The Scandalous Saga of the Grass-Mud Horse

The New York Times featured an excellent article last week about an Internet meme sweeping across mainland China: the grass-mud horse!

Videos of this mythical creature (in most videos it's simply a llama) have become incredibly popular in China and everyone from intellectuals to artists are discussing the subject and making their own tributes.

So what gives? Why is anyone enthralled by a horse-like, llama-wannabe? And, why is it muddy?

You see, in Mandarin Chinese, grass-mud horse (草泥马) is pronounced almost exactly the same as the phrase, "Fuck your mother!"

Think of the words "sea" and "see" in English. They're pronounced the same, but they have totally different meanings and spellings. In Mandarin, grass-mud horse sounds similar to the foulest of curses when uttered aloud, but it's actual meaning, and the characters used to write it, are benign.

Because Chinese is a tonal language, there are countless chances to mess up the meaning of a word simply by changing the tone at which it is pronounced. In fact, there are whole comedy routines, known as cross-talk, built around this fact. It's like Abott and Costello's "Who's on first?" routine, except in Chinese.

But, the grass-mud horse hasn't become a phenomenon solely due to it's comedic value. Like most great comedy, this joke has an edge.

According to the NY Times,

"The grass-mud horse is an example of something that, in China’s authoritarian system, passes as subversive behavior. Conceived as an impish protest against censorship, the foul-named little horse has not merely made government censors look ridiculous, although it has surely done that.It has also raised real questions about China’s ability to stanch the flow of information over the Internet — a project on which the Chinese government already has expended untold riches, and written countless software algorithms to weed deviant thought from the world’s largest cyber-community."

"Xiao Qiang, an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, said that the grass-mud horse is an icon of resistance to censorship."

Subversion and llamas all in one? Well done Chinese Internet crawlers!

Want to bypass web censors? Easy! Just hide behind cute animals, singing and dancing!



The infectious music of the grass-mud song actually comes from the Chinese version of the Smurfs!

If any of this seems familiar, maybe it's because you've heard the latest Britney Spears' song in which she pulls the exact same shenanigans! The song is officially titled "If you seek Amy," but Spears, the confused little trollop she is, pronounces the line so that it sounds like, "F-U-C-K me!"

I wonder if she learned this trickery from the Chinese?

Attack of the Panda Police!

Brace yourself readers, for what follows is the sordid tale of a group of nutty people channeling their love of cuddly animals into unmitigated rage and ridiculousness.

If you think Anne Coulter is angry and crazy, just wait until you read below...

It all began innocently enough with a trip to the Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Center in the Sichuan province of China. I visited the center in the summer of 2006 with my friend, and fellow WorldTeach volunteer, Mary Claire. Apparently we picked a really good day for our trip because the park was nearly empty when we arrived. We had the chance to hold and feed red pandas (I think it cost us RMB 50 each) and we were also able to get really close to a number of giant pandas. It was a magical day and I was thrilled I had the opportunity to witness such rare and endangered animals up close and personal in their home country.

I was able to take some great photographs during the trip, which I subsequently posted on Flickr...

And, that, dear blog readers, is where the trouble began.

I uploaded nine photos from the trip, including three closeup shots of China's national emblem, the giant panda. Without much thought, I wrote satirical captions on two of the panda photos (big mistake). The photos appear below with their original titles and captions.
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Pickled Pandas Preserved panda cubs at the Chengdu panda preserve. Delicious...I mean, cute... I don't know what I mean.

(The above comment wasn't meant to suggest that I'd ever consider eating a panda, or any other endangered species for that matter, but rather, I was poking fun at the fact that the Chinese will eat almost every animal alive, and every part of every animal. You name it, the Chinese probably eat it. Deer blood. Dog paws. Snake gallbladders. Yak Penis. Turtle Shell. Chicken feet. Sheep fetuses. They eat it all. In fact, there is a Chinese saying that, “The Chinese eat everything with four legs, except tables — and everything that flies except airplanes.” And cute? Well, baby pandas definitely rank amongst the cutest animals alive, but when pickled in formaldehyde and put in display jars? Ehhhhhh, not so much.)

Abott and Costello: The Pandas

I think the look on the face of the panda to the right proves without a doubt that pandas are the dumbest animals alive. This photo is therefor dedicated to every panda who wouldn't screw to save his species.

(Ok, this caption is less defensible, but the look on the panda's face to the right just cracks me up. The line about pandas not screwing to save their species is from Fight Club. Do I really think pandas are unintelligent? No I don't, and I didn't assume people would take my comments so seriously. But, in any case, that panda just looks DUMB.)
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The craziness began within hours of me posting the photos. The pics started racking up a huge number of views and panda fanatics from everywhere seemed to be drawn to my photos like...well, like pandas would be drawn to to crack-covered bamboo. To this day "Pickled Pandas" remains my most-viewed Flickr photo, with over 6,700 individual views as I write this.

But, these panda fiends weren't content just looking at my pics. Oh no. They were incensed and enraged by my captions and they were determined to unleash their furry fury on me in comment form. A bunch of them wrote lengthy passages extolling the virtues of giant pandas under my pictures, and some of them just hurled insults. Nearly all of them engaged in gross anthropormorphism. Someone from the Flickr group Pandas Unlimited even started a comment thread directing people toward my pandas pics and telling them to leave nasty comments. Hmmm...now that doesn't seem very cuddly.

Some of the more choice comments appear below.

buttercake56 Says:
anyone who would take and post a photo like this is NOT A HUMAN BEING

RosieTheRiveter Says:
You are sick.

sbkap Says:
I have never seen anything as terrible as this--you should be ashamed!

kitchan86 Says:
I cannot believe you use "CUTE" for this pictures, instead it is sad to lose panda cubs.

donnapandabear Says:
What an awful attitude you have. I worry about anyone who would joke about eating these their upper bodies look like human babies from the back.

hantu2008 Says:
Pandas are china national treasure. You can get death sentence for trading pandas.

Unka Bobby Says:
Zach, you are a freak, and probably should be eaten by an adult panda.

TAIwiffic Says:
Look up the word sociopath. I think you'll find your picture next to the definition.
A pox on you, buddy!

babyricoy Says:
you are a horrible man.So far I already meet and guess what... I HATE YOU! by the way you look ugly.You should not show your face in public

newnham25@btopenworld.com Says:
whoever done that will die as a dead man and burn and not to forget pickeled!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ann's wild animals Says:
Pandas are the most intelligent animals and yes , their maternal instincts are far better than most humans . They would do anything to protect their young , in ways you couldn't even imagine !
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Interestingly enough, most of the commentators were American, and they seemed to have little or no interest in, or knowledge of, China. To me, that's like being in love with koalas but thinking that they're native to Oklahoma. And, to top it all off, most of angry posters' Flickr pages feature nothing but pictures of pandas... Thousands upon thousands of panda pictures. Seriously. Check it out if you don't believe me.

At first I was honored that my photos were garnering so much attention. I played along for a bit and did some panda-baiting by leaving combative replies to some of the comments. But, after a while, it just got old. And then, it got creepy. As seen above, I was essentially receiving threats of being pickled and people stooped so low as to call me ugly. Tsk tsk.

Tired of the nonsense, I eventually removed the "offensive" captions. In any case, I learned a valuable lesson from this little saga: The panda police are always on patrol and they will attack at the slightest provocation!

Consider yourself warned.

Creepy Advertising

Take a good look at that girl's face. Wow. She looks like the demonic lovechild of Sarah Palin and Mao Ze Dong.

I saw this billboard in an alleyway in a busy section of Changsha in the Hunan province in the winter of 2008. First, it's interesting to note that this sign is completely and wholly in English, because honestly, almost no one speaks English in Changsha. I think this is the only sign I've EVER seen in Changsha that doesn't have Chinese writing.

Is this really supposed to entice people to visit Watsons? Personally, I'm just scared.

Fruity Sex!

Sometimes sex is just so bland! So, for those looking to integrate a little fruit into their love lives, Durex brings you these wonderful "Limited Edition: Lychee flavoured condoms"! (Note the British spelling of flavored.)

I found these condoms at a 7-11 in Hong Kong in late 2007. For those looking for a little zing in their lives, these are sure to fulfill your longing for both fruit and nookie!

I'm still looking for durian-flavored prophylactics to make a wonderfully disgusting condom fruit salad.

The Frigid Chill of China

Last year, Southern China experienced the worst winter in about 50 years. Temperatures dropped below freezing for weeks on end, and areas that usually go years without ever seeing a single snowflake were buried under mountains of frozen destruction. My former home of Changsha, as well as the rest of Hunan, was hit particularly hard and was brought to a virtual standstill.

To provide some perspective on the wintry chaos, I wrote an op-ed/features article about my experience living thorough a winter in China and sent it off to a number of American newspapers. I got a bit of hometown love when the Denver Post, one of Colorado's two main newspapers (and one of the top 50 largest papers in the USA by terms of circulation), published my piece online. Yay!

You can take a peek at the story on the Denver Post's website here.

The full text of the article also appears below. (A brief gripe... I don't really like the headline the Post gave to the story, "Winter Weather in a Chinese Classroom." Boring! Come on guys, you can do better.)
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Winter Weather in a Chinese Classroom
Originally published March 6, 2008

Hunan, China - Huang Zhiping was tired of being cold. His head buzzed, his ears stung, and his hands were too numb to take notes. So he took out a lighter and did what any other frozen 11-year-old would do: He lit a fire inside of his school desk. As his teacher, I suppose I should have been angry with him, but actually, lighting a fire seemed like a pretty good idea to me.

Welcome to winter in Hunan, China.

In the past month, southern China was brought to a standstill by a frozen maelstrom of snow and ice. Hunan province was the worst hit in all of China, and temperatures there were the coldest they'd been in nearly 50 years.

Transportation came to a virtual standstill, blackouts became routine, and homes were collapsing beneath piles of snow. There were hundreds of thousands of stranded people trying to get home to their families on the eve of Chinese New Year, one of the most important holidays in China.

I spent the past year as a volunteer teacher in Hunan. And, while Hunan had a relatively mild winter last year, it was nearly unbearable for me. I'm not some neophyte to the world of cold. Far from it. I grew up right in the Mile High City of Denver and spent my winters skiing in Aspen and Vail.

Later, I went to college outside of Boston and once got frostbite on my cheeks while walking to class. Yet, nothing prepared me for a Chinese winter.

In Hunan, a province far from the watchful eye of Beijing, indoor heating, or even building insulation, is nonexistent. The buildings are all made of poured concrete because it's cheap and quick.

The downside, of course, is that concrete traps heat in the summer and retains cold in the winter. (Think of stepping barefoot onto the sidewalk in the wintertime.) Imagine a place where there is no escape, no respite, from the cold.

During winter, the inside of a concrete building is often colder than the outside. You might as well be outside during the coldest months of the year in Hunan, because chances are, it's slightly warmer than indoors.

The Hunanese are extremely resilient to the cold because of these conditions. What I thought of as unimaginable chill — sleeping with three blankets while at the same time wearing my winter hat and ski jacket for example — they shrug off as a fact of life.

They have dozens of quirky ways to keep warm, everything from eating dog (a "winter meat" because it supposedly it warms your body), to wearing furry shoe insoles that are sold on street corners for the equivalent of $.25.

I stopped complaining to my Chinese friends about how cold I was after a while, because I realized they thought I was nuts for saying anything.

Classrooms, just like most places in Hunan, are unheated. I can still clearly remember teaching dressed as if I were headed for a day on the slopes: long johns, thermal socks, boots, snowboarding jacket, hat, gloves, pocket warmer.

My students were dressed similarly, and some of them were so bundled up that they virtually disappeared beneath masses of brightly colored winter gear. As I tried my best to teach English under these conditions, I marveled at how nonchalant the students seemed. They were used to cold that I had never imagined, and they sat there in that freezing room eager and ready to learn.

While the cold-induced chaos in China made international headlines, I'm certain that my friends and former students in Hunan toughed it out with their usual hardy resolve.

Undoubtedly, they went about their day-to-day business and did their best to prepare for the coldest Chinese New Year they have ever known. When all the snow melts and the temperature rises above sub-arctic, Hunan, and the rest of China, will surely recover from this deep freeze.

And, wherever Huang Zhiping is, I'm sure he's making the best possible use of the frozen desk in front of him.