BEIJING | Coded expressions, references to “watermelons” or to a certain “PS”: the affair of tennis player Peng Shuai is passed over in silence in China, but Internet users are showing ingenuity to circumvent the censorship of social networks.
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In a message published online in early November, the champion spoke at length about her complicated relationship with former Chinese vice-premier Zhang Gaoli and mentioned a sexual relationship with him that she felt “forced” to accept.
The text remained only a few minutes on the official account of the 35-year-old player on the Chinese social network Weibo, before being deleted by the censors.
Since then, the case has been completely glossed over in the Chinese media. And the censors are redoubling their efforts to erase any allusion to the scandal on social networks.
The majority of Chinese are thus unaware of the affair, especially since most foreign media websites are blocked in China.
But information still circulates via private messaging and word of mouth.
To circumvent censorship, Internet users first began to use the initials (“PS”) of the former world number one in doubles. A subterfuge quickly spotted and censored.
Hence the appearance of an ingenious “coded” hash word: “#Peng Yuyan is super handsome”, a reference to Peng Yuyan, a Taiwanese actor popular in China.
“Beau” saying “shuai” in Mandarin, the hashtag therefore has for first and last Chinese character “Peng” and “Shuai” – the name of the champion.
Other Weibo users have taken to the tennis page to talk about a “big watermelon” that made the headlines.
In Chinese, the expression “to eat watermelon” means to be interested in high-profile or eye-catching news.
“Even when I sleep, I wake up to eat watermelon,” one Weibo user wrote in a since-deleted post. He did not mention Zhang Gaoli by name, but referred to him as “the politically sensitive person”.
On the Weibo account of the WTA, the international body managing the women’s tennis circuit, some showed their “support” for the organization which decided to cancel its tournaments in China, without explicitly mentioning Peng Shuai.
Internet users also sometimes take refuge in the most unsuspected corners of the web.
Some commented on the case on the film review site Douban, on the page devoted to a South Korean series with the evocative name: The Prime Minister and Me…
These various tips did not last long in the face of the vigilance of the censors.
