Bald Grass Mud Horses - 草泥光头马

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The grass mud horse - cao ni ma (草泥马) - is a popular Chinese Internet phrase used as symbolic defiance of Internet censorship in China. The Chinese words for "grass mud horse" sound very similar to the common profanity 肏你妈. which translates as "fuck your mother".

Videos, cartoons and merchandise of this mythical animal, which resembles the alpaca, have been widely circulating online since early last year. However, it was only recently that I received these photographs of my family farm's very own grass mud horses looking quite unlike the bushy creatures that attempt to subjugate the Chinese government's attempts at control.
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Since the grass mud horse, or cao ni ma, is used as defiance of censorship in China, I wonder if there is any different hidden agenda of Brickfield Farm's very own Bald Grass Mud Horses, or cao ni guangtou ma (草泥光头马)?

A perfect blog post

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Note that a nail has not been used where the diagonal strut meets the straining post, made possible by chiseling a neat(ish) hole, inside which fits a strut that has been cut to the correct angle so it lies flush with the post. Nails are a totally uncool way of constructing strainer assemblies like the one in the picture, they look ugly and cause the wood to split, which brings on rot.

I have not updated my blog for such a long time, partly because I have been in England, and partly because The Peking Order, along with all other Blogspot pages, Facebook and Twitter, is now unavailable in China. I am using a proxy server to write this; If you are in China, you are using a proxy to read this.

Now that I work for a trendy PR firm, I feel the need to upgrade my "new media" credentials. Check The Peking Order regularly, which I will update when possible, and look out for me on Twitter, which I am told is good. 

The Restraint of Beasts

I have spent the last three weeks erecting fences on Brickfield Farm - the 35 acres near Brighton that I have lived on all my life. Where previous fencing had long since fallen into disrepair, I toiled to create two new paddocks: one around our pond and one beside the lean-to of our main barn.

Some before-and-afters:

Previously-restrained beasts:

As soon as I have fulfilled my Chinese dream (whatever that might be), I will return to England and start a fencing company - it will be called "Restraint of Beasts".

Utopia: 桃花源记

Throughout Chinese history, scholars and officials – people weary of social interaction and aware of the futility of human endeavour - would retire from towns and return to nature.

Hardly one to downplay the literary significance my own circumstances, I can relate to this. Not unlike Tao Qian 陶潜 – the pre-Tang poet who gave up a life of officialdom in exchange for a simple pastoral dream, I often feel torn between ambition and a desire to retreat into solicitude.

My progress in Beijing stymied by one of this summer’s less-convenient China visa runs – a £423 air ticket back to London, I have spent two weeks at home earning money on the farm to pay for a flight back to Peking. Fencing the paddocks round the pond and beside the main barn’s lean-to has kept me very busy, though very agreeably so.

Tao Qian's "Return to the Countryside":

种豆南山下 草盛豆苗稀 晨兴理荒秽 带月荷锄归 道狭草木长 夕露沾我衣 衣沾不足惜 但使愿无违	I sow my beans below the southern hills, Though grasses flourish, the sprouting beans are scarce. I rise at dawn to clear the wasteland up, Beneath the moon I carry back my hoe. The path is narrow, the trees and grass grown tall, My clothes are dampened by the evening dew. Yet dampened clothes are nothing to begrudge, If only my desires can be fulfilled.