Article 18 of the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, revised in December 2012 and in force since July 1, 2013, says: “Family members who live apart from the elderly should often visit or greet them. Employers shall, in accordance with the relevant state provisions, guarantee the supporters’ right to home-visit leave.”
At the CCTV Spring Festival Gala of 1999, Chen Hong, Cai Guoqing, Zhang Mai and Jiang Tao sang 常回家看看, “Come Home Often.”
Under the State Council’s regulations on home leave for workers, an employee who lives apart from a spouse is given home leave once a year, for 30 days. An unmarried employee who visits his or her parents is, as a rule, given leave once a year, for 20 days.
In 2016, Henan revised its regulations on population and family planning. “After the parents of an only child reach the age of sixty, while they are in hospital for treatment, their child is given nursing leave of up to 20 days a year in total. Nursing leave counts as attendance.” Fujian grants up to 10 days a year, and Guangxi up to 15.
In the Book of the Later Han, Wang Ba is told: “Of those from Yingchuan who followed me, all have gone. You alone stayed. Strive on! A strong wind shows which grass is tough.” The last words, jifeng zhi jingcao (疾风知劲草), became an idiom. Another Han history, the Dongguan Hanji, names the emperor as the speaker.
The New Book of Tang records a poem given to the minister Xiao Yu: “A strong wind shows which grass is tough. Times of turmoil show which minister is sincere.” The Handian dictionary explains the idiom this way: only a severe test shows who is truly strong.
Under the Communist Party’s rules for admitting new members, issued on May 11, 2026, an activist who has had one year or more of cultivation and examination, and who basically meets the conditions, may be listed as a target for admission (Article 13).
Once approved as a probationary member, a person serves a probationary period of one year (Article 31). At its end, a probationary member who has met the duties and conditions becomes a full member. One who needs more examination may have the period extended once, by at least six months and at most a year. One who does not meet the conditions loses the place.
In January 2019, the People’s Court Daily, the newspaper of the Supreme People’s Court, reviewed the book 情理法与中国人, Feeling, Reason, Law and the Chinese. The review summed up the book’s order: “‘In accord with feeling’ is the most important, ‘in accord with reason’ comes next, and ‘in accord with law’ comes after that.”
The review added that the everyday saying 法不外乎人情, the law does not stand outside human feeling, “is not wrong.” Here 人情 means the shared feeling of an era, not personal favors.
Jiao qian yan shen (交浅言深). The acquaintance is shallow, but the words are deep. The Handian dictionary defines it as talking about intimate matters with someone one does not know well, and says that it means speaking without proper measure. Confucius made a related point: “If a person can be spoken with and one does not speak, one loses the person. If a person cannot be spoken with and one speaks, one loses the words.” (Analects, chapter Wei Linggong)
The idiom comes from the Strategies of the Warring States, where the line reads: “Deep words in a shallow acquaintance are disorder.” Handian also cites a version of the same passage in which deep words in a shallow acquaintance are called loyalty.
通融 To make an exception for someone. To make things easier for another person. The Handian dictionary’s example: “He will make an exception for you.”
网开一面 To leave one side of the net open. To treat someone leniently. In the Records of the Grand Historian, Tang sees a hunter who has set nets on all four sides and prays that everything in the world will enter them. “Ah, that would take them all,” Tang says, and removes three of the nets. The lords hear of it and say: “The virtue of Tang is complete. It reaches even the birds and beasts.”
In 1999, Peng Siqing published a paper on how trust is built in the journal Sociological Studies (社会学研究). Its title names two ways: relationship work and legal means. The paper states that “the actual degree of trust between people is determined jointly by initial trust and by their interaction.” The degree of trust between two people, it says, “depends mainly on how good the real relationship between them is.”
In February 2018, Apple released Three Minutes, a short film for the Chinese New Year directed by Peter Chan and shot on the iPhone X. It is based on a true story. A mother works as an attendant on a train through the holiday. When the train stops at her hometown station, her family brings her young son to the platform. They have three minutes.
The boy recites the multiplication table to the end. Until the film closes, he says nothing else.