细水长流 A thin stream flows long. To keep at something steadily, or to plan carefully so that resources last.
放长线钓大鱼 Let out a long line to catch a big fish. To plan for the long term in order to gain more. The Handian dictionary adds that such a plan “cannot pay off at once.”
来日方长 The days to come are long. There is still a long time ahead. The Handian dictionary cites a letter by the Song official Wen Tianxiang as an example.
From the Art of War: “The form of an army is like water. Water flows away from high ground toward low ground. An army avoids the strong and strikes the weak. Water shapes its course by the ground. An army shapes its victory by the enemy. So an army has no fixed position and no constant form. One who can change with the enemy and win is called divine.”
一锤子买卖 A one-hammer deal. A single transaction with no thought of the future. The word is critical. A dictionary example reads: “You cannot do only one-hammer deals.”
回头客 A customer who turns the head back. A customer who comes back to the same seller.
老主顾 An old customer. A customer with a long trading relationship.
世交 A friendship between two families that has lasted two generations or more.
Xiaomi released the first version of its MIUI phone software on August 16, 2010. From the start, it pushed out an update every Friday at 5 pm. After the first Xiaomi phone came out on August 16, 2011, development split in two. The “development version” kept its weekly updates. The “stable version” received about one update a month.
On October 4, 2015, a tourist posted that a barbecue restaurant in Qingdao had listed prawns at 38 yuan a portion and then, at the bill, charged 38 yuan for each prawn.
Qingdao’s Party secretary and mayor gave instructions. The district market regulator called it “suspected price fraud” and apologized to the tourists. The owner was fined 90,000 yuan, and the restaurant was reported to have lost its business license. The head of the district market regulator was suspended from duty.
In the 1980s, China used a dual-track price system (价格双轨制) for the transition from a planned to a market economy. The same good had a fixed price inside the state plan and a market price outside it. In May 1984, provisional State Council rules let enterprises price output beyond the plan within 20 percent of the state price. In January 1985, the limit was dropped.
In November 1989, the Party decided to turn “two tracks” into “one track.” The system had also given rise to guandao (官倒): officials or their relatives who used their power to buy scarce goods at the low price and sell them on the market.
In November 2024, an email reported to come from BYD’s passenger car division asked suppliers to cut prices by 10 percent from January 1, 2025.
Li Yunfei, BYD’s head of brand and public relations, answered that “annual price negotiation with suppliers is an industry practice.” He said the 10 percent target was “not compulsory” and “negotiable.” The report put the industry’s usual annual cut at about 5 percent.
On September 10, 2019, at its twentieth anniversary, Alibaba announced six new values. The third reads: “The only thing that does not change is change.” (唯一不变的是变化) Its earlier values had included “Embrace change.” (拥抱变化)
Chinese suppliers announce price rises to their customers with a 涨价函, a price increase letter. When chip prices rose at the end of 2020, the chip maker Huiding (Goodix) raised its dollar prices by 30 percent from January 1, 2021. Xinjieneng (NCE Power) told customers that the new prices would also apply to unpaid orders already in its system.
三重一大 Three majors and one large. Major decisions, important appointments and removals, major projects and large sums of money must be decided after collective discussion.
In June 2010, the General Offices of the Party Central Committee and the State Council issued an opinion on applying this rule in state-owned enterprises.