China Archives - Page 11 of 112 - understand-culture

Hu Xueyan and Wang Youling

Popular accounts trace the rise of the late Qing banker Hu Xueyan to one favor. Working at a money shop, he took the risk of giving 500 taels of the shop’s silver to Wang Youling, an official waiting for a post as salt commissioner in Zhejiang, so that Wang could seek his way in the capital. Wang later rose to governor of Zhejiang. He deposited government tax silver in Hu’s bank and asked for no interest.

The story is told in the Taiwanese writer Gao Yang’s novel about Hu. A 2023 article on Sina Finance notes that how Hu actually helped Wang “can no longer be known.”

Soft Mouth, Short Hand

吃人家的嘴软，拿人家的手短 Whoever eats another’s food has a soft mouth. Whoever takes another’s things has a short hand. A person who has accepted gifts becomes partial to the giver. It is often shortened to 吃人嘴软，拿人手短.

Unity Is Strength

The song Tuanjie jiu shi liliang, Unity Is Strength, was written in the summer of 1943, during a local campaign, led by the Party, to review the reduction of rents and interest. According to People’s Daily, Mu Hong wrote the words in twenty minutes, lying on a villager’s roof. Lu Su then set them to music in a little more than ten minutes, on a villager’s millstone.

In Memory of Norman Bethune

On December 21, 1939, Mao Zedong wrote In Memory of Norman Bethune. “Comrade Bethune’s spirit of utter devotion to others without any thought of self was shown in his boundless sense of responsibility in his work and his boundless warmth toward his comrades and the people.”

“A person’s ability may be great or small, but if he has this spirit, he is a noble person, a pure person, a person of moral integrity, a person above vulgar interests, a person who is of value to the people.”

Collectivism in the Constitution

Article 24 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, in the form amended on March 11, 2018, reads: “The state advocates the core socialist values and promotes the public virtues of love for the motherland, for the people, for labor, for science and for socialism. It educates the people in patriotism, collectivism, internationalism and communism, and in dialectical and historical materialism, and opposes capitalist, feudal and other decadent ideas.”

The Small Home and the Country

To build the Three Gorges Dam, 1.31 million people left their homes in the reservoir area and settled elsewhere. By August 2008, the resettlement had passed its national stage inspection, one year ahead of plan. In 2021, the overseas edition of People’s Daily called it the story of the dam and of a million migrants who “gave up the small home for the country.”

Fire at Me

In 1964, the Changchun Film Studio released Heroic Sons and Daughters, a film about the Korean War. In one scene, the volunteer soldier Wang Cheng shouts into his radio: “Fire at me!” In 2013, the magazine Global People recalled the image of Wang Cheng crying out these words and then leaping forward to a heroic death.

The Red-Topped Merchant

Hu Xueyan (1823 to 1885) began as an apprentice in a money shop at the age of 14. In 1860 Wang Youling became governor of Zhejiang. Out of gratitude to Hu, Wang put his full support behind Hu’s Fukang money shop.

After the Qing army retook Hangzhou, the provincial treasurer Jiang Yili introduced Hu to the governor-general Zuo Zongtang. Zuo wrote to the throne that every task he had given Hu was “handled to complete satisfaction.” Hu went on to help Zuo found the Fuzhou Navy Yard in 1866, and in 1872 he raised loans to fund Zuo’s campaign in Xinjiang.

He is remembered as a hongding shangren, a red-topped merchant. Zuo’s memorial already named him by an official rank.

When the Deal Falls Through

Shengyi bu cheng renyi zai (生意不成仁义在) If the business does not happen, benevolence and righteousness remain. The Handian dictionary explains it this way. Although the sale was not made, the two sides still keep their good feeling. A variant begins with maimai, buying and selling.