Mutual Obligation Archives - understand-culture

Hidden Overtime

Ms. Li joined a technology company in April 2019 and was dismissed in December 2020. She claimed pay for more than 500 hours of overtime. Her evidence included chat records, screenshots from the DingTalk app and a duty roster for the company’s social media accounts on weekends and holidays. The court of first instance rejected her claim.

On appeal, the Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People’s Court ordered the company to pay her 30,000 yuan. According to the reports, the court held that the idea of a workplace should be weakened. What counts is whether the employee provided substantive work. The Beijing News called it the first case in China to address yinxing jiaban, hidden overtime, in a judgment.

In 2024, the Supreme People’s Court wrote the test for hidden overtime online into its annual work report: “substantive work” and “obvious use of time.”

The Iron Rice Bowl

A very secure job is called tie fanwan, the iron rice bowl. The Handian dictionary defines it as “a very stable occupation or post.” The Taiwan Ministry of Education dictionary’s example: “Many people think that a job in a government office means holding an iron rice bowl.”

The enterprise looked after much more than the job. In June 2017, four central government bodies issued guidance on this. State enterprises were to hand over, step by step, the water, power, heating and property management of their workers’ housing compounds to specialized companies or institutions. The same guidance called for “positive progress” in reforming the schools and hospitals that enterprises still ran.

Regard the Soldiers as Infants

In the Terrain chapter of the Art of War, Sunzi writes: “Regard the soldiers as infants, and they will go with the general into the deepest valleys. Regard them as beloved sons, and they will die with him.” (视卒如婴儿，故可以与之赴深溪。视卒如爱子，故可与之俱死。)

The next lines set a limit. “Kind but unable to use them, loving but unable to command them, disorderly and unable to be controlled, they are like spoiled children. They are of no use.”

Repaid as a Man of the State

Yu Rang served the noble families of Fan and Zhonghang. When Zhi Bo destroyed them, Yu Rang went over to Zhi Bo. Later Zhi Bo was killed by Zhao Xiangzi, and Yu Rang tried again and again to kill Zhao Xiangzi. “A gentleman dies for the one who knows him,” he said. “A woman makes herself beautiful for the one who delights in her.” (士為知己者死，女為說己者容)

Zhao Xiangzi asked why he took such deep revenge for Zhi Bo, when he had done nothing for his first masters. Yu Rang answered: “The Fan and Zhonghang treated me as an ordinary man, so I repaid them as an ordinary man. Zhi Bo treated me as a man of the state, so I repay him as a man of the state.” (Records of the Grand Historian)

The General Who Sucked the Wound

As a general, Wu Qi wore the same clothes and ate the same food as the lowest of his soldiers. When one soldier had an abscess, Wu Qi sucked out the pus himself. The soldier’s mother heard of it and wept. Someone asked her why. Her son was a common soldier, and the general himself had sucked his wound.

“It is not that,” she said. “Years ago, Lord Wu sucked his father’s wound. His father never turned back in battle and died at the hands of the enemy. Now Lord Wu has sucked my son’s wound. I do not know where he will die.” (Records of the Grand Historian)

He Gave Me His Clothes

After a heavy defeat, Xiang Yu sent Wu She to persuade Han Xin, now King of Qi, to turn against Liu Bang and divide the realm three ways. Han Xin refused. “When I served Xiang Yu, my post was no more than a guard holding a halberd. My words were not heard and my plans were not used. So I left Chu and went over to Han.”

“The King of Han gave me the seal of supreme general and tens of thousands of men. He took off his clothes to dress me and pushed his food over to feed me. He listened to my words and used my plans. That is how I came this far. When a man trusts me so deeply, betraying him would bring bad fortune. I will not change, even in death.” (Records of the Grand Historian)

Throwing the Child

In chapter 42 of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhao Yun fights his way through Cao Cao’s army at Changban and brings back Liu Bei’s infant son, A Dou. He hands the child to Liu Bei. Liu Bei throws him to the ground. “For this little brat, I nearly lost one of my great generals!” Zhao Yun picks the child up, weeps and bows. “Even if my brains were spilled on the ground, I could not repay this.”

A common two-part saying, a xiehouyu, gives the scene its usual reading. Liu Bei shuai haizi, Liu Bei throws the child, is completed by shoumai renxin, to buy people’s hearts.

Bonuses for the Parents

A 2014 report on the hotpot chain Haidilao described how it looks after its staff. “Every month, the company sends part of the bonus to the parents, back home, of managers and outstanding employees.” The staff dormitories were described as “regular apartments, with air conditioning, heating and internet,” about twenty minutes’ walk from work. The founder Zhang Yong set up a boarding school in Jianyang, Sichuan, for employees’ children.

Since 2005, Haidilao has paid education subsidies to employees’ children. A 2024 report said that its scholarship had gone to 1,443 children of employees over four years, a total of 13.8 million yuan.

Red Envelopes at the Door

On February 26, 2015, after the Spring Festival, employees formed a long line outside Tencent’s headquarters in Shenzhen. They were waiting for the start-of-work red envelopes, kaigong lishi (开工利是), from the company’s senior executives. The CEO Ma Huateng, dressed in red, stood at the office door to receive them. That day he handed out nearly ten thousand cash red envelopes.

In 2024, Tencent moved the envelopes online. A report that year noted that in earlier years Ma had handed them out in person.

An Old Student Repays Three Times

In the Ming story An Old Student Repays a Favor Over Three Generations (老门生三世报恩), the examiner Kuai prefers young candidates. Three times, without meaning to, he passes the same old man, Xianyu Tong. Xianyu passes the provincial examination at fifty-seven and the metropolitan examination at sixty-one.

Xianyu later clears Kuai’s son of a false charge. “This only repays a little of my teacher’s kindness,” he says. “I still owe much feeling.” He then keeps Kuai’s grandson at his official residence to study and gives him three hundred taels. Kuai thinks: “Plant thorns and get thorns. Plant peach and plum trees and get shade.”