讨价还价 To ask a price and return a price. To bargain. Also to argue over terms when negotiating or accepting a task.
杀价 To kill the price. To push a price down hard.
变卦 To change the hexagram. To go back on a decision already made. The word comes from divination, where a second reading gave a different result from the first.
In 2007, a pregnant woman, Li Liyun, was brought to a Beijing hospital in critical condition. Doctors recommended an immediate cesarean. Her partner, Xiao Zhijun, refused to sign the consent form. Without a family signature, the hospital did not operate, and she and her unborn child died.
The hospital cited “Article 33 of the health administration regulations”: “Only after the patient’s family has signed can we carry out an operation. This happened because the family refused to sign, so we bear no responsibility.”
Article 33 of the Regulations on the Administration of Medical Institutions also contains a second path: a doctor may proceed with a treatment plan after obtaining the approval of the head of the institution.
In the first story of Ling Mengchu’s collection Slapping the Table in Amazement, Chinese merchants reach a foreign port and are received by a Persian merchant. “By old custom, when a sea ship arrived, the host first gave this banquet, and only then were the goods unloaded and prices discussed.”
The host asks to see each guest’s list of goods, “so as to fix the seating.” Those with treasures worth ten thousand take the first seats, and the rest sit by the value of their goods, “regardless of age, regardless of rank.” Wen Ruoxu, who has silver but has bought no goods, is given the last seat, “his face full of shame.”
On November 20, 2006, an elderly woman, Xu Shoulan, fell at a bus stop in Nanjing. Peng Yu took her to the hospital. She then demanded that he pay her medical costs, saying he had caused her fall. He refused, and in January 2007 she sued him. In September 2007, the Gulou District Court found that neither side was at fault. Under the principle of fairness, it ordered Peng Yu to pay 40 percent of her losses.
The judge reasoned that if Peng had been doing a good deed, he could have explained what happened to her family and left. After the case, Chinese Wikipedia notes, more cases against helpers were reported, and people became afraid to help an elderly person who had fallen.
In chapter 21 of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao invites Liu Bei to a small pavilion, where a plate of green plums and a jar of warmed wine are set out. When the wine is half drunk, Cao Cao asks Liu Bei to name the heroes of the age and dismisses every name he offers. Then he points at Liu Bei and at himself: “The only heroes in the world today are you and I.”
Liu Bei drops his spoon and chopsticks. Thunder breaks at that moment, and he picks them up, saying that one clap of thunder can do this. Cao Cao laughs: “Is a grown man afraid of thunder?” The novel adds: “Cao Cao then no longer suspected Liu Bei.”
In October 2014, the Fourth Plenum called for “a system of lifetime accountability for major decisions and a mechanism for tracing responsibility back.” The same decision made collective discussion a legal step for major administrative decisions, along with public participation, expert opinion, risk assessment and a legality review.
The 2019 regulations on major administrative decisions spell out the step: “The draft decision shall be discussed at an executive or plenary meeting of the deciding body. The head of the body makes the decision on the basis of the collective discussion.”
On February 21, 1972, Zhou Enlai gave a welcome banquet for Richard Nixon in the Great Hall of the People. After the two sides had exchanged toasts, Zhou went with his glass to the American officials and toasted each of them in turn.
According to an account in Huanqiu, the Maotai with which Zhou entertained guests such as Nixon and Kissinger was said to have been stored for more than thirty years. When Zhou toasted, he said “ganbei” but did not drain his glass. He only touched its rim with his lips and greeted the other person with a smile and a look.
In June 2026, a People’s Daily commentary, republished by Xinhua, described an attitude among officials: “do more, err more. Do less, err less. Do nothing, err not.” (多干多错、少干少错、不干不错)
This “wrong understanding,” the commentary said, makes Party members and officials “afraid of mistakes, afraid of accountability, afraid of carrying the pot.” They “would rather lie flat and avoid responsibility than take on hard tasks.”
In August 2021, a woman employee of Alibaba posted an account of a business trip to Jinan. She wrote that she had been pressed to drink at a dinner with a client, and that afterward a male colleague had entered her hotel room. She had reported it to the police on July 28.
On August 9, Alibaba’s chairman Daniel Zhang announced that the accused male employee had been dismissed and would never be rehired. Police opened an investigation. On September 6, prosecutors in Jinan declined to approve the arrest of a man in the case, finding that his acts of forcible indecency “did not constitute a crime.”
明哲保身 Clear-sighted and wise, he keeps himself safe. From the Book of Songs, in a poem about the minister Zhongshan Fu: “Clear and wise, he protects himself.” The Handian dictionary notes that the phrase first meant that a person who understands affairs knows how to protect himself, and was praise. Today it describes protecting one’s own interests by avoiding any conflict over principle, and is criticism.
出头的椽子先烂 The rafter that sticks out rots first.