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The construction of a Harmonious Society (simplified Chinese: 和谐社会 ; traditional Chinese: 和諧社會 ; pinyin: héxié shèhuì ) is a socio-economic vision that is said to be the ultimate end result of Chinese leader Hu Jintao's signature ideology of the Scientific Development Concept . It serves as the ultimate goal for the ruling Communist Party of China along with Xiaokang society , which aims for a "basically well-off" middle-class oriented society. First proposed by the Chinese government under the Hu-Wen Administration during the 2005 National People's Congress, the idea changes China's focus from economic growth to overall societal balance and harmony. The idea is clearly visible in banners all over China. The idea has been described as resembling characteristics of New Confucianism in some aspects.

In a country where political class struggle and socialist slogans were the normative political guidelines for a few decades, the idea of bringing about societal harmony brings about the fusion of socialism, democracy and societal harmony.

River crab

河蟹 ( English:  River crab), is an internet slang created by netizens in Mainland China in reference to Internet censorship. The word river crab sounds similar to the word harmonious (simplified Chinese: 和谐 ; pinyin: héxié ) in Chinese Mandarin. The three wristwatches refer to the Three Represents, where the Mandarin expressions used for "represent" (Chinese: 代表 ; pinyin: dài biǎo ) and "to wear a watch" (Chinese: 戴表 ; pinyin: dài biǎo ) are homophones.

Since the Chinese Communist Party announced the goal of constructing a "Harmonious Society" (simplified Chinese: 和谐社会 ) in 2004 and the government of Mainland China usually cites this as the reason for censorship, Chinese netizens began to use the word "harmonious" as a euphemism for censorship, when the word for censorship was censored. And when the word harmonious began to be censored, Chinese netizens began to use the word "river crab". Sometimes aquatic product (simplified Chinese: 水产 ) is used in place of "river crab". It is also used as a verb, for example, instead of saying something has been censored, one might say "it has been harmonized" (simplified Chinese: 被和谐了 ) or "it has been river-crabbed" (simplified Chinese: 被河蟹了 ). In some BBSs, "harmonious" is a censored word, so netizens use "river crab" instead.

In Taiwan, more and more people know about the meaning of river crab as an internet slang. Some people dislike the government of Mainland China, and may refer to it as "blood-drinking", a near homophone of "harmonious" (simplified Chinese: 喝血 ; pinyin: hēxuě ).

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/11/AR2006101101610.html
  2. ^ Flickr has been "Harmonized"

External links