Honorable Merchant Archives - understand-culture

The Shopkeeper’s Sayings

童叟无欺 Cheating neither child nor old man. Fair and honest trade.

货真价实 Genuine goods at true prices.

和气生财 Friendliness brings wealth. A dictionary calls it a common saying of traders: a seller who is gentle and does not offend customers will get rich. In Lu Xun’s story Divorce, a character says: “A person should always be friendlier. ‘Friendliness brings wealth,’ isn’t that right?”

货有高低三等价，客无远近一般看 Goods come at three prices, high and low. Guests near or far are treated alike. In Journey to the West, Sun Wukong quotes it as a common saying to an innkeeper who has just named three classes of service.

Genuine Goods at True Prices

In chapter 5 of Wu Jianren’s novel Bizarre Happenings Eyewitnessed over Two Decades, the narrator hears that government posts are being sold openly, with prices set and offers made everywhere. “This is one way of attracting business,” he says. “But I wonder whether they have the words ‘Genuine goods at true prices, no cheating of child or old man.'” His friend laughs.

Lord Zhu of Tao

After helping the King of Yue take revenge on Wu, Fan Li left by boat, changed his name and settled in Tao. He chose it because it lay at the center of the world, where the roads of all the states met and goods were traded.

The Records of the Grand Historian says: “In nineteen years he earned a thousand gold three times, and twice he gave it away to poor friends and distant kin. This is what is called being rich and delighting in virtue.” For this reason, “all who speak of wealth name Lord Zhu of Tao.”

Zigong and the Huizhou Merchants

Confucius’s disciple Zigong traded between Cao and Lu and became the richest of the seventy disciples. The Records of the Grand Historian says that he traveled with teams of horses and gifts of silk, and that rulers received him as an equal. Sima Qian wrote that it was Zigong’s support, before and after, that spread Confucius’s name through the world.

The merchants of Huizhou prized 贾而好儒, “trading and loving Confucian learning.” A 2021 article in the Study Times gives their creed: 诚信为本、以义取利, “honesty as the root, profit through righteousness.”

Sanlu

In 2008, infant formula from the Sanlu Group was found to contain melamine. China’s Ministry of Health reported nearly 296,000 children with urinary problems, six of whom died.

According to the account in Chinese Wikipedia, Sanlu’s own tests had found melamine in 15 of 16 batches that summer. On August 1, chairwoman Tian Wenhua ordered the matter covered up. City officials blocked a public recall until after the Beijing Olympics. In January 2009, Tian was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Guan Yu, God of Wealth

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.”

The Tongrentang Pledge

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.”

Guard Against Deceit

In 1878, the merchant Hu Xueyan wrote a plaque for his pharmacy, Hu Qing Yu Tang, headed Jie qi, Guard Against Deceit. “In every trade, the word ‘deceit’ has no place. The medicine trade concerns people’s lives, so it must never deceive at all.”

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.”