So, I hope you have heard, sending dirty jokes by text message in China is going to cost you from now on.  How much? You ask, well, that depends on where you live. In Beijing you will not be able to send text again from the same number, in Shanghai, you number will be cancelled entirely. I am not sure whether the same rule applies to English dirty jokes, I don’t think our system is designed to pick up four letter words, just real  dirty, bad, nasty characters.

Now, in my humble opinion, this new attempt at cleaning up text messaging in china is instigated by a saboteur who wants to destroy the value of Chinese mobile network.  This kind of rule is simply not enforceable in our language. Chinese is the most vague and imprecise language in the world, we have tones which drives foreigners crazy, you must have been through the ma-ma-ma-ma bit, where you don’t know whether you are asking a question, calling your mother, or your horse, or cursing all of the above. Also, we have probably the most synonyms out of any language in the world.  The mobile censor system in China operates on picking out sensitive words which might indicate to the computer that the message is a dirty joke. Words such as 性， which means sex, and “房事”which means having sex, and “操”which is the F word in Chinese.  So, here is a joke about dirty joke I want to share with you:

一人发短信:看到总理为保障性住房事,操碎了心真感动! )电信运营商回信:性,房事,操,属黄色短信禁忌词,您的卡将作废,有异议请与公安局联系!

Here’s the joke: a patriotic citizen sents out a text message which says “terribly moved by our premier’s concern over guaranteed low-income housing issues. “ He gets a message from the operator which says: Sex and Fxxx are dirty words and forbidden, your number has been canceled. If you have problems please contact public securit

This is why I think whoever thought up this rule is either  out of his mind, or a devious, conniving and vicious  conspirator who is trying to sabotage the entire Chinese mobile system. Some one is F---ing with us, I tell you and I think I have figured out who.

It must be  James Chanos, the guy who is shorting China in New York.   Now we all know China Mobile is the largest mobile operator on the planet, we also know that a good chunk of its revenue comes from text messages. And it is really a no brainer that dirty jokes are probably the most viral of all text messages and is responsible for a huge chunk of revenue. Killing dirty jokes is going to hurt the bottomline, (no pun intended) and stock prices will fall for China Mobile. Ergo, anyone who wants to short China stocks would want to see regulations like this.

Makes total sense, no?