In his New Year address for 2017, Xi Jinping called on the country to luqi xiuzi jiayou gan, “roll up our sleeves and work hard.” In his New Year address for 2018, he said: xingfu dou shi fendou chulai de. “Happiness is all won by striving.”
Huang Gai Is Beaten
In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhou Yu has the general Huang Gai beaten so that Cao Cao will believe Huang Gai’s false offer to defect. The trick is called kurouji, the ruse of the suffering body.
A common saying comes from the story: Zhou Yu da Huang Gai, yi ge yuan da, yi ge yuan ai. “Zhou Yu beats Huang Gai. One is willing to beat, and one is willing to be beaten.”
996.ICU
In March 2019, Chinese programmers started a project on GitHub called 996.ICU. Its slogan was gongzuo 996, shengbing ICU: “Work 996, get sick, end up in the ICU.” 996 means working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.
Within weeks, the page had almost 200,000 stars. Its list of companies said to demand such hours had grown to 123.
Sayings on Self-Praise
王婆卖瓜，自卖自夸 Granny Wang sells melons and praises her own melons. Said of people who praise themselves or their own goods.
酒香不怕巷子深 Good wine does not fear a deep alley. The saying holds that good wine will find its buyers by word of mouth, even at the end of a deep alley.
Versailles Literature
In November 2020, the term Fanersai wenxue, Versailles literature, went viral on Chinese social media. The name comes from the Japanese manga The Rose of Versailles. It describes posts that “first lower, then raise,” pretending to complain while really showing off. The Paper defined it as “a way of speaking that shows off in a low-key manner.”
On December 4, 2020, the language magazine Yaowen Jiaozi named it one of the ten top buzzwords of the year.
Sleeping Dragon, Young Phoenix
While Liu Bei was stationed at Xinye, he asked the scholar Sima Hui, known as Mr. Water Mirror, about the affairs of the age. Sima Hui answered: “Here there are the Sleeping Dragon and the Young Phoenix.” He meant Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong.
In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, he adds that whoever wins one of the two can bring peace to the realm.
The Vocabulary of Hints
指桑骂槐 Point at the mulberry and curse the locust tree. To scold one person while really aiming at another.
旁敲侧击 Knock at the side, strike from the flank. To make a point indirectly instead of stating it.
话里有话 Words inside the words. A remark that carries a hidden meaning.
弦外之音 The sound beyond the string. Originally the lingering note of a piece of music. Today a meaning that is not said but can be understood.
含沙射影 Hold sand in the mouth and shoot at a shadow. From a legend about a water creature that spat sand at people’s shadows and made them ill. Today, to attack someone by innuendo.
Stepping Aside for Su Shi
In 1057, Ouyang Xiu was in charge of the imperial examination in which Su Shi and his brother passed. After reading Su Shi’s writing, Ouyang wrote to the poet Mei Yaochen: “Reading Shi’s writing, I broke into a sweat without noticing. What joy! What joy! This old man should step out of the road and let him rise a head above the rest. How delightful! How delightful!”
A Frank Exchange of Views
In Chinese diplomatic reports, a meeting at which the two sides “had a frank exchange” (进行了坦率交流) is understood to mean that they disagreed seriously.
In a 2022 article on diplomatic language, the scholar Wang Yizhou explains this reading. He also lists other phrases that take the place of plain words in diplomacy: “concern,” “serious concern,” “deep unease,” “great regret,” “strong dissatisfaction” and “severe condemnation.”
The Low-Profile Founder
For decades, Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei rarely spoke to the press. In June 2014, he met the Chinese media for the first time, and a business site called him “the always mysterious and low-key founder of Huawei.” He told the reporters: “I meet the media because the public relations department forces me to.”
According to a CCTV count, he gave no more than ten media interviews in 31 years.