A euphemism for a house visit by the police. Instead of demanding to be let in, police have been known to masquerade as personnel from the water utility department to trick people into opening their doors.

A phrase to describe ways to circumvent Chinese Internet censorship. It is a parody of the phrase “Scientific Outlook on Development”, a slogan coined by former Chinese president Hu Jintao’s to integrate Marxist worldview with China’s current circumstances.

Internet users who voluntarily defend the Chinese government on Internet as opposed to those who are paid to do so. Online commentators hired to post comments in favor of the establishment are often called “fifty-cent-ers” as they are said to be paid 50 cents Renminbi (about eight cents) for each post.

The unusually blue color of the sky over Beijing when the city hosted the 26th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November 2014. To reduce the air pollution in Beijing, Chinese authorities announced a special week-long holidays for workers and students, halted construction works and banned barbecues and cremations ahead of the summit. This term also refers to the government’s tendency to put on a show for foreigners when the day-to-day reality in China is much bleaker.

A sarcastic term used to describe the Internet in China which operates in many ways separately from the rest of the world. Major services like Twitter, Facebook and Google are blocked, and are replaced with a Chinese equivalent. A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a home, school or office.

When Internet users post about sensitive issues and, as a result, get their social media accounts deleted by service providers, they then “reincarnate” themselves by opening another account. The new handle may end with a number to indicate how many times they have “reincarnated”. For instance, political cartoonist Kuang Biao’s Weibo handle is @飚叔钢笔画47.

The phrase sounds like the word “harmony” in Mandarin, it refers to government censorship. It is widely used as a verb. Instead of saying something is censored, it is said to be “river-crabbed”. The Chinese have also created cartoon memes and songs about the grass-mud horses’ fight against the river crabs that threaten the horses’ habitat called Mahler Gobi. Mahler Gobi is a homophone for another Mandarin curse word meaning “your mother’s f---ing c---”.

This imaginary alpaca-creature has become the de facto mascot of Chinese Internet users’ struggle for free expression and a symbol of defiance against Internet censorship. The word, sounds nearly the same as the phrase “f--- your mother” in Mandarin, and was coined in 2009 apparently to skirt censorship of vulgar content. It is also used to criticize the Chinese Communist Party, which often describes itself as the “mother of the people.”

A euphemism for police interrogation. Dissidents or activists invited to “drink tea” are questioned about their political activities and warned against further involvement. Those interrogated by the police are said to have been “tea-drinked.”