It's an article on how Chinese citizens are becoming subversive and getting back at the Big Brother by popularizing "grass-mud horse". Apparently it's a mythical creature, and also a song, that reads benign but sounds dirty when pronounced because it has a double meaning. So the Chinese dictators don't know how to censor it.
The funny thing is that, after giving about twenty-five examples of Chinese censorship, NYT itself censors itself and nowhere does it mention in its article what grass-mud horse means. Except say that it means something nasty.
To Chinese intellectuals, the songs’ message is clearly subversive, a lesson that citizens can flout authority even as they appear to follow the rules. “Its underlying tone is: I know you do not allow me to say certain things. See, I am completely cooperative, right?” the Beijing Film Academy professor and social critic Cui Weiping wrote in her own blog. “I am singing a cute children’s song — I am a grass-mud horse! Even though it is heard by the entire world, you can’t say I’ve broken the law.”What do you think the Chinese mean when they say grass-mud horse? Any ideas?
