Simplified characters on candidates

Presidential candidate Kamala Harris is popular among many Asian-Americans. For example, she has long enjoyed support from Cantonese-speaking San Franciscans, who know her as ‘Ho Kam Lai’. But some feel differently. China Media Project analyzes content in simplified Chinese on social media typically used by first-generation Mainland immigrants…  

…In this world, Harris is known by another name — wu ji (烏雞), or “the black chicken” Meanwhile, her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz, is called “Bai Feng,” or “white phoenix.” Taken together, the first characters in these nicknames, “Wu” and “Bai,” allude to the fact the candidates are darker and lighter-skinned. Together, the two names also come very close to “Wuji Baifeng Wan,” the name of a proprietary Chinese medicine that claims to be “an all-purpose gynecological treatment.” To a certain extent, this coincides with Trump and his supporters calling Walz a “tampon man,” emphasizing the femininity of the Harris-Walz duo, while at the same time drawing the reader’s imagination to the female body and sexual organs. The word “ji” (雞), the second character in this name for Harris, is even more obscene, directly linking it to the Chinese words for “chicken” and its homophone “prostitute” (妓). 

…content aimed at Douyin [Chinese TikTok] users [uses] the United States to highlight China’s advantages. Unlike the US, for example, China does not have so many feminists who are unwilling to have children. Or China does not have the “zero-dollar shopping” phenomenon — meaning the raiding of businesses by black rioters, a trend of fake news on Chinese-language social media — that they absurdly allege was caused single-handedly by Kamala Harris. Her Asian identity in these videos is narrowed down to “Indian,” which in turn triggers a series of discriminatory stereotypes about Indians. Or the discrimination centers on failed women who are unmarried and childless, especially when contrasted with Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, the Goddess of America, a woman who has money, children and a career.

Everyone says they can’t wait for this US election nightmare to end. But I must confess: as a almost-lifelong aficionado of surrealism, I’ve really enjoyed it.