China’s censorship efforts were recently hadouken’d by internet material about the mythical “grass-mud-horse” creature. Understandably, it seems like just another day in China’s war against all things arbitrary… but the amazing thing about the grass-mud-horse phenomenon is that it managed to bypass China’s “profanity and vulgarity” scanning system. For those of you who speak Mandarin, sound out the pin yin for grass-mud-horse (草泥馬)… go on, don’t be shy.

Cao… ni… ma? Potty mouth. This mythical creature’s moniker is homonymic for—how do I say this without actually saying it?—fcuk yo mama. 好嗎?

The actual characters aren’t profane; it’s the way they sound. So, if any of you Mainlanders are in the mood for some good ol’ fashioned political dissent, just write your manifesto in puns. What’s at the root of all of this evil in the first place? A children’s song about the grass-mud-horse:

Well, there goes your censorship system, PRC. Didn’t you guys get the pun software update…? Just goes to show that you can burn as many books as you want, but you can’t physically destroy literature and subversion. Sooner or later, it all comes back to cao ni ma.

Image courtesy of niuroumian007. (beef noodle soup 007…? haha)