Indirect Exit Archives - understand-culture

Asking for One’s Bones

In the Han dynasty, Shu Guang and Shu Shou served together as tutors to the crown prince. After five years, Shu Guang said: “Know when enough is enough, and there is no disgrace. Withdraw when the work is done, that is the way of Heaven.” On the same day, both reported sick.

After three months of sick leave, Shu Guang said that his illness was serious and petitioned to “beg for his bones” (乞骸骨), the old formula for asking to retire. The emperor agreed and gave them twenty jin of gold. Hundreds of carriages saw them off.

Following Master Red Pine

Zhang Liang was the chief strategist of Liu Bang, the founder of the Han dynasty. After he was made a marquis, he announced: “To be teacher to an emperor by a three-inch tongue, with a fief of ten thousand households and the rank of marquis, this is the highest a commoner can reach. For me it is enough. I wish to leave the affairs of men and wander with Master Red Pine.”

Master Red Pine is a legendary figure. Zhang Liang stopped eating grain and practiced breathing exercises. After the emperor died, Empress Lü insisted that he eat, and he gave in. (Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian)

Steps to Come Down

给台阶下 To give someone steps to come down. To offer a way out of an awkward position.

不了了之 To settle a matter by not settling it. To leave it unfinished, let it drag on, and count it as done.

冷处理 Cold treatment. To leave a matter untouched for now and settle it at a better moment.

推托 To decline with an excuse.

婉拒 To refuse gently.

People in the Middle

中间人 A person in the middle. Someone who introduces, mediates or witnesses between two sides.

和事佬 A peacemaker. Someone who settles quarrels.

说和 To talk two sides into making peace. The word appears in Dream of the Red Chamber.

托人 To entrust a matter to another person. To ask someone to act on one’s behalf.

The Fengqiao Experience

In 1963, during the Socialist Education Movement, Fengqiao district in Zhuji, Zhejiang, dealt with the “four categories” of class enemies by having local people supervise and reform them on the spot, without arrests. Mao Zedong wrote an instruction that other places should copy it.

Over the decades, the Fengqiao Experience came to mean settling disputes locally. Xinhua sums it up: “Small matters do not leave the village, big matters do not leave the town, conflicts are not passed up.”

The People’s Mediation Law

China’s People’s Mediation Law was adopted on August 28, 2010, and took effect on January 1, 2011. Mediation committees in villages, neighborhoods and companies help the parties reach agreement “through persuasion, guidance and similar methods.” They charge nothing. If the parties see no need for a written agreement, they may agree orally, and the mediator records it.

At the end of 2009, China had more than 823,000 people’s mediation organizations. In the previous five years, they had handled more than 29 million civil disputes and settled 27.95 million.

Argument Tea

吃讲茶 To drink argument tea. In old China, the two sides of a dispute went to a teahouse and asked the people there to judge who was right. A 2024 article on Chengdu teahouses describes it: “When ordinary people had a conflict, they did not go to the authorities but to the teahouse for mediation.”