China Archives - Page 81 of 83 - understand-culture

The Eight Deliberations

The Tang Code listed eight groups whose crimes were to be “deliberated” (八议). The first was the emperor’s relatives. The second was his “old associates,” people who had long attended him and enjoyed his favor. Others included the worthy, the able, those with merit and the noble.

When a person in these groups committed a capital crime, the case first went to the emperor for deliberation. The principle stayed in Chinese law codes for more than 1,600 years. It did not apply to the “ten abominations,” the gravest crimes.

Our Own People

自己人 Our own people, those close to us.

胳膊肘往外拐 The elbow bends outward. Said of someone who helps outsiders against their own people.

肥水不流外人田 Rich water does not flow into an outsider’s field. Keep the good things within the family.

Destroying Kin for Righteousness

In the state of Wei, the minister Shi Que had his own son, Shi Hou, killed in the state of Chen, because the son had joined the usurper Zhouxu. The Zuo Zhuan comments: “Shi Que was a loyal minister. ‘Destroying kin for the great righteousness,’ that is what it means.”

The idiom 大义灭亲 is still used for a person who does not shield a guilty relative from punishment. It is remembered because it goes against the expected loyalty.

Killing the Familiar

In 2018, Chinese media reported on dashuju shashu (大数据杀熟), “big-data killing of the familiar.” Some defined it as internet companies using their customer data to show existing customers higher prices than new customers for the same product or service.

The name expresses the expectation that a familiar customer deserves better treatment.

The Official’s Protective Charm

In chapter 4 of Dream of the Red Chamber, the new magistrate Jia Yucun takes up a murder case. A clerk shows him an “official’s protective charm” (护官符), a list of the four great families of the area: Jia, Shi, Wang and Xue. “These four families are all linked by kinship. If one suffers, all suffer. If one prospers, all prosper.” The killer is a Xue.

Jia Yucun closes the case without punishing him. The chapter title calls it “a muddled verdict in a muddled case.”

A Society Based on Ethical Relations

In The Essence of Chinese Culture (中国文化要义), published in 1949, the philosopher Liang Shuming argued that China is a society “based on ethical relations” (伦理本位).

A 2024 study of the book sums up his view: “Ethics begins in the family, but it does not end in the family.”

Toil Without Merit

没有功劳也有苦劳 Even without merit, there is hard toil.

吃得苦中苦，方为人上人 Only by eating the bitterest of bitterness can one rise above others.

In 1984, Hu Yaobang extended the first saying when he praised an old Red Army veteran: “If not merit, then toil. If not toil, then fatigue.”