Toad worship

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Moha (Chinese: 膜蛤; pinyin: Mó Há, pronounced [muǒ.xǎ]), literally "admiring toad" or "toad worship",^[1] is an internet meme spoofing Jiang Zemin, former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and paramount leader. It originated among the netizens in mainland China and has become a subculture on the Chinese internet. According to another explanation, it comes from China's social media Baidu Tieba. In the culture, Jiang is nicknamed há, or "toad", because of his supposed resemblance to a toad.^[2] Netizens who móhá (worship the toad) call themselves "toad fans", "toad lovers" or "toad worshippers" (simplified Chinese: 蛤丝; traditional Chinese: 蛤絲), or "mogicians" (膜法师; 膜法師) which is a wordplay on mófǎshī (魔法师; 魔法師, magician) in Mandarin.^{[note 1]}

Another nickname for Jiang is "elder" or "senior" (长者; 長者; Zhǎngzhě), because he once called himself an "elder" or "senior" when he was berating Hong Kong journalist Sharon Cheung who questioned him.^[3][4][5] A video clip recording this event spread on the internet and led to the rise of the culture, which later greatly rose in popularity around 2014, when Hong Kong was experiencing a period of political instability. Initially, netizens extracted Jiang's quotes from the video and imitated his wording and tone, for parody and insult. However, as the culture developed, some imitations have taken to carrying affection toward him. The quotes for imitation have also evolved to include what he said during his leadership, and in his personal life.

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