The good news is, the Chinese have developed a whole new vocabulary of homophone-based slang to get around this kind of censorship.This slang has developed into its own unique internet meme, called “The 10 Mythical Creatures of Baidu,” with Baidu being China’s search engine equivalent to Google.While it might not be ideal to be constantly throwing these around, they are worth knowing for the odd occasion when you are truly annoyed at somebody.Additionally, and probably more importantly, it is very useful to know these kinds of words to be able to follow the comments of other people—especially when they are complaining online.These mythical creatures are the names of strange animals which are pronounced in very similar ways to censored words.

China’s internet is notoriously controlled and restricted.

Pronounced in Mandarin as , this word sounds very similar to the word Harmony/Harmonize (hé xié).

The word “harmonize” began to be censored due to the fact that it was used to describe something being actively censored (eg.

As such, there are a huge number of popular dating apps, ranging from the more conventional, to so-called “hookup” apps like 陌陌 (Mò mò).

Within these apps, Chinese speakers generally use a large vocabulary of internet slang and popular double entendres to communicate and flirt with the opposite sex.