Vouching Intermediary Archives - understand-culture

The Recommender’s Liability

In Wei, Zheng An’ping hid the fugitive Fan Ju under a new name. When the Qin envoy Wang Ji asked whether Wei had a worthy man to take west, Zheng An’ping brought Fan Ju to him at night. Wang Ji carried Fan Ju into Qin, where he rose to chief minister. At Fan Ju’s urging, the king made Wang Ji governor of Hedong and also took on Zheng An’ping, as a general.

Later, Zheng An’ping was surrounded by Zhao and surrendered with 20,000 men. Fan Ju sat on straw and asked to be punished. The Records of the Grand Historian explains: “Under the law of Qin, when a man recommends someone and the one recommended proves bad, each is punished for that crime.” Fan Ju’s crime called for the seizure of three sets of his kin.

King Zhaoxiang, afraid of hurting his chief minister’s feelings, ordered that anyone who spoke of Zheng An’ping would be punished for the same crime.

Through the Matchmaker

In the Mencius, a man asks why it was so hard for the gentlemen of old to take office. Mencius answers with marriage. “If, without waiting for the command of their parents and the words of a matchmaker, they bore holes to peep at each other and climb over walls to meet, then their parents and everyone in the state despise them.” (不待父母之命、媒妁之言，钻穴隙相窥，逾墙相从，则父母、国人皆贱之。)

“The men of old always wanted office,” Mencius goes on. “But they hated to go there by an improper way. Going by an improper way is like boring holes in the wall.”

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.

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.

Thread and Needle

In Liu Xiang’s Garden of Persuasions (说苑), Lord Mengchang has placed a retainer with the King of Qi. After three years the man has still received no post, and he complains. Lord Mengchang answers: “A thread enters by the needle, but the needle does not make it hold. A woman marries through a matchmaker, but the matchmaker does not make the two close. Your talent must be thin.”

The retainer replies that a fox in the altar of the soil is not attacked, and a rat in the altar is not smoked out, “because of what they rest on.” Lord Mengchang then recommended him to Qi again, and the King of Qi made him chief minister. The idiom 穿针引线, to thread the needle, means to act as a go-between.

Compradors

Foreign trading houses in late Qing China dealt with Chinese merchants through a 买办, a comprador. After 1842, compradors handled the firms’ buying and selling with inland Chinese merchants for a commission. They also hired, managed and guaranteed the firms’ Chinese employees.

A comprador needed a guarantor of his own and often paid a deposit. The guarantor signed a letter of guarantee, witnessed by the foreign firm’s agent and signed by the consulate. Compradors were the richest Chinese merchants of the late Qing.

The Vocabulary of Vouching

引荐 To lead in and recommend. To recommend someone, or to introduce someone into a group.

中保 A guarantor in the middle. A person who stands between the two sides of a sale or a loan and answers for it.

铺保 A shop guarantee. In the past, a guarantee given for a person in the name of a shop.

不看僧面看佛面 If not for the monk’s face, then for the Buddha’s. To help or forgive someone for the sake of a third person.

The Letter to Han of Jingzhou

In a letter to Han Chaozong of Jingzhou, the poet Li Bai quoted a saying of the scholars of his day: sheng bu yong feng wanhu hou, dan yuan yi shi Han Jingzhou. “In life, there is no need to be made a lord of ten thousand households. One only wishes to know Han of Jingzhou.”

People’s Daily dates the letter to 734, when Li Bai was 34 and living in Anlu. He asked Han to recommend him for office. The letter brought him neither a post nor a meeting.

Two Sponsors

Under Article 5 of the Constitution of the Communist Party of China, anyone who applies to join must fill in an application and have two full Party members as sponsors, jieshaoren.

The sponsors must learn about the applicant’s thinking, character, history and work. They explain the Party’s program and constitution to the applicant and make a responsible report to the Party organization.