Relationships Archives - Page 4 of 8

Hometown and Alumni Associations

The Communist Party’s Regulations on Disciplinary Action name hometown, alumni and comrades-in-arms associations, among others. The provision reads: “Party members who are leading cadres and who, in violation of the relevant rules, organize or take part in spontaneously formed hometown associations, alumni associations, comrades-in-arms associations and the like shall, where the circumstances are serious, be given a warning, a serious warning or removal from Party posts.”

The provision was Article 68 in the 2015 version of the regulations, Article 74 in 2018 and Article 82 in 2023.

Knowledge for the Ingroup

In 2000, the researchers Chow, Deng and Ho published a survey of 142 managers on how openly knowledge is shared inside organizations. They reported in the Journal of Management Accounting Research that managers in China “shared knowledge significantly less with a potential recipient who was not a member of their ingroup.”

Repaid as a Man of the State

Yu Rang served the noble families of Fan and Zhonghang. When Zhi Bo destroyed them, Yu Rang went over to Zhi Bo. Later Zhi Bo was killed by Zhao Xiangzi, and Yu Rang tried again and again to kill Zhao Xiangzi. “A gentleman dies for the one who knows him,” he said. “A woman makes herself beautiful for the one who delights in her.” (士為知己者死，女為說己者容)

Zhao Xiangzi asked why he took such deep revenge for Zhi Bo, when he had done nothing for his first masters. Yu Rang answered: “The Fan and Zhonghang treated me as an ordinary man, so I repaid them as an ordinary man. Zhi Bo treated me as a man of the state, so I repay him as a man of the state.” (Records of the Grand Historian)

A Gate as Deep as the Sea

In chapter 6 of Dream of the Red Chamber, the poor country woman Liu Laolao hopes for help from the great Jia household. “The gate of a noble house is as deep as the sea,” she says. “Nobody there knows me.” Her son-in-law has a plan. She should first find Zhou Rui, a servant of the lady of the house. “This Zhou Rui once did a piece of business with my father. We were on very good terms.”

At the side gate, the doormen ignore her and tell her to wait by the wall. She finds Zhou Rui’s wife instead. Years before, Gou’er had helped Zhou Rui a great deal in a dispute over buying land, so his wife finds it hard to refuse. She takes Liu Laolao first to Pinger, the trusted maid of Wang Xifeng. Only then is Liu Laolao led in.

Tea at Yingtai

On the evening of November 11, 2014, Xi Jinping met Barack Obama at Yingtai in Zhongnanhai. “As night deepened, the two heads of state kept talking, and strolled to the Yingxun Pavilion for tea.” Xi said the two countries should talk often and closely, “not about matters case by case,” but frankly and in depth about fundamental questions. Xinhua later reported that the tea, planned for thirty minutes, lasted nearly an hour.

The Vocabulary of Connections

关系户 A relationship household. A unit or person that gains benefits or convenience through special connections.

一人得道，鸡犬升天 When one man attains the Way, even his chickens and dogs rise to heaven. When one person gains power, everyone connected with him rises too. Said with irony. The image comes from the Han dynasty Lunheng, which tells of a king whose whole household rose to heaven with him, so that dogs barked in the sky and chickens crowed in the clouds.

Su Qin Repays His Debts

When Su Qin set out for Yan as a poor man, he borrowed a hundred coins. Years later he was chief minister of six states. The Records of the Grand Historian says that he repaid the lender with a hundred gold and “repaid everyone who had ever shown him kindness.”

One follower received nothing and came forward to ask. Su Qin said: “I have not forgotten you. When you came with me to Yan, you wanted to leave me again and again by the Yi River. At that time I was in trouble, so I resented you deeply. That is why I put you last. Now you will receive yours too.”

Gifts and Renqing in Xiajia

The anthropologist Yan Yunxiang did fieldwork in Xiajia, a village in Heilongjiang. As The Paper summarizes his finding, a gift “creates a spiritual bond between the giver and the receiver, which the villagers call renqing (人情).”

An Old Student Repays Three Times

In the Ming story An Old Student Repays a Favor Over Three Generations (老门生三世报恩), the examiner Kuai prefers young candidates. Three times, without meaning to, he passes the same old man, Xianyu Tong. Xianyu passes the provincial examination at fifty-seven and the metropolitan examination at sixty-one.

Xianyu later clears Kuai’s son of a false charge. “This only repays a little of my teacher’s kindness,” he says. “I still owe much feeling.” He then keeps Kuai’s grandson at his official residence to study and gives him three hundred taels. Kuai thinks: “Plant thorns and get thorns. Plant peach and plum trees and get shade.”

Ordering for Face

“We used to think that ordering more dishes when treating guests gave us face. Now the waiters remind us to order moderately, and that is good. Now we take pride in a clean plate.” A diner named Yan said this in a Beijing restaurant in August 2020, during the Clean Plate campaign against food waste.

A People’s Daily commentary that September described the habit. Some people are frugal at other times, it said, but when they host, “even three or five people order a whole big table.” In some places, if the guests eat every dish, “the host feels he has no face.” Its headline gave the answer. Wasting food “is not having face, but losing face.”