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CCTV’s annual Spring Festival Gala is designed to set the tone for the Lunar New Year. This year, however, a chorus number titled “Tama Welcomes Spring” has taken on a life of its own online, with viewers debating whether its lyrics carry an unintended double meaning.
The song, performed during the 2026 gala marking the Year of the Horse, repeatedly features the phrase “tama.” On the surface, it refers to horses and festive greetings. But many viewers have pointed out that the phrase closely resembles a common Chinese profanity when spoken aloud.
Clips circulating on social media show a local choir dressed in bright red standing before a large screen reading “New Year Concert.” The lyrics are filled with conventional well-wishes: “I tama cheer you on,” “Wish you tama no worries,” “Tama sends blessings,” “Wish you tama welcome spring.”
Online, reactions were swift and laced with irony. “It sounds stranger the more you listen,” one user wrote. Another commented, “I can’t tell if it’s cursing or blessing.” Some joked that the performance offered a rare opportunity to vent frustration in plain sight. “Finally we can swear openly,” one post read. Others quipped, “Holding it in this long wasn’t easy,” and “This isn’t just ‘tama’—it’s national profanity performed for the whole country.”
The phrase has since spawned a wave of online parody. Users have coined mock couplets such as: “Happily bidding farewell to the old year” paired with “Cursing and muttering into the new spring,” capped with the line, “I tama thank you.”
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Cai Xia, a former professor at the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party who has publicly broken with the Party, reposted a video of the performance, writing that while the song “looks fine,” it “sounds strange,” and inviting followers to decipher the subtext.
In the comment sections, some users went further, suggesting that even within state media there are dissenting voices. One wrote: “There are rebels inside CCTV too—educated ones. Who wants to be a slave to a leader possessed by communist dogma and stripped of humanity?”
Caption: CCTV’s 2026 Spring Festival Gala featured robotic performers and a closing act by pop star Faye Wong, whose lyrics about impermanence took on unintended political meaning for audiences accustomed to reading between the lines of state-approved art. (Image: online screenshot)
Whether the wording was deliberate or simply a linguistic coincidence remains unclear. CCTV has not responded publicly. Yet the pun was hardly new. In the run-up to the Year of the Horse, shopping malls across China adopted slogans such as “2026, I tama am here,” playing on the same homophone. It would be difficult, some observers argue, for gala producers to have been unaware of the association.
The song’s popularity may reflect more than wordplay. With economic pressures mounting, youth unemployment persistent, and household wealth under strain, direct criticism can carry risks. In such an environment, linguistic ambiguity offers a form of release. By embedding emotion within festive language, the performance allowed viewers to project their own frustrations onto an officially sanctioned stage.
The controversy has extended beyond the song itself. CCTV earlier unveiled four horse mascots for the 2026 gala, named Qiqi, Jiji, Chichi, and Chengcheng. Online users quickly compared them to the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” from the biblical Book of Revelation, noting similarities in color schemes and imagery.
In the New Testament’s Revelation, the four horsemen—riding white, red, black, and pale horses—symbolize plague, war, famine, and death. Some Chinese netizens also pointed out that the phrase “four horses” sounds similar to “dead horses” in Mandarin. Others remarked that the gala slogan, when read in reverse order, could be interpreted as an ominous phrase. Many described the symbolism as inauspicious.
The Spring Festival period is traditionally the most vibrant time of the year in China. Yet in many cities this year, New Year’s Eve streets appeared subdued. Commercial districts were quieter than usual, and consumer spending showed signs of strain. Against a backdrop of economic slowdown and declining household confidence, public dissatisfaction with authorities has become increasingly visible online.
In that context, a seemingly festive chorus about horses has evolved into something more complex: a cultural Rorschach test, reflecting the mood of a society navigating both celebration and constraint.
By Cai Siyun
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