China Blocks Searches For 'Big Yellow Duck' After Brilliant Tiananmen Square Pun

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Michael Kelley    | Jun. 4, 2013, 8:18 AM





Chinese censors have banned the search term "Big Yellow Duck" after an image circulating on the microblogging site Sina Weibo creatively evoked the iconic image of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

The words "today," "tonight," "June 4," were also censored ahead of the 24th anniversary of the brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters in Beijing.

The picture is a play on the 54-foot-tall duck by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman that that is floating in Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor and spawning a bunch of imitations across China.

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Here's the original picture, taken by AP photographer Jeff Widener on June 5, 1989:

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And here's Hofman's duck:



REUTERS/Bobby Yip

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The Tiananmen protests â€" also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese â€" were forcibly suppressed when hardline leaders ordered the military to enforce martial law on unarmed civilians in the heart of the country's capital.

Student demonstrators had occupied for seven weeks before troops with assault rifles and tanks inflicted thousands of casualties on unarmed civilians trying to block the military’s advance.