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Indirect Admonition

In a story from the Strategies of the Warring States, Zou Ji asks his wife, his concubine and a guest whether he is more handsome than Lord Xu of the northern city. All say yes. When he sees Lord Xu, he knows they were wrong. His wife favored him, his concubine feared him, and the guest wanted something from him.

Zou Ji then tells King Wei of Qi that the king, surrounded by palace women, ministers and common people, is deceived far more than he is. He urges the king to open the way for criticism. The story is collected in the anthology Guwen Guanzhi as “Zou Ji Admonishes the King of Qi Indirectly to Accept Advice.”

Soft Nails

软钉子 A soft nail. A refusal or criticism made in a gentle, roundabout way.

旁敲侧击 To knock at the side and strike from the flank. To make a point indirectly, without stating it.

指桑骂槐 To point at the mulberry and curse the locust tree. To seem to blame one person while really blaming another.

Silence and Slowness

敢怒不敢言 To dare to be angry but not to speak.

明哲保身 Once praise for the wise man who keeps himself safe. Today a reproach for avoiding questions of principle in order to protect one’s own interests.

磨洋工 To work slowly and idly, dragging the job out.

The Four Bigs

Article 45 of the 1978 Constitution gave citizens the right to use “speaking out freely, airing views fully, holding great debates and writing big-character posters.” These “four bigs” (si da) had grown out of the rectification and Anti-Rightist campaigns of 1957 and flourished in the Cultural Revolution.

On August 30, 1980, the National People’s Congress amended the Constitution and removed them.

Harmony Is Most Precious

礼之用，和为贵: “In the practice of the rites, harmony is most precious.” The line is in the first book of the Analects. It is often quoted as Confucius, but the speaker is his disciple Youzi.

The passage continues with a limit: “To know harmony and seek harmony, without regulating it by the rites, will not work either.”

Yellow Cat, Black Cat

On July 7, 1962, speaking about how to judge household contracting in farming, Deng Xiaoping said: “Comrade Liu Bocheng often quotes a Sichuan saying: ‘Yellow cat or black cat, as long as it catches mice, it is a good cat.’ He said it about fighting. We beat Chiang Kai-shek because we did not follow the old rules and the old roads.”

The saying is popularly remembered as “white cat, black cat.” In 1976, the Party journal Red Flag attacked the “white cat, black cat” theory for erasing the difference between socialism and capitalism.

Practice Is the Sole Criterion

In February 1977, the leading Party papers set out the “two whatevers”: whatever decisions Chairman Mao made would be upheld, and whatever instructions he gave would be followed. Hu Fuming, a philosophy teacher at Nanjing University, wrote an article against this.

On May 11, 1978, Guangming Daily published it, revised by several hands and finally approved by Hu Yaobang, as “Practice Is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth.” People’s Daily and the Liberation Army Daily followed the next day. A national debate on the criterion of truth began. Hu Fuming said later that the idea was not new: “Every philosophy teacher at every university knew it.”

Take-ism

In June 1934, Lu Xun published the essay Nalai zhuyi, “Take-ism,” in the Zhonghua Ribao. It argues that China should take from abroad what it chooses: “So we must use our brains, open our eyes, and take for ourselves!”

Nomad Dress and Mounted Archery

The armies of the Warring States wore heavy armor, even on horseback. The nomad armies of the north dressed light and moved fast. In 307 BC, King Wuling of Zhao decided: “I want to wear nomad dress.” His soldiers would take up nomad clothing and mounted archery, hufu qishe.

His court objected that he was abandoning their own dress for that of distant peoples, “changing the teaching of the ancients and going against the hearts of the people.” The king answered that it would benefit the people and strengthen the state. Zhao’s army grew strong, destroyed the state of Zhongshan and defeated the Linhu and Loufan.