Welcome to RealTime Mandarin, a free weekly newsletter that helps you improve your Mandarin in 10 minutes a week.
Subscribe today to get your fluency back, stay informed about China, and communicate with confidence in Chinese — all through immersion in real news.
One of China’s most formidable companies, Huawei (华为), has been humbled by a cheap children’s toy.
That toy is called a “bamboo cicada” (竹知了) which is made of a short section of bamboo and a piece of string. It sounds like a cicada when spun, and is said to date back to the Sui (隋) and Tang (唐) dynasties of over 1,400 years ago.
The harmless toy became a trending topic on Chinese social platforms in recent weeks. It started when netizens somehow linked the bamboo cicada’s buzz to the unveiling of Huawei’s AITO M9 (问界M9) SUV car back in December 2023.
The launch was hosted by Richard Yu (余承东). He’s the head of Huawei’s smart car business, and is well known for his meme-able, over-the-top catchphrases during launch events.
At that launch, true to form, he described the new car as:
“The best SUV under ten million yuan”
一千万元以内最好的SUV
With that one-liner he drew whoops and excited cheers from the audience in the venue. While online, it became a meme mocking Yu’s over-the-top style.
But it was only recently that the sound of the audience’s reaction, and Yu’s own distinctive rapid-fire way of speaking, was likened to the buzz of the bamboo cicada toy.
Content creators began mixing the toy’s high-pitched sound into footage of the launch, and others simply shared images of the toy, with the caption:
“The best toy under one thousand yuan.”
一千元以内最好的玩具。
What started out as a light-hearted, slightly niche joke online was then blown up out of all proportion when Huawei’s well-paid lawyers waded in.
Online platforms were soon hit by a wave of takedown orders from the company’s legal team who claimed the videos had deliberately used “veiled” (隐晦) techniques to mock (戏谑), smear (丑化) and ridicule (嘲讽) the company and its executives, particularly Richard Yu.
But the censorship didn’t stop there. Soon, there were reports of videos online of people simply shaking the toy being removed. Even popular science posts from years ago also vanished. And in one instance, a little girl filmed by her family playing with a bamboo cicada by the roadside had the comments section wiped and blocked on that post.
Related
Unfortunately for Huawei, the heavy-handed approach only brought the conversation further into the mainstream, which is an outcome one writer notes was entirely predictable, borrowing a term from English, saying:
The public witnessed a textbook demonstration of the “Streisand effect”.
The harder you try to hide something, the more people want to see it. The more you silence others, the more everyone suspects there is something fishy going on.
全社会的人都看到了传说中的”史翠珊效应”——你越不让看，大家越想看。你越捂嘴，大家越觉得这里面有故事。
So the memes continued to come thick and fast, the story shot to the top of trending lists, and, even more ridiculous, sales of bamboo cicadas surged online with captions like “as seen with Mr. Yu” (与余总同款).
In response to the growing backlash, Huawei issued a statement on 4 August denying any blanket campaign against the toy, and its users. Saying it had only targeted personal attacks on Yu.
The statement only invited further ridicule, with one widely shared essay calling it the worst PR disaster in Huawei’s history:
“You can wipe out a bamboo cicada.
But you cannot wipe out the cicada song that has echoed in people’s hearts for centuries.”
你可以消灭一个竹知了，但消灭不了公众心中盘桓几百年的知了声。
The same writer went on to use a cryptic reference to imperial censorship from over 200 years ago, which we’ve translated as:
“The public may be uneducated, but that doesn’t mean you can abuse your power.”
老百姓可以不识字，但你不能乱翻书。
This is an adapted line from the story of Xu Jun (徐骏) a famous scholar who was executed during a “literary inquisition” (文字狱) in 1730 by the Qing rulers.
His punishment was for writing the innocent line:
“The breeze cannot read, so why, then, does it riffle through my book?”
清风不识字，何故乱翻书。
Paranoid officials claimed the word “breeze” (清风), which contains the character of the ruling Qing (清) dynasty’s name, was actually a seditious attack mocking the Manchu rulers for being uneducated and meddling in the arts.
Today, Chinese netizens have resurrected that line as, “The public may be uneducated, but that doesn’t mean you can abuse your power” as shorthand for over-anxious censorship and abuse of power.
Huawei’s Richard Yu is no stranger to online mockery as we’ve seen before in this newsletter.
One of our favourites is how his marketing prowess turned an otherwise unremarkable phrase, “way ahead” (遥遥领先), into one of the top social media slang phrases of 2023.
Originally from 1980s state media propaganda boasting that China was “way ahead in terms of technology” (遥遥领先的技术与工艺), the phrase took on its new life when Yu unveiled the Mate 60 Pro smartphone. He repeated the phrase so relentlessly during the launch, that internet users turned it into a meme mocking his bombastic style. That meme has since stuck and even become another word for Huawei itself.
Back to the bamboo cicada affair, as the story continued to trend online more memes and wordplay about Richard Yu flowed. Such as this beauty:
“Lingering echoes of Yu”
余音绕梁
Here, the old idiom “lingering music encircling the rafters” (余音绕梁) is given a new meaning: the first character (余), which means “lingering”, is the exact same character as Richard Yu’s surname. By turning that character into a direct reference to Yu, the idiom is twisted into joke about Yu’s loud, boastful presentations, and how his voice echo endlessly in people’s ears.
Memes and mockery aside, what has really got people angry about the bamboo cicada affair is Huawei’s abuse of its immense power and influence, and its endless supply of money to pay expensive lawyers to do its bidding against the interests of the public.
One writer sums up the mood perfectly with this set of rhetorical questions:
So let me ask you this: do the people support this?
Are the people happy with it?
Do the people think this is fair?
我想问一句，人民拥护吗？人民满意吗？人民觉得这样公平吗？
I think the answer to all of these questions is: No!
So that’s what we’re discussing this week!
Favourite Five
1. 调侃 tiáo kǎn
tease, poke fun at
现在评论区已经有很多网友在拿这个事来调侃了 - There are already many people poking fun at it in the comments section . [4]
2. 余音绕梁 yú yīn rào liáng
the lingering sound of music, a lasting impression; in this context, it is a pun that mocks Richard Yu ’s boastful way of talking
你不能因为竹知了摇动时的嗡鸣声接近于你们产品发布会的“余音绕梁”，就敏感了 - You shouldn’t get so defensive just because the buzzing sound of a “bamboo cicada” toy happens to resemble the “lingering echoes of Yu” at your product launch. [1]
3. 史翠珊效应 shǐ cuì shān xiào yìng
the Streisand effect
互联网有个铁律：越禁越火，即所谓的史翠珊效应 - Things on the internet follow a golden rule: the more you try to ban something, the more viral it becomes. This is what’s known as the Streisand effect. [2]
4. 老虎屁股摸不得 lǎo hǔ pì gu mō bù dé
untouchable, someone who cannot be criticized or challenged
投诉方是个老虎屁股摸不得的超级大公司 - The party making the complaint is a mega-corporation that considers itself practically untouchable. [2]
5. 清风不识字，何故乱翻书 qīng fēng bù shí zì, hé gù luàn fān shū
literally, “The breeze cannot read, so why, then, does it riffle through my book?”; a metaphor for censorship and abuse of power
老百姓可以不识字，但你不能乱翻书 - The public may be uneducated, but that doesn’t mean you can abuse your power. [1]
💡 Want to close the gap between your rusty textbook Chinese and the real thing? 💡
The RTM Plus membership will help you do just that.
It gives you the tools, resources, and content you need to getg motivated, build a habit, and make real progress.
It including podcasts, app integrations, and much more and is ideal if your Chinese was once strong but has got rusty.
And you want to get your confidence back.
All while staying on top of what people in China are actually talking about right now.
Consuming the Conversation
Useful words
6. 猎杀 liè shā
hunt down and kill, mercilessly target
这种无差别的猎杀，给人一种强烈的威胁甚至是舆论霸凌的错觉 - This kind of indiscriminate crackdown creates a chilling sense of intimidation, almost giving the impression of engaging in a PR warfare. [1]
Related:
霸凌 bà líng - bullying
7. 反噬 fǎn shì
backfire, suffer the consequences
自古以来所有泛化的杀戮最终都会遭到反噬 - History shows that blanket crackdowns always backfire in the end. [1]
8. 暗喻 àn yù
implicit metaphor, indirect allusion
通过某某人的标志性发言，配合竹知了发出的与发布会现场相似的音效，形成了明确的指向性暗喻 - By pairing quotes from a certain individual with the toy’s buzzing sound, which closely echoes the company’s product launch, it creates a clear and pointed allusion. [2]
9. 隐晦 yǐn huì
implicit, subtle
我们的社会，什么时候连玩个玩具都能成为“隐晦地暗讽”某个企业家了？ - Since when has our society reached the point where even playing with a toy can be considered “subtly mocking” a particular entrepreneur? [4]
10. 私器 sī qì
private tool, a tool for personal interests
法律绝不是某个企业、某个企业家、某个律师团队的私器 - The law is absolutely not a private instrument that serves a particular company, entrepreneur, or legal team. [2]
Related:
公器 gōng qì – public instrument, a tool serving the public interest
11. 影射 yǐng shè
allude to, make an indirect reference to
我展示童年玩具的权利，抵不过一句“我觉得你在影射我” - My right to share a simple childhood toy is instantly overridden by their claim of “implied defamation”. [2]
12. 懵逼 mēng bī
completely confused, totally baffled
总之关于这个事，我现在真的是完全懵逼了 - Anyway, I’m honestly completely baffled by this whole thing right now. [4]
Note: internet slang from northern dialect. Slightly vulgar and only used in informal chats
