靠谱 Reliable. Said of what is sensible and makes sense. A dictionary example: “This person does things reliably.”
放鸽子 To release the pigeons. To break an appointment and lose someone’s trust.
凡事有交代，件件有着落，事事有回音 Every matter accounted for, every item settled, every message answered. A business article says that some people define being reliable by these three things, and that the three are really one: closing the loop.
Zengzi said: “Each day I examine myself on three points. In planning for others, have I failed to give my all? With friends, have I failed to keep my word? What was passed on to me, have I failed to practice?” (Analects 1.4)
Commentators read zhong in the first question as giving all of oneself to another person’s task.
A junlingzhuang is a written pledge given on receiving an order. The signer accepts severe punishment if the task is not done. In chapter 46 of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a pledge reads: “I am willing to submit a military pledge. If it is not done in three days, I accept heavy punishment.”
A CCTV News article noted that the fight against poverty was the only task since the 18th Party Congress for which Party and government heads signed military pledges to the Center. Xi Jinping said in 2016: “A military pledge is not made lightly. What we say, we must do.”
In his memorial on setting out for war, Zhuge Liang recalled how he had served Liu Bei: “I took up my charge when the army was defeated, and I received orders in a time of danger.”
A second memorial, attributed to him, ends: “I will bend to the task and give my all until I die. Whether it succeeds or fails, goes well or badly, is beyond what my understanding can foresee.”
Wei Sheng arranged to meet a woman under a bridge. She did not come. The water rose, and he did not leave. He held on to the bridge pillar and drowned. Dictionaries define Wei Sheng bao zhu, Wei Sheng holds the pillar, as keeping faith with an agreement.
In the Zhuangzi, the robber Zhi tells the story to mock such men. They are “no different from a dog torn apart or a pig swept away by the river,” he says. They valued their name, made light of death and forgot their own lives.
Tongrentang, the Beijing pharmacy founded in 1669, keeps an old pledge: “Though the preparation is laborious, we never dare to save labor. Though the ingredients are costly, we never dare to reduce materials.”
By September 2011, JD.com had made a firm promise in its own delivery areas, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu. Orders for goods in stock placed before 11 a.m. arrive the same day. Orders placed before 11 p.m. arrive by 3 p.m. the next day.
Yi fen bushu, jiu fen luoshi. “One part planning, nine parts implementation.” A Xinhua commentary of January 14, 2026, used the phrase to urge cadres to carry out the Party Center’s major decisions in full.
From 1985, Wang Shunyou carried the mail in Muli County, Sichuan. For more than 330 days a year, he walked alone with one horse on a mountain postal route of 584 kilometers there and back, 260,000 kilometers in all. He never delayed a single mail run and never lost a single item.
In 2006, his story was made into the film The Shambhala Messenger. In 2009, he was named one of 100 people who had moved China since 1949. He died in 2021.
Confucius said: “A person who is not trustworthy, I do not know how he can be of any use. A large cart without a yoke pin, a small cart without a collar pin, how can they move?” (Analects 2.22)
Asked what a state needs, Confucius named enough food, enough weapons and the trust of the people. If one had to go, he would give up the weapons first, then the food. “Since ancient times, all have died. Without trust, the people cannot stand.” (Analects 12.7)