Bird Anus

禽肛 (qíngāng): Bird Anus

This is an unfortunate homonym of the name of the former Foreign Ministry Spokesman, "Qin Gang" (秦刚). As explained by a netizen here, Qin Gang is called “bird anus” because:

The anus is where one farts and shits. In other words, if the bird wants to fart, the anus must let the fart pass; the anus cannot decide what kind of fart to fart. That is why he is called “bird anus.” (In Chinese “to fart” can also mean “to speak nonsense.”)

肛门就是放屁，拉屎的地方。总的来说，禽兽要放什么屁，肛门就得放；而肛门自己是无法决定要放什么屁的，所以被称为禽肛。

Sometimes a further play on words is used with Qin Gang’s name: “the bird anus is inflamed” (禽肛发炎) sounds the same as “Qin Gang made a statement” (秦刚发言).

On 9 June 2009, a BBC reporter asked Qin Gang about the justification for the compulsory installation of the Green Dam Youth Escort filtering software. Qin Gang replied:

"Do you have children? If you have children or if you plan to have children, you will be able to understand why Green Dam Youth Escort is essential for protecting the children of China against harmful information on the Internet. Let me repeat this: the Internet in China is fully open and the Chinese Government plays an active role in promoting healthy development of the Internet."

More memorable quotations from Qin Gang (秦刚) are here.

See also stiff fish.