Tibet is usually too hard to dig and fuel for cremation is scarce) and spiritual.

Why it is blocked: Disposal of the dead has at times been a contentious issue in China. Though traditionally, Chinese have preferred to bury their dead in the ground, Mao initiated a campaign in the 1950s to encourage citizens to cremate corpses in order to free up more productive farmland (a notion that is still advocated today) as well as to stamp out “superstitious” folk religions. In some areas, burials are still technically illegal, though such laws are widely ignored. Cremation rates have risen since the 1950s (now at 48%), and today most urban Chinese cremate while the majority of those in the countryside still bury.

Sky burials, also known as celestial burials or open-air burials, have the added sensitive element of being a Tibetan practice. To those who are unfamiliar with the ritual, it may also appear to be a particularly grotesque one (NSFW). In 2006, in order to protect and respect the act, the central government reportedly implemented regulations, with a ban on photography and media coverage of any such burials. However, numerous photos persist online (NSFW). It’s likely blocked due to these graphic and potentially upsetting images to non-Tibetans. [Status]

卫星电视 (satellite television / wèixīng diànshì) is TV programming broadcasted by a communications satellite orbiting the earth and received by households via an outdoor antenna, generally known as a satellite dish.

Why it is blocked: This is another fairly obscure word to be blocked (searching for 卫星电 returns 87 results, 5 of which are for 卫星电视), but at least there’s a reason. Installation of satellite TV dishes is regulated in China, with private ownership of them illegal in a number of cities (compelling some citizens to creatively conceal and hide theirs), though workplaces which need to monitor foreign news and establishments that cater to foreigners are allowed them. Satellite dishes were banned in China by Li Peng in 1993, supposedly in response to Rupert Murdoch’s declaration that satellite television would be “an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere.” (His company, STAR TV, would spend more than a decade trying to make up for that speech.) However, those restrictions are openly flouted by residents and marketers. Besides China’s desire to control overseas content entering the country, it’s reported that satellite programming is hampering the government’s efforts to transition cities to digital television (satellite TV service is earmarked for hard to reach rural villages).

Note: Satellite dishes themselves are more colloquially referred to as woks/pots (锅 / guō) or plates/dishes (碟 / dié). The more standard word for satellite dish is 卫星天线 (天线 / tiānxiàn literally means “sky wire/line,” aka antenna). 卫星天线 and 卫星碟 are not blocked on Weibo, but 卫星锅 is. [Status]

上海帮 (Shanghai Gang or Shanghai Clique / Shànghǎi bāng) is a nickname given to a group of high-level CCP politicians who were most prominent during the 1990s and early-2000s. These politicians usually had strong ties to then-president Jiang Zemin, who came to power as the mayor and party chief in Shanghai. Jiang packed the Politburo with his former subordinates, but since his leaving office in 2003, the Shanghai Gang’s influence has arguably waned.

Why it is blocked: 上海帮, like “Shanghai Gang” in English, has a decidedly pejorative connotation, implying underhanded dealings and cronyism. Peter McGregor’s The Party has a fantastic chapter on how the central government was able to rein in the group’s power by arresting and imprisoning one of Jiang’s most trusted allies, Chen Liangyu, on corruption charges. As the Communist Party essentially runs China, it can be helpful to think of groups like the Shanghai Gang and the Youth League faction (团派 / tuánpài—also blocked on Weibo) as China’s de facto form of political parties. These alliances are often based on personal connections as well as ideology. For a government which likes to present itself as unified on all fronts, writing about such political in-fighting is no doubt frowned upon. [Status]

方励之 (Fang Lizhi) was a professor of astrophysics and board member and co-chair of Human Rights in China. His writing inspired the pro-democracy student movement of 1986-87 and the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. In June 1990, he was granted political asylum into the U.S. after much negotiating involving high-level diplomatic talks, half-hearted confessions, and renewed loan agreements. He died on Saturday, April 7, 2012.

Why it is blocked: The New York Times’ obituary quotes Wang Dan, one of the student leaders of the 1989 Tiananmen, as saying, “Fang Lizhi has inspired the ‘89 generation and has awakened the people’s yearning for human rights and democracy.” [Status - 11/29/11, 2/5/12, 3/12/12, 4/7/12: blocked]

血房地图 (blood-stained housing map / xuèfángdìtú) is a crowdsourced project by Chinese bloggers and activists that uses Google Maps “to plot violent housing evictions and land grabs across the country.”

Why it is blocked: Though the Chinese central government has at times given citizens space to air their grievances publicly regarding local land seizures (most memorably allowing state-run newspapers to report on the Chongqing “nail house” incident in 2007), a project of this magnitude—one that seeks to connect local activists with each other and perhaps develop a nation-wide movement—is bound to be censored. WSJ ruminated back in October 2010, the month the maps appeared online, how long the project would continue. The map that contains only incidents verified by the creator seems to have last been edited in November 2010, but the one open to public editing is still being updated, though most of the edits are to incidents from 2010 and 2011.

Partial key to maps: Volcano=mass incidents; bed=person killed inside the building during demolition; flame=self-immolation; “i”=unconfirmed

驗證碼 (CAPTCHA / yànzhèngmǎ) is a challenge-response test used to ensure that the respondent is a human and not a bot. It usually comes in the form of a series of distorted characters that a person must successfully repeat by typing. CAPTCHA stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.” In Chinese, it literally means “verification code.”

Why it is blocked: No idea. The whole phrase is blocked, not just the portion meaning “verify,” and I don’t know of any hidden meanings for the word. The simplified version of the characters (验证码) is not blocked. Any guesses would be appreciated. (Status - 1/10/12: blocked; 2/5/12: unblocked; 3/12/12, 3/29/12: blocked) 

膏药旗 (gāoyàoqí) is a colloquial name for the Japanese flag, often used in a derogatory fashion. 

Why it is blocked: Gāoyào is a Chinese medicinal patch, like a large band-aid that comes pre-packaged with an ointment used to treat aches and pains. Because the backside of many patches resembles the famous sun disc image of the Japanese flag, it is used pejoratively to refer to the Japanese flag, akin to calling the German flag Schwarz-Rot-Mostrich (“black-red-mustard”). Though on friendly terms today, Japan and China share a fraught past, with the Japanese invasions during the First Sino-Japanese War and WWII still not forgiven by most Chinese, leading to flashpoints like former Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi’s annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine and controversy in 2005 over Japan’s adoption of textbooks that reportedly glossed over the country’s WWII atrocities. Most recently, in September 2010, a Chinese fishing trawler collided with a Japanese Coast Guard boat in disputed waters. An international incident was touched off when Japan initially detained the crew but later released after facing intense Chinese diplomatic pressure and nationalism-fueled mass protest. In an indication of how complex China-Japan relations are, the Chinese government has even had to tamp down its own protesters in 2005 and 2010 in order to control anti-Japanese fervor—this after being accused of encouraging that very behavior earlier. However, to block gaoyaoyi, a seemingly minor slight relative to the other obscenities hurled toward Japan online, is curious considering no other similar anti-Japan words are blocked (one of the most common anti-Japanese insults, 日本鬼子, roughly translated as Japanese devils, has over 700,000 search results on Weibo).

维基揭密 / 維基揭密 (WikiLeaks / Wéijījiēmì) is an online organization that publishes submissions of secret and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. 维基 is a transliteration of “Wiki” while the last two characters can be written in various ways (see note below for discussion of variations on word), all of which roughly mean “uncovering/explaining secrets.”

Why it blocked: China, like the U.S. is deathly afraid of government leaks and is no doubt concerned about what WL has in its treasure trove of secret documents. Already, Wikileaks has revealed Chinese willingness to abandon North Korea, as well as other embarrassing (if true) rumors like Wen Jiabao’s “disgust” with his wife’s corruption. In the U.S., merely even reading WikiLeaks cables may have repercussions on your job prospects, and just last week a U.S. Foreign Service Officer was dismissed for linking to WikiLeaks on his blog, among other allegations. Nothing similar exists in China at the moment. [Status - 3/12/12, 3/23/12: blocked]

Note: Both the above simplified and traditional versions have roughly the same number of Google hits.  Swaps for the third and fourth characters are common. “Jie” can be written as 解, meaning “explain,” or 揭, meaning “uncover.” “Mi” can be written as 秘, meaning “secret,” or 密, meaning “dense” (put together, 秘密, they form the word “secret”). Some of these alternative variations—for instance 维基解密, apparently the most popular way to translate the term, with roughly 9 million Google hits vs. less than a million for the two above blocked versions—are unblocked. 

奥克托今 (HMX, aka octogen / àokètuōjīn) is a chemical high explosive, sometimes mixed with TNT. Common nicknames for it include High Melting eXplosive, Her Majesty’s eXplosive, and High-velocity Military eXplosive.

Why it is blocked: According to the History Channel show Weird Warfare, a powder form of the explosive that could be disguised as flour (and even cooked and eaten as a pancake) was developed by the U.S. Chinese guerrillas successfully used it against the Japanese during WWII. As it is a weapon, it has cause to be blocked, but unlike some of the others, the Chinese word for the chemical is so obscure that a search for the first three characters (which are unblocked) and subsequent check of the posts reveals that it has been used 12 times in in the past two years. Of course, it’s possible that censors have deleted all such posts, but a Google or Baidu search for the term doesn’t turn up much outside of chemistry references either. One wonders why the censors even bothered to block such an uncommon term. [Status - 11/22/11, 2/5/12, 3/12/12: blocked]

彭丽媛 (Peng Liyuan) is a Chinese singer well-known for her patriotic and rural folk songs during appearances on the annual CCTV New Year’s Gala. She is married to the current vice-president Xi Jinping, who is widely expected to take over as president later this year.

Why it is blocked: Though Xi, like most high-level CCP officials, earns a block on Weibo, Peng is likely the only unsullied wife of one to receive that honor as well* (Hu Jintao’s and Wen Jiabao’s wives are uncensored, though Wen’s son is blocked because of corruption allegations). This is probably due to the combination of her status as the incoming first lady along with her already high profile as a glamorous celebrity. Like the model heroes in modern Chinese history, she is a member of the Army (serving as a civilian with the rank of major general) who had to sacrifice for her country—albeit in the form of lost commercial endorsement opportunities and the like. [Status - 11/25/11, 2/5/12, 3/12/12: blocked]

*Update: Zhou Enlai’s wife, Deng Yingchao (邓颖超), through no “fault” of her own, is also blocked.