In Chinese work chats, a common reply to a message from a leader is shoudao (收到), “received.” In December 2023, the business site Jiemian quoted an office worker: “Do not reply OK to a leader. Reply ‘received’ or ‘all right.’ That is better.”
A worker also told Jiemian: “When I reply ‘received,’ it means I know. It does not necessarily mean I will do it.”
不置可否 To set down neither yes nor no. To give no position at all.
打哈哈 To go “haha.” To brush someone off and deal with a matter only on the surface.
打官腔 To speak in the official tone. To use official set phrases to deal with a request or to pass it on.
搪塞 To plug one hole. From an image in the Huainanzi of a dike with ten thousand holes, of which only one is plugged. To deal with something only for form’s sake.
婉拒 To refuse gently. To decline in a roundabout, polite way.
On Chinese messaging apps, the yellow smiling face (微笑) can be read as contempt, not as friendliness. A 2023 commentary in The Paper wrote that among young people the smile has taken on the meaning of 呵呵, a dry “heh heh.” It stands for “disdain, mockery and speechlessness.”
The same commentary reported that a court had ruled that the smile “cannot simply be understood as mockery.” Its meaning, the court found, is ambiguous.
In chapter 8 of Dream of the Red Chamber, Baoyu wants to drink his wine cold. Baochai tells him that cold wine harms the body and that he must stop drinking it cold. He obeys at once. Just then Lin Daiyu’s maid Xueyan brings her a small handwarmer. Daiyu asks who sent it. Xueyan says that Zijuan was afraid her mistress was cold.
Daiyu takes it and says with a smile: “How good of you to listen to her. What I tell you, you treat as wind past your ears. When she tells you something, you obey faster than an imperial edict.” The novel adds: “Baoyu heard this and knew that Daiyu was using it to mock him.” He had no answer and only laughed.
The Chinese dictionary Handian gives two meanings for 送客, to see a guest out. The first is to see a visitor off. The second is that “the host signals that the guest should leave.”
Its example comes from chapter 49 of the novel A Brief History of Enlightenment (文明小史): “When he had finished speaking, he raised his teacup, and someone beside him called out: ‘See the guest out!'”
Mencius asked King Xuan of Qi about a man who left his wife and children in a friend’s care and traveled to Chu. On his return he found them cold and hungry. What should he do? “Break with the friend,” said the king. What if the chief judge could not keep his officers in order? “Dismiss him,” said the king.
Then Mencius asked: “If the land within the four borders is not well governed, what then?” The text continues: 王顾左右而言他, “The king looked to his left and right and spoke of other things.”
In the Analects, Confucius describes a man of real standing. Such a man “examines words and observes the face, and thinks of putting himself below others” (察言而观色，虑以下人).
The phrase lives on as the idiom 察言观色. The Handian dictionary defines it as “observing a person’s words and expression in order to work out what the person has in mind.”
A short passage in the Analects tells how a man named Ru Bei wanted to see Confucius. Confucius declined, saying that he was ill. As the messenger was going out of the door, Confucius took up his zither and sang, “so that Ru Bei would hear it” (使之闻之).
言外之意 The meaning outside the words. A meaning that is implied but not stated clearly.
弦外之音 The sound beyond the strings. Originally the lingering sound of music. Today a meaning that comes through indirectly in what is said.
心照不宣 Hearts reflect each other, nothing is declared. Both sides understand, and there is no need to say it.
拐弯抹角 To turn bends and go around corners. To speak without coming straight to the point.
In 2015, the former foreign minister Li Zhaoxing explained the language of diplomatic statements. “If the newspaper says that the two leaders held frank talks, it means that they had different views.”
He went on: “What does ‘frankly exchanged views’ mean? It means that different views were also expressed.” (坦诚地交换了意见)