Problem-Solving Archives - understand-culture

Seven Water Vats

In the search for a malaria drug, the pharmaceutical chemist Tu Youyou noticed a recipe in the Eastern Jin medical book Zhouhou beiji fang: “Take a handful of qinghao, soak it in two sheng of water, wring out the juice and drink all of it.” Tu then redesigned the research. Her group extracted the plant at low temperature, below 60 degrees Celsius, with water, alcohol, ether and other solvents.

To speed up the work, the group went ahead with homemade methods, tufa shangma. According to Xinhua, they used seven large water vats in place of the usual laboratory vessels. In 1971, in the 191st low-boiling-point experiment, they found a qinghao extract that was 100 percent effective against malaria.

Shanzhai Phones

From 2003, small firms in mainland China made cheap mobile phones known as shanzhai ji. Chinese Wikipedia says the name came from their low cost, their good value and their failure to follow the rules of the industry. Before October 15, 2007, when the State Council announced the end of the approval system for phone production, such phones rarely had brands of their own.

One common type was made by a small firm that rented a production license from a licensed maker.

According to the same article, a MediaTek chip of 2006 combined the main board and the software and lowered the barrier to making a phone. Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei became the largest wholesale market for these phones. Typical features were very loud speakers, two SIM cards in one phone, and phones for the elderly with large characters and large keys.

Mr. More-or-Less

On June 28, 1924, Hu Shi published a short satire, Chabuduo xiansheng zhuan, “The Biography of Mr. More-or-Less.” Its hero’s motto is: “In everything, more or less is good enough. Why be so sharp?” He brings home white sugar instead of brown. He misses a train by two minutes and finds the railway company “too serious.” When he falls ill, his family fetches a cattle doctor instead of the physician. Within the hour he is dead.

After his death, people praise him and give him the posthumous name Master Yuantong, “the all-accommodating.” The essay ends: “But from then on, China became a nation of lazy people.”

The Vocabulary of Making Do

办法总比困难多 There are always more ways than difficulties. A People’s Daily commentary introduces it as a common saying: “We often say, there are always more ways than difficulties.”

将就 To accept something reluctantly, or to get by with what is there. The Handian dictionary cites a Ming novel in which a poor family cannot afford a proper coffin and “can only make do hastily.”

凑合 To put something together on the spot, or to make do. A dictionary example reads: “Just make do with it.”

The Vocabulary of the Back Door

走后门 To go through the back door. The Handian dictionary defines it as getting things done “through improper personal relationships or channels.”

托人情 To ask someone to put in a word on one’s behalf.

说情 To plead for another person, to ask for leniency or help on someone’s behalf. In the Qing novel The Scholars, frightened people beg a local gentleman for his card so that he will plead with the magistrate for them.

Mixed With the Back Door

The campaign to criticize Lin Biao and Confucius ran from early 1974 to about June of that year. In a written comment on a speech by Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong wrote: “Now metaphysics is rampant, one-sidedness. Criticizing Lin and Confucius is mixed with going through the back door, and this may dilute the criticism of Lin and Confucius.”

Finding Connections

In 2016, the think tank of the magazine People’s Forum published a survey of public tolerance in China. It asked how people respond to several kinds of conflict. Most respondents chose to smooth things over or to talk. Faced with “judicial injustice or rough law enforcement,” 26.4 percent said they would “find connections to smooth things over.”

How to Criticize the Boss

In December 2011, the Hangzhou newspaper Daily Business ran a feature titled “How Do You Criticize Your Superior?” One employee, Zhu Jun, told his department head at a full staff meeting that a decision was wrong. This time the head rebutted him without sparing his feelings and kept the plan. Afterwards, Zhu found that the head rarely asked his opinion.

Another employee, Li Fang, also criticized a superior in front of others. The superior looked displeased and embarrassed, but accepted the point and corrected the decision at once. Later the superior spoke with Li: “Thank you very much for the suggestion. But from now on, in private, it is fine to be direct. When many people are present, give me a little face.”

The Roman Square

Huawei runs an internal forum called Xinsheng shequ, the “Voice of the Heart” community. Any employee can post suggestions there, and even criticism and complaints. Posts can be anonymous, so some of the criticism is especially harsh. Ren Zhengfei calls the forum the “Roman Square.”

When an HR employee posted a long complaint there under a real name, Ren wrote in an email: “A real-name complaint is a good sign of democratic management in the company. We must support and protect the person concerned.” Views may differ widely, he added, but they must keep to the matter and rest on facts and evidence.

Above Ten Thousand Sentences

On the morning of May 18, 1966, Lin Biao spoke to an enlarged meeting of the Politburo. “If we unify the whole army and the whole Party with Mao Zedong Thought, every problem can be solved,” he said. “Every sentence of Chairman Mao’s is truth. One of his sentences outweighs ten thousand of ours.”