Published: August 12th, 2022,
Last updated: May 28th, 2025

What is the connection between the translated name for „Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs“ (白雪公主和七个小矮人) and the characters for the date „May 35“ (五月三十五) or with the Chinese term „The Driving-In-Reverse-Emperor“ (倒车帝)? Why is China’s urban youth and the country’s middle class attracted to three new alleged sciences, involution (内卷), lying flat (躺平), and runology (润学)? The answers can be found online. The ominous code words are allusions to Chinese leaders, to political or social grievances of the kind that are not allowed to appear in the official media. But online, nasty satire, provocative puns, and political attacks escape China’s strict censorship time and again. Brewing resentment is finding an outlet virtually, which, according to Beijing’s propaganda, neither exists nor should exist in the new era under people’s leader Xi Jinping and his Chinese dream.