Chinese Political Joke on Beijing Weather · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

As the 18th Chinese Party Congress is approaching, censorship measure has been tightened. Below is a translation of a funny short story circulated [zh] in Chinese social media:
Recently the imperial capital's weather suddenly changed. In the evening, a security old man said: “look! suddenly the sky has changed!” A old lady replied in haze, “don't say sky changed, say the temperature has fallen”. The old man pondered and replied: “We can't even say the temperature fallen”.
The term “Sky Changed” （變天）implies the change of dynasty or emperor in China, while the first word of the term “temperature” (溫度) is the same with the current Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao‘s surname and Wen has been caught up in corruption scandal recently.