On the New Year’s Eve this year, a new year’s concert song called “Treading on Horses to Welcome Spring” went viral online, with the lyrics repeatedly mentioning “treading on horses”. Netizens believe that this is a play on words, suggesting that it could be an insult while also being a blessing for the Year of the Horse; whether it is a blessing or a curse, each line of the lyrics seems to have dual meanings. This highlights the boiling resentment among mainland Chinese people.
A circulating video clip shows that the performers of the song are mostly young people, and the electronic screen on site displays the name of a local choir and the words “New Year’s Concert”. The choir members are dressed in bright red clothes, exuding the festive atmosphere of the Chinese New Year, and the lyrics seem to be filled with blessings.
However, netizens jokingly remarked that “something feels off”. In every line of the lyrics, there is the phrase “treading on horses”, especially lines like “I’ll tread on horses to cheer you on”, “Wishing you no worries treading on horses”, “Treading on horses to send blessings”, and “Wishing you to tread on horses to welcome spring”, leaving people uncertain if it’s an insult or a blessing.
Former professor at the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party, who has now completely disassociated from the CCP, Cai Xia, shared a forwarded video saying, “Watching the Spring Festival Gala’s ‘Treading on Horses to Welcome Spring’ song seems fine, but listening to it feels strange, with a hidden mystery behind the lyrics.”
More netizens commented, “It sounds weird as you listen to it”, “Finally, swearing openly. It’s not easy to hold back for decades. ”
Others stated, “Who would want to be a lackey who is possessed by the Communist devil, tasteless, and brainwashed by Communist struggles all day long?” and “This is not treading on horses, it’s clearly performing national curses in front of a national audience.”
There are also created “New Year’s greetings” cards by mainland netizens, hinting at the Communist Party’s practice of “calling a deer a horse”.
In recent years, with the economic decline in China and growing public discontent, the Chinese Communist Party is becoming more fearful. Videos related to the chaotic situation of New Year’s concerts or those suspected of “alluding to reality” are immediately banned across the internet.
On February 14th, a show jointly produced by Henan TV and Tencent’s game “Breaking Through the Dark Area” (Rising Tide Before Leaping Horseshoes) incorporated elements of traditional Chinese culture, such as Hanfu costumes, and gained popularity on the internet. However, the broadcast was suddenly interrupted, and related replay videos were quickly removed from platforms like Douyin and Bilibili, sparking widespread attention.
Earlier, a netizen posted a short video, intending to satirize the chaotic creation and censorship processes of the Spring Festival Gala programs, but unexpectedly it gained rapid attention and was quickly taken down.
Netizens found it amusing that the director’s comment in the video, “This is so funny, I’m dying”, echoed perfectly with the video’s fate, leading to a wave of laughter among netizens, who called it “prophetic art” and one of the most ironic scenes of the year.
Before this incident, CCTV unveiled the 2026 Spring Festival Gala mascots named after four spirited horses, “Qiqi,” “Jiji,” “Chichi,” and “Chengcheng,” which were also mocked by netizens. They compared the four horses to the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” symbolizing doom from the book of Revelation, noting similarities in color schemes and visual design, raising suspicions of an official “bad omen”.
The “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” originate from the Book of Revelation in the Christian Bible, where they ride white, red, black, and pale horses, representing pestilence, war, famine, and death respectively, as a sign of God’s wrath upon humanity.
Furthermore, netizens questioned the pun on the “Four Horses,” sounding similar to “dead horses”; some even pointed out that when the Spring Festival Gala slogan “Qiqi Jiji Chichi” is read backward, it spells out “City Sacrifice Flags,” considering it an ill-omened implication and accusing CCTV of “touching taboo subjects”.