In 2014, a Beijing official explained to the Beijing News how deputies are addressed. “Nobody says Deputy Director X. Deputy leaders are mostly called by surname plus a short form of the title.” The word fu, deputy, is left out.
A professor warned about one short form, the surname plus fu. For deputies named Zu or Yue, it gives Zu fu or Yue fu, which sound like the words for grandfather and father-in-law.
In 202 BC, defeated by Liu Bang, Xiang Yu reached the Wu River. On the other side lay Jiangdong, where he had raised his army. He refused to cross.
“I crossed the river and went west with eight thousand young men of Jiangdong. Today not one of them returns. Even if the fathers and elder brothers of Jiangdong pitied me and made me king, with what face could I see them? Even if they said nothing, would I not be ashamed in my heart?”
He died there by his own hand. (Records of the Grand Historian)
In 2006, sex workers and their clients were paraded through the streets in Shenzhen, and the clients’ heads were shaved. In July 2010, police in Dongguan led sex workers on a rope while local television filmed them. In Wuhan, the names of suspects were posted in the street, and the police later admitted that this was “indeed improper.”
Later that month, the Ministry of Public Security ordered the police to stop parading suspects in public. A ban on such parades had already been issued in 1988.
In November 2018, Dolce & Gabbana promoted a large show in Shanghai with videos titled Qi kuai chi fan, Pick Up the Chopsticks and Eat. The brand deleted them from Weibo. On November 21, a screenshot of a private chat with the designer Stefano Gabbana spread on Weibo. That evening the show was cancelled. Its stage, which had cost eight million yuan, was already built.
In a later apology video, the two founders said duibuqi, sorry, in Chinese. Chinese Wikipedia files the episode under the heading “the controversy over insulting China.”
In May 1930, Mao Zedong wrote a short essay called Oppose Book Worship. Its first section opens: meiyou diaocha, meiyou fayanquan. “No investigation, no right to speak.” Mao continued: “If you have not investigated a question, you forfeit your right to speak on that question.”
The rice scientist Yuan Longping used to tell his students: “Rice does not grow in a computer, and it does not grow in books. To grow good rice, one has to go down into the fields.”
His student Li Jianwu recalled the words in People’s Daily in 2021. For decades, he wrote, going into the fields was almost part of Yuan’s daily life. Yuan carried dry rations with him to Yunnan, Hainan and Guangdong.
At midday on August 29, 2023, Huawei announced that its new Mate 60 Pro phone was on sale. Orders opened on its website under the name “HUAWEI Mate 60 Pro Pioneer Program.” There was no launch event. That week, the US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was in China for talks.
光说不练假把式，光练不说真把式，连说带练全把式 Talk without practice is a fake act. Practice without talk is the real thing. Talk with practice is the complete master.
口说无凭，事实为证 Spoken words are no proof. Facts are the evidence.
是骡子是马，拉出来遛遛 Mule or horse, lead it out for a walk.
守口如瓶 To keep the mouth closed like a bottle. To keep a secret strictly. In the novel Romance of the Sui and Tang, a character says to the emperor: “I hope Your Majesty will keep it closed like a bottle and never mention it.”
过河拆桥 To tear down the bridge after crossing the river. To turn away from the person who helped once the goal is reached.
Guan Yu, the general of the Three Kingdoms known for his loyalty, is worshipped as a wu caishen, a martial god of wealth. “Merchants chose Guan Gong as their god of wealth because they value his loyal and righteous image,” China News Service wrote in 2011. The Paper put it this way: “Merchants revere Guan Gong’s loyal and trustworthy heart, and most of them worship him.”
A business daily explained the choice: “For merchants, for whom mutual trust is the most important standard, yi should be placed at the center of their values.”