On February 10, 1964, People’s Daily published an article called “The Road of Dazhai” (大寨之路) about the advanced deeds of the people of Dazhai, a village in Shanxi. An editorial titled “A Good Model for Building Mountain Areas With Revolutionary Spirit” called on the whole country to learn the revolutionary spirit of the Dazhai people. The slogan became “In industry, learn from Daqing. In agriculture, learn from Dazhai.”
Small Steps, Fast Iteration
In a letter to partners published in July 2012, Tencent founder Ma Huateng summed up fourteen years of the company’s experience as a “rule of gray” (灰度法则) with seven dimensions: demand, speed, flexibility, redundancy, open collaboration, innovation and evolution.
On speed, he wrote: “My suggestion is ‘small steps, fast running, quick iteration.'” (小步快跑，快速迭代)
Updates Every Friday
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.
The Vocabulary of Endurance
吃苦耐劳 To eat bitterness and endure toil. To bear a hard life and stand up to heavy work.
任劳任怨 To take on toil and take on complaints. The Handian dictionary explains: to work without shirking hardship and without fearing the complaints of others. The phrase goes back to Han dynasty texts.
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.
The Oil Seller
In a short piece by the Song writer Ouyang Xiu, the archer Chen Yaozi has no equal in his time and is proud of it. An old oil seller watches him hit eight or nine shots in ten and only nods slightly. “Do you know archery? Is my shooting not fine?” Chen asks. The old man answers: “Nothing special. Only a practiced hand.”
Chen is angry. The old man sets a gourd on the ground, covers its mouth with a coin and pours oil through the hole in the coin without wetting it. “I too have nothing special,” he says. “Only a practiced hand.” Chen laughs and sends him away.
The Oil Seller is in the Chinese textbook for the second half of seventh grade.
Sayings on Masters
名师出高徒 A famous master turns out outstanding disciples.
青出于蓝 Blue comes from the indigo plant. The dye is deeper than the plant it comes from. Said of a student who surpasses the teacher. (Xunzi, Encouraging Learning)
Hair Tied to the Beam
The Three Character Classic, a traditional primer for children, holds up students who drove themselves. “One tied his hair to the beam. One jabbed his thigh with an awl. No one made them. They drove themselves to hard study.”
“One read by fireflies in a bag. One read by the light of snow. Their families were poor, but they never stopped learning.” The four students were Sun Jing, Su Qin, Che Yin and Sun Kang.
Great Craftsmen of the Nation
During the May Day holiday of 2015, CCTV first broadcast the series Da guo gongjiang, Great Craftsmen of the Nation. In March 2016, Premier Li Keqiang’s Government Work Report used the term gongjiang jingshen, craftsman spirit, for the first time.
One worker the media call a great craftsman is Gao Fenglin, who had worked as an aerospace welder for 35 years by 2015. He calls his job “welding the heart of the rocket.” People’s Daily wrote that he can watch a tiny weld seam for ten minutes without blinking.
Huawei’s Mattresses
At Huawei, the mattress became a symbol. A company text from 2006, titled Heaven Rewards Diligence, describes the origin of Huawei’s chuangdian wenhua, mattress culture. In the words of the business site Jiemian, the mattress stands for “a culture of continuous striving.” Ren Zhengfei once said: “Huawei has no money. If people do not strive, it will collapse. We cannot pay anything for those who do not strive.”
In 2008, Ren played the symbol down. “The mattress is not a culture. Culture can be passed on. A mattress is only a tool for an afternoon nap.”