Harmonization (河蟹)
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About
Harmonization (Chinese: 河蟹, Pinyin: hé xiè) or River-crab, is a slang term refers to the Chinese government’s censorships, especially to those on the Internet.
Origin
The term was derived from the word 和諧 (meaning “harmony”, Pinyin: hé xié). During the Hu-Wen reign, the construction of a harmonious society[1] was emphasized in government propagandas and policies. To build that harmonious society, which has no struggle between anyone, the Chinese government has put huge effort on censorships in order to stabilize the Communist Party of China’s regime. Since then, the Chinese netizens started to call the censorship 河蟹 (literally meaning river crab) as a verb, just because 和諧 and 河蟹 have similar pronunciations (See their pinyins). The usage of the word is not limited on describing censorship on the Internet, but also IRL arrests of the anti-government people.
Example on usage
谷歌被河蟹了。
Google is harmonized/river-crab’d.
艾未未被河蟹了。
Ai Weiwei is harmonized/river-crab’d
Spread
Since censorship policies has been imposed on most of the popular sites in China, the term has been used frequently. On Sina, if some sensitive terms are being searched with its search engine, there will be no search results showing up but just a line saying “搜索结果可能不符合相关法律法规和政策，未予显示。” (Search results may not agree with the related laws and policies, thus they are not shown.)
Search Interest
Almost all of the search interest come from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Notable Censorships
June 4th Incident
Liu Xiaobo
The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize laureate – Liu Xiaobo, which is a current political prisoner in China was also a target of censorship of the Chinese government.
The River Crab Banquet
When Chinese artist Ai Weiwei[2] was notified that his Shanghai studio would be knocked down because of producing sensitive artwork against the government, around a thousand of his supporters feasted on river crab as an euphemism on the government’s censorship. However, Ai was absent on the feast as he was under house arrest.
External References
[1] Wikipedia – Harmonious society
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