A friend of mine called me recently and told me about a media phenomenon that was sweeping across China and sloshing across the Pacific to hit our shores. It's the "grass mud horse". (Actually, I think my friend may have said "gelassenheit mud horse", which is weird and not really in context. But "gelassenheit" kinda sorta sounds like "grass" when spoken by a non-native English speaker over a crappy mobile phone connection from an undisclosed location.)
The grass mud horse is one of the Baidu 10 mythical creatures. It's sort of like an alpaca and lives out on the grasslands. The horses have a problem: invading "river crabs" are devouring their grassland. In spoken Chinese, "river crab" sounds very much like "unity", which in China's cyberspace has become a synonym for censorship. Actually, looking back on it, my friend might have actually said "community" or even "harmony", but you know how it's easy to misconstrue things over a crappy phone connection. Anyway, censored bloggers often say their posts have been "unified" a term directly derived from President Hu Jintao's regular exhortations for Chinese citizens to create a "unified" and "harmonious" society.
Let's all sing the grass mud horse song in solidarity with the Chinese dissidents who are fighting censorship!
