By jennifer-wadsworth@blog.timesunion.com
If your mind’s in the gutter, you’ll see what everyone’s laughing about.
Oh, China, way to put your censorship powers to the test.
The People’s Republic needed a new home for the state-run propaganda rag People’s Daily (a paper by the people, for the people … just kidding), so it decided to go all out and build a towering skyscraper in Beijing. Unfortunately for humorless Chinese censors, the new digs, still under construction, took the shape of a certain part of the male anatomy.
Now, the whole world’s snickering.
Weibo, China’s bowdlerized answer to Twitter, lit up with jokes about the undeniably phallic landmark, according to the International Business Times. Censors tried to crack down, but failed since so many people resorted to double entendres.
“Of course, some clever Weibo users have snuck around the censors by way of the double entendre,” The Atlantic reports. “‘It seems the People’s Daily is going to rise up, there’s hope for the Chinese dream,’ reads one message that got through filters, according to the AFP. Another: ‘Of course the national mouthpiece should be imposing.’”
A search using direct keywords on the topic brought up the following message, indicating censored results: “According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, search results cannot be displayed.” Blocked.
Some Weibo users snubbed state thought police by using Photoshop to to poke fun at China’s penchant for, um, erecting suggestive architecture. China Central Television – the TV counterpart to the government newspaper – is housed in an equally ridiculed headquarters, a towering arch the public laughingly calls the “Big Underpants” because it looks like a person’s bottom half. Here’s the resulting mash-up:
China’s naughty architecture, remixed.
In a video newscast, Reuters reporter Anita Yi could barely contain her smirk.
“Instead of debating the architectural merit, many people saw it as a chance to make fun of the state media for its tight control and censorship,” she remarks, trying to fight back a chuckle. “So they pointed to the building’s suggestive shape. If you have got a dirty mind, you know what I’m talking about.”
Oh we know, Anita. We’re just curious what the tower’s architect, Zhou Qi, was thinking.