Chloé Zhao's Notable Oscar Wins Edited in China, however Fans Look for some kind of employment Arounds

While the world observed China-conceived chief Chloé Zhao's noteworthy three Oscar wins for "Nomadland" including best picture, best chief and best entertainer, China's edits were occupied with attempting to wipe any hint of the Foundation Grants from the web. 

An underlying eruption of festivity and complimentary messages showed up on Chinese online media soon after the function, which broadcasted Monday early daytime Beijing time. However, by evening, hardly any follows stayed as controls cut down by far most online media posts, news stories, hashtags, pictures, recordings and search themes identified with Zhao or the occasion.

Instead of celebrating Chloé Zhao’s wins at the Oscars and making the Chinese public [feel] proud, Beijing is busy censoring her — all for a criticism she made in 2013,” tweeted New York Times Asia tech columnist Li Yuan in disbelief, citing a critical comment about China Zhao made to a U.S. magazine that has made her the target of Chinese nationalist trolls. “For as long as I’ve been writing about Chinese censorship and propaganda, I still can’t wrap my mind around it.”

Official Chinese media such as the Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily, the state broadcaster CCTV and the Xinhua news agency published nothing about the Oscars or Zhao’s win — an unusual move, given that they are typically quick to highlight and claim overseas film awards won by ethnic Chinese artists as wins for China. At least four state media reporters told Western news outlets that they had been ordered by the country’s propaganda bureau not to report on the Oscars at all.

Only the tabloid-esque Global Times wrote on the subject, posting two English-language articles late in the day that did not appear in Chinese. In a reported piece, the paper cited a local critic as saying that Zhao’s win was primarily due to “the Oscars’ ‘political correctness’.” A separate editorial urged her to “become more and more mature” and “avoid being a friction point” in worsening U.S.-China relations.

Just hours before, the paper’s notoriously pugnacious editor-in-chief Hu Xijin himself congratulated Zhao for her win on Weibo. For the film to have won prizes “is not after all a bad thing,” he wrote.

“I hope everyone can understand that my support for the criticism of Zhao’s improper remarks is not at odds with congratulating her on the awards.” The post was soon deleted.

Celebrating “023456789” by “That Girl”

With censors on high alert, fans seeking to celebrate or discuss the Oscars had to come up with new ways of evading censorship: blurring out Zhao’s name, rotating images, adding scribbles to text or photos, or inventing new words and phrases.

“I had to take a screenshot, flip it upside down, translate it and change the phonetics just to post a winners list. People worked on posts all morning and they won’t go out,” one frustrated film blogger wrote. “It’s not embarrassing if you don’t win a prize; it’s only embarrassing if you win the prize and can’t celebrate it.”