白板报

【按】如何把一个发生在国外的极其复杂的现象说得一清二楚，下面这篇文章就是一篇优秀的范文。

‘Innocent’ ditty pokes fun at Net crackdown; Childish ‘grass-mud horse’ song lampoons official censors

Ng Tze-wei — South China Morning Post , March 6, 2009 Friday

In the harsh but beautiful desert of Ma Le Go Bi, a special herd of alpaca sheep known as caonima (grass-mud horse), lived happily. But their happiness is fading.

Their habitat has come under threat lately because of a sudden migration of river crabs. But the brave caonima are resilient and intelligent, and they are fighting back – through the mainland internet.

For readers hurriedly flipping through the pages of Index to the Animal World, this tale of survival is not a real ecological crisis, but rather a creation of smart mainland netizens who have turned the government’s sweeping internet crackdown into a national laughing stock. And it all started with an innocent-sounding little song.

The song of the caonima’s epic struggle with the river crabs has become such a popular hit on the mainland that toy shops have started to sell caonima dolls.

Almost everyone, except the authorities, knows this is a dig at the mainland’s internet censorship. The word for river crabs, hexie in Putonghua, sounds almost the same as “harmony” – the central theme of President Hu Jintao’s governing philosophy. It has lately become a euphemism for government censorship.

Caonima is pronounced like an unprintable slang phrase people use to show their anger and frustration. The innocent-seeming song turns out to be not what the internet censors think it is, and netizens, angered by the internet crackdown launched late last year, have adopted it.

By the end of last month, nearly 3,000 websites and about 270 blogs had been closed down. While the authorities say the crackdown is to cleanse mainland websites of “vulgar and pornographic” materials, many liberal or anti-establishment sites or blogs have also been targeted, including the well-known Bullog.com and many current affairs discussion groups carried on Douban.com.

The crackdown soon sparked anger, with many saying it was actually a drive to control freedom of speech in a year of sensitive anniversaries.

Using homonyms, or words of similar pronunciation, to bypass the great firewall of China is not new. But none of the previous attempts has achieved such widespread success as the cute little ditty about caonima.

The Song of Caonima, sung by angelic children’s voices, had registered more than 1.2 million hits on YouTube alone by yesterday.

Since January, when it first appeared on the internet, the song has quickly gathered a large following. It soon branched out into many different forms as netizens poked fun at the clueless “river crabs”.

In one episode, the caonima galloped around freely before the river crabs showed up. Then the crabs, equipped with ultra-hard shells, arrive and ruthlessly pulled up every single blade of grass they come across. The Caoni people, who herd the grass-mud horses, sing in a sad melody that they “used to sell horses, but now have to slash purses”.

The mainland media have played their part in spreading the popularity of the caonima.

The Southern Metropolis Daily printed a story yesterday detailing how two grass-mud horse toys had become hot items on the mainland. Called Ma Le and Go Bi, they were designed by five Guangdong youngsters and sell for 40 yuan ($45HK) apiece.

Ma Le Go Bi sounds like another crude slang phrase.

【按】BBC公布的这个调查很有意思，原来《朗读者》中的汉娜，在生活中是有原型的。人们为了面子，不承认自己没文化。所以，才有三分之二的英国人谎称自己看过某本名著。这种现象在中国肯定也不少，有多少人，真正完整地读过一遍《红楼梦》呢？我承认，后四十回我基本没有看过。

英国人读书的秘密

乔治·奥威尔二战年代曾在BBC任职。据说1948年完成的预言黑暗未来的《1984》书中形象描绘的“真理部”餐厅原型便是当时的BBC食堂。

读书在诸多文化里被视为美德，因此，出于虚荣心或其他原因而夸张自己这方面的成就对一些人难免有吸引力。

然而这种夸张欺骗的广泛程度可能令你吃惊。

刚刚公布的一项调查显示，三分之二的英国人都曾谎称自己读过实际上并没有读过的书。

最“热门”的作家

名单上列居首位的是英国作家乔治·奥威尔（George Orwell，1903 – 1950）的《1984》。接受调查的人当中42%都说自己曾谎称读过这本书。

还有将近三分之一的人（31%）说他们读过俄罗斯文豪列夫·托尔斯泰（Leo Tolstoy，1828 – 1910）的巨著《战争与和平》，而实际未然。

调查是《世界读书日》（World Book Day）英国主办者的网站展开的，共有1,342人参加了调查。

排行榜

网站上列出了十个书名，问接受调查者他们曾否骗人说自己读过上面实际并未读过的作品。

不少人也承认他们曾谎称读过各种经典著作，包括简·奥斯丁（Jane Austen，1775 – 1817）、查尔斯·狄更斯（Charles Dickens，1812 – 1870）或费奥多尔·陀思妥耶夫斯基（Fyodor Dostoyevsky，1821 – 1881）的作品。

在回答“你看谁的书最愉快？”时，接受调查者当中61%都说是《哈里·波特》（Harry Potter）的作者JK·罗琳（JK Rowling）。

这次还有41%的人承认他们在没看完书的时候会跳到最后去发现故事的结尾，另有48%承认他们买书送人的时候会自己先读完这本书。

弄虚作假排行榜

《1984》- 乔治·奥威尔（42%）
《战争与和平》- 列夫·托尔斯泰（31%）
《尤利西斯》 – 詹姆斯·乔伊斯（25%）
《圣经》（24%）
《包法利夫人》- 居斯达夫·福楼拜（16%）
《时间简史》- 史蒂芬·霍金斯（15%）
《午夜的孩子》- 萨尔曼·拉什迪（14%）
《追忆似水年华》- 马塞尔·普鲁斯特（9%）
《我父亲的梦想》- 巴拉克·奥巴马（6%）
《自私的基因》- 理查德·道金斯（6%）

原文出处，需破墙