Relational Bond Archives - understand-culture

Trust Without Contracts

In Rural China (乡土中国), the sociologist Fei Xiaotong describes rural society as a society of people who know one another. There, he writes, “trust does not rest on respect for contracts.” It comes from “the reliability of knowing the rules of conduct so well that one acts without thinking.”

Acquaintances, he notes, say: “We are all acquaintances. A greeting is enough, why say more?” In modern society people fear that “the spoken word is no proof,” so “they make a mark and sign their names. Only then does law begin.”

The Peach Garden Oath

In the first chapter of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei burn incense in a peach garden and swear an oath. “Though we are of different surnames, now that we are brothers we will join hearts and strength. We do not ask to be born in the same year, month and day. We only wish to die in the same year, month and day.”

The oath ends: “If one betrays righteousness and forgets kindness, may Heaven and men together destroy him.” The official history of the period records that Liu Bei shared a bed with the two men and that their bond was “like that of brothers.” The words of the oath come from the novel.

Witnesses to the Deed

Deeds for land and houses in Ming and Qing China name 中见人, middlemen and witnesses who arranged the sale and signed the deed. One Qing deed studied by the legal historian You Chenjun lists five middlemen and an official broker, who “all signed.” It contains the formula: “Lest there be no proof later, this deed is drawn up as evidence.”

A dictionary defines 中人 as a person who stands between two sides to mediate, to witness or to introduce a sale.

The Wenzhou Lending Crisis

In the first half of 2011, according to the Wenzhou branch of the central bank, the city’s informal lending market had reached 110 billion yuan. Nearly nine in ten families or individuals and nearly six in ten companies took part.

In 2011 the chain broke. Zhou Dewen, head of a Wenzhou association of small and medium firms, said that in August and September alone, more than 100 bosses fled. A commentary in October 2011 called it “a defeat of the business model of the acquaintance society.”

The Shanxi Draft Banks

In 1823, the Rishengchang draft bank opened in Pingyao, Shanxi. It was the first of the Shanxi piaohao, houses that moved money across the empire on paper drafts. A Qing writer described them: “Their methods are most precise, their people most honest and simple, and their credit the best known.”

The Pingyao houses had a saying: 宁可赔折腰，不让客吃亏. “Better to lose until our backs break than let a customer suffer a loss.”

Trusting Strangers

In January 2013, the Institute of Sociology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released its Blue Book of Social Mentality. Its survey of city residents found that fewer than half believed that most people in society can be trusted. Only 20 to 30 percent trusted strangers. More than 70 percent said they did not dare to trust strangers.

The Vocabulary of Acquaintance

熟人 An acquaintance, a person one knows well. Its opposite is 生人, a stranger, literally a “raw person.”

靠谱 Reliable, trustworthy. Said of a person who does things in a sensible way.

拉关系 To pull connections. To make friends with someone one barely knows, for a purpose.

走后门 To go through the back door. To get things done through improper private connections.

在家靠父母，出门靠朋友 At home, rely on parents. Away from home, rely on friends.