There have been a series of interesting articles that I've read lately surrounding the Chinese "grass-mud horse". Actually, the articles are about free speech, something that plays a large role in my life being a musician and songwriter. In China, the mythical grass-mud horse has come to symbolize a human right Chinese citizens seldom see in their Communist controlled country.China has dished out a hell of a lot of dollars on censoring the internet, an issue we Americans probably know little about. The name Grass-mud horse in Chinese is phonetically equivalent to “Fxxk Your Mother!” Ouch. The creature is said to live in the "Ma Le Desert" which in Chinese is phonetically the same as "mother's c*nt." Songs, merchandise, and videos have been sold and shown by the thousands in China and Chinese officials are having a hard time censoring the online media because the words aren't actually "bad" words. They just sound like them. It's the equivalent of the words "bare" and "bear" one article stated. The words sound phonetically the same, yet have totally different meanings. This grass-mud horse has quickly grown into a symbol of free speech and anti-censorship in China.
Global Voices Online wrote "The song continues to raise more and more attention in the past two months and public intellectuals joined in the discussion. Beifeng summarized the Grass Mud Horse issue in his weekly online digest:
"Recently there is a popular online term called “Grass Mud Horse”, it pops up all at a sudden and crosses the red light. Even intellectual like Cui Weiping has written article on “Grass Mud Horse”, and now we have “Grass Mud Horse” toy on the internet. It is difficult to trace what is the origin of “Grass Mud Horse”, all we know is that around early Jan 2009, a post titled as “10 legendary creatures in Baidu” has caught our attention, together with two spoofing video “Grass Mud Horse at Ma Le Desert” and “Song of Grass Mud Horse”. It is said that the appearance of the term is related with the “anti-Smut” campaign. The article said that “Grass Mud Horse” is a creature living in “Ma Le Desert” (translator note: phonetically equivalent to “mother's cxxt”), the creature launches a battle with “river crab” (translator note: harmony / meaning censorship policy) in order to keep their stock grass (translator note: also phonetically equivalent to “fxxk”). Netizen 1.5 pointed out that “Grass Mud Horse” emerged as a “ridiculous” popular term, is actually a collective conscious of netizens for sending out the signal: the ruling elites has fallen into the trap of Tacitus in the eye of netizens. The ruling elites have the power to see without seeing, but for the netizens, they believe that “river crabs will disappear from the Ma La Desert”.
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