Ai Weiwei does Gangnam Style (really)

25 Oct 12 | Asia and Pacific, China

Update 26/10: The clip below has now been blocked in China. 

While Korean pop sensation Psy was teaching UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon how to do the Gangnam Style dance, Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei was at work in his Beijing studio mastering the moves himself.

But Ai being Ai — China’s most noted dissident — this parody of the viral tune came with his own touch.

The video uploaded was titled “草泥马style” (“Grass Mud Horse style”), the popular Chinese internet meme that is a play on words of, excuse my French, “fuck your mother”, which netizens use to evade censors.

Enjoy.

[H/T Gawker]


Grass-mud horse banned?

25 Mar 09 | Uncategorized

The YouTube phenomenon Song of the Grass-Mud Horse (Cao Ni Ma), has been doing the rounds since January. It’s a jaunty little children’s tune, with some rather, well, crude punning lyrics, taking a swipe at ‘harmonisation’, the PRC’s polite term for ‘censorship’.

If you haven’t seen it before, it’s here. As I’ve said, it’s a bit rude.

Anway, today it emerges that China has blocked YouTube, with the state news agency citing ‘faked videos’ of police beating Tibetans in Lhasa last year.

Could the grass-mud horse have got the whole of YouTube shut down in China? And is the Tibet story made up, because to admit censoring a popular anti-censorship video would be, well, to admit that ‘harmony’ is a little more sinister than it sounds?