Relationships Archives - Page 2 of 8

Lin Ruhai’s Letter

In chapter 3 of Dream of the Red Chamber, the dismissed official Jia Yucun learns that former officials may be reappointed. On the advice of a friend, he asks Lin Ruhai to approach Lin’s brother-in-law Jia Zheng in the capital. Lin Ruhai says that he has not yet repaid Jia Yucun’s kindness in teaching his daughter. “I have written a letter of recommendation and asked my brother-in-law to do everything to help.”

In the capital, Jia Yucun presents his card at the Jia mansion. Jia Zheng has read the letter and receives him at once. Because the request comes from his brother-in-law, he treats Jia Yucun with special favor. Jia Yucun is restored to office, and within two months he fills a vacancy at the prefecture of Yingtian in Jinling.

The Sponsor’s Liability

Under Article 10 of China’s Securities Law, as revised in 2019, a company that offers shares to the public through underwriters must engage a securities firm as its baojianren (保荐人), its sponsor. The word joins bao, to guarantee, and jian, to recommend. The sponsor must carefully check the issuer’s application documents and disclosures “and supervise the issuer’s proper operation.”

Article 182 sets the penalty for a sponsor letter with false records, misleading statements or major omissions. The sponsor is warned, its business income is confiscated, and it is fined one to ten times that income. The sponsor system took effect on February 1, 2004.

The Whampoa Alumni Association

On June 16, 1984, the Whampoa Military Academy Alumni Association was founded with the approval of the Communist Party’s Central Committee. It is an association of the academy’s graduates. Its aims are “to carry forward the Whampoa spirit, to link the feelings of the classmates, to promote the reunification of the motherland and to work for the revival of China.”

In 2024, the year of the academy’s centenary and the association’s fortieth anniversary, Xi Jinping sent the association a letter of congratulations. He called the academy a product of the first cooperation between the Nationalists and the Communists. He described the association as a patriotic group that links Whampoa graduates and their relatives at home and abroad.

Same-Year Graduates

In the imperial examinations, men who passed on the same list or in the same year were called tongnian (同年), “same year.” In a story in the Ming collection Constant Words to Awaken the World (醒世恒言), one character tells another: “Although you and I passed in the same year from different provinces, today we meet at the edge of the world, and we are like flesh and blood.”

Lei Jun Gives Back

On November 29, 2023, in the 130th anniversary year of Wuhan University, Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi, gave the university 1.3 billion yuan. He had entered its computer science department in 1987. “The journey of fulfilling a vow, which began with my first donation to my alma mater 26 years ago,” he said, “has today finally reached its wish.”

He added that every donation is an alumnus’s love for the alma mater, “and each one weighs the same.”

Huanghe Road

The television series Blossoms Shanghai (繁花), Wong Kar-wai’s first television work, premiered on CCTV-8 on December 27, 2023. Huanghe Road in Shanghai was rebuilt at full scale for the series. The restaurant Zhizhenyuan in the series is modeled on Taishengyuan, a real restaurant there.

A Sichuan financial paper recalled the real street. “Most of the people who came to Huanghe Road to eat were merchants. While eating, they could not avoid talking business.”

Entertainment and Travel Costs

In 2011, the economists Hongbin Cai, Hanming Fang and Lixin Colin Xu published a study of the entertainment and travel costs of Chinese firms in the Journal of Law and Economics. On average, these costs amounted to about 3 percent of a firm’s total value added.

The study found the spending to be a mix. It included “grease money to obtain better government services,” “protection money to lower tax rates,” managerial excess, and “normal business expenditures to build relational capital with suppliers and clients.”

No Wedding Witnesses

In 2017, the city of Huaibei in Anhui issued trial rules on weddings, funerals and other celebrations. Party members, cadres and public employees were generally not to attend such events other than those of close relatives, or to give cash or gifts. Nor were they to accept invitations to preside over a wedding, to act as its witness or to manage the event.

The Cock’s Crow and the Dog Thief

Lord Mengchang of Qi kept several thousand retainers. The Records of the Grand Historian says that he “did not choose among his guests and treated them all well.” When King Zhaoxiang of Qin held him and planned to kill him, he asked the king’s favorite concubine for help. She wanted his white fox-fur coat, which he had already given to the king.

A retainer from the lowest seat, who could steal like a dog, slipped into the palace storehouse at night and took the coat back. Freed, Lord Mengchang reached the Hangu Pass at midnight. By law the pass opened at cockcrow. A retainer from the lower seats crowed, the roosters all joined in, and the party got through shortly before the pursuers arrived.

“At first, when Lord Mengchang placed these two among his guests, the other guests were all ashamed of them.”

Leave It to Me

At the 1995 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, Guo Donglin performed the sketch Youshi nin shuohua (有事您说话), “If Anything Comes Up, Just Say the Word.” His character brags to his leaders and friends that he can get sleeper tickets for the train, and people come to him for help.

In fact he gets the tickets by standing in line. When the tickets run out, he pays a high price for two scalped tickets to keep up the story.