In the Teochew dialect of Chaoshan, “our own people” sounds roughly like gaginang. Some write it 胶己人, but the linguist Lin Lunlun says the correct form is 家己人.
An article on Chaoshan identity describes the effect of the word among Teochew people far from home: “Wherever you go, if you say one word, gaginang, there is no one who will not help.”
The Shanxi draft banks hired only people from their home region in Shanxi. A study of the banks found that a new employee needed “two well-established guarantors to recommend him.” The guarantors also covered the losses if he proved dishonest.
Staff who proved themselves could later receive 身股, body shares, a share of the profits without putting in any capital. According to the same study, shares were granted after “more than three consecutive fiscal years with excellent performance.” A Chinese account adds that the books were settled every three to five years.
In Lu Xun’s story Kong Yiji, the narrator says that in the tavern, Kong Yiji behaved better than others. “He never left a debt unpaid.” When he had no cash, his drinks were “written on the chalkboard for the time being, but within a month he always paid, and Kong Yiji’s name was wiped off the board.”
Then Kong Yiji stops coming. Two or three days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, the tavern keeper takes down the board. “Kong Yiji hasn’t been here for a long time. He still owes nineteen coins!” He says it again at the end of the year, and again at the Dragon Boat Festival the next year.
In chapter 6 of Dream of the Red Chamber, the poor country woman Liu Laolao comes to the Jia mansion to ask for help. Wang Xifeng first explains that the household is busy. “From outside it looks splendid,” she says, “but no one knows that a great house has great difficulties.”
“Liu Laolao heard the talk of difficulties and took it to mean there was nothing,” and her heart pounded. Then Xifeng gives her twenty taels of silver. Liu Laolao answers with a coarse saying, and the servant who brought her keeps signaling with her eyes for her to stop.
从长计议 To plan from a long view. Not to decide in a hurry, but to discuss the matter slowly.
缓兵之计 A plan to slow the troops. A delaying tactic, used to gain time before acting.
推三阻四 To push three and block four. To decline with one excuse after another.
含糊其辞 To keep one’s words vague. To speak unclearly on purpose and take no clear position.
欲言又止 To want to speak and then stop. To hold back what one has to say.
In Liu Xiang’s Garden of Persuasions (说苑), Lord Mengchang has placed a retainer with the King of Qi. After three years the man has still received no post, and he complains. Lord Mengchang answers: “A thread enters by the needle, but the needle does not make it hold. A woman marries through a matchmaker, but the matchmaker does not make the two close. Your talent must be thin.”
The retainer replies that a fox in the altar of the soil is not attacked, and a rat in the altar is not smoked out, “because of what they rest on.” Lord Mengchang then recommended him to Qi again, and the King of Qi made him chief minister. The idiom 穿针引线, to thread the needle, means to act as a go-between.
The Great Ming Code ordered that the brokers of cities and villages, 牙行, be chosen from households that held property. Officials gave them seals and registers. Anyone who acted as a broker without a license received sixty strokes, and his fees went to the state.
The Handian dictionary defines 牙行 as a person or firm that helps buyer and seller close a deal and takes a commission. Its example comes from a Ming story: “When great households need someone to stand in the middle and guarantee, they often use him. He is plainly a broker without hair.” The man described is a monk.
Foreign trading houses in late Qing China dealt with Chinese merchants through a 买办, a comprador. After 1842, compradors handled the firms’ buying and selling with inland Chinese merchants for a commission. They also hired, managed and guaranteed the firms’ Chinese employees.
A comprador needed a guarantor of his own and often paid a deposit. The guarantor signed a letter of guarantee, witnessed by the foreign firm’s agent and signed by the consulate. Compradors were the richest Chinese merchants of the late Qing.
From 1757, foreign merchants could trade only at Guangzhou, and only through the Thirteen Hongs, the licensed merchant houses. A foreign merchant who wanted Chinese tea, porcelain or silk had to buy it through a hong. A Chinese study notes that all negotiations between the foreign merchants and the Chinese side went through the Thirteen Hongs as intermediary.
In 1970 and 1971, messages between Richard Nixon and Zhou Enlai passed through Pakistan’s president, Yahya Khan. Zhou’s reply said that the Chinese government welcomed an American envoy and that the timing “may be settled through the President of Pakistan.”
On July 8, 1971, Henry Kissinger arrived in Islamabad. At a banquet, Yahya Khan announced loudly that the heat had affected Kissinger’s health and invited him to rest for two days at the presidential villa. Kissinger instead flew secretly to Beijing and met Zhou Enlai.