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Patron and Disciple

Under the Tang imperial examinations, a successful candidate regarded the chief examiner who passed him as his zuozhu, his patron, and himself as the examiner’s mensheng, his disciple. In the words of the literary historian Hu Kexian, “the patron regarded his disciples as his ‘estate fields,’ and the disciples regarded their patron as the ‘owner of the garden.'”

Candidates who had failed many times felt especially grateful once they passed. After the examiner Gao Ying died, Bai Juyi passed his old house and still wrote a poem of gratitude.

The Entrustment at Baidi

In 223, the dying Liu Bei, ruler of Shu Han, called his chancellor Zhuge Liang and entrusted his son to him. “Your talent is ten times that of Cao Pi,” he said. “If my heir can be helped, help him. If he has no talent, you may take the throne yourself.”

Zhuge Liang wept: “I will give all the strength of my limbs and the loyalty of my heart, until death.” Liu Bei told his sons to serve the chancellor “as a father.”

Zhejiang Village

In the 1980s, people from Wenzhou in Zhejiang settled in Beijing’s Fengtai District to trade. Their district became known as “Zhejiang Village.” The anthropologist Xiang Biao studied it. When people there needed workers in 1984, he writes, they wrote home or even went back in person, to mobilize relatives and find suitable girls through kin networks and in their own and nearby villages. “This was common in Zhejiang Village.”

“Our own people,” he notes, meant “direct relatives or good friends, who would speak up for one when needed.” By 1987, newcomers no longer needed a tie to someone already there. He counts 96,000 outsiders in the area beside 14,000 Beijing natives.

Native-Place Halls

In Ming and Qing cities, people from the same home region built guild halls, huiguan. The earliest one known is the Wuhu Guild Hall in Beijing, built in the Yongle era of the Ming. At first the halls gave fellow natives a place to meet, to enjoy themselves and to stay the night. Some later became associations of merchants in the same trade.

The Spring Festival Rush

Every year, in about forty days around the Spring Festival, hundreds of millions of people cross the country. The rush is called chunyun. It grows out of the custom of reuniting with family for the festival. Even people who work far from home try to be back before New Year’s Eve.

The word first appeared in People’s Daily and Xinhua reports in 1980. For the 2026 rush, 9.4 billion cross-region trips were expected, a new record.

The Southern Tour

From January 18 to February 21, 1992, Deng Xiaoping, then 88, toured Wuchang, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shanghai. “Reform and opening must be bolder and dare to experiment,” he said. “Once we see clearly, we should boldly try and boldly break through.”

“Without upholding socialism, without reform and opening, without developing the economy and improving the people’s lives, there is only a dead end.”

The Story of Spring

The song “The Story of Spring” praises Deng Xiaoping. Its two verses tell of reform and opening in 1979 and of the Southern Tour in 1992. The lyrics are by Jiang Kairu and Ye Xuquan, the music by Wang Yougui, and Dong Wenhua sang it. It became famous after CCTV broadcast it in October 1994.

In 1997, it was the theme song of the CCTV documentary Deng Xiaoping, and Dong Wenhua sang it at the Spring Festival Gala on February 6.

Reform Pioneers

On December 18, 2018, at the celebration of 40 years of reform and opening, the Central Committee and the State Council gave the title “Reform Pioneer” and its medal to 100 people. Ten foreigners received the China Reform Friendship Medal.

Only a Progressive Tense

On December 3, 2013, at a study session of the Politburo, Xi Jinping said: “The development of practice never ends, the emancipation of the mind never ends, and reform and opening never end. Reform and opening has only a progressive tense and no perfect tense.”

The Three Not-Enoughs

In 1069, Wang Anshi became assistant chief minister of the Song dynasty and began his New Laws. Asked by Emperor Shenzong what came first, he answered: “To change customs and establish laws is the most urgent task today.”

Wang is famous for three sentences: “Changes in heaven are not enough to fear. The ancestors are not enough to follow. What people say is not enough to heed.” Scholars long accepted them as his. In 1986, the historian Gu Jichen argued that Wang never said them. The earliest record of them is in the Veritable Records of Shenzong.