Relationship Over Contract Archives

The Red-Topped Merchant

Hu Xueyan (1823 to 1885) began as an apprentice in a money shop at the age of 14. In 1860 Wang Youling became governor of Zhejiang. Out of gratitude to Hu, Wang put his full support behind Hu’s Fukang money shop.

After the Qing army retook Hangzhou, the provincial treasurer Jiang Yili introduced Hu to the governor-general Zuo Zongtang. Zuo wrote to the throne that every task he had given Hu was “handled to complete satisfaction.” Hu went on to help Zuo found the Fuzhou Navy Yard in 1866, and in 1872 he raised loans to fund Zuo’s campaign in Xinjiang.

He is remembered as a hongding shangren, a red-topped merchant. Zuo’s memorial already named him by an official rank.

When the Deal Falls Through

Shengyi bu cheng renyi zai (生意不成仁义在) If the business does not happen, benevolence and righteousness remain. The Handian dictionary explains it this way. Although the sale was not made, the two sides still keep their good feeling. A variant begins with maimai, buying and selling.

Where Lawyers Find Their Cases

A survey of 2,062 lawyers in Shenzhen, published by the Shenzhen Lawyers Association in June 2022, looked at how young lawyers work. It reported that most of them get their cases mainly through introductions: from relatives and friends, from colleagues at their own firm, and from former clients.

Four Billion Contracts

In May 2011, an article in China Youth Daily stated that China signs about four billion contracts a year, and that only about 50 percent of them are performed. The article introduced the figure only with the words “other data shows.” It named no source and no year for the data, and the original source has not been found.

Strong Ties

In a 1988 survey in Tianjin, the sociologist Bian Yanjie found that jobs were obtained through strong ties more often than through weak ties. Job seekers often reached their helpers through an intermediary to whom both sides had strong ties, and those who used such indirect ties got better jobs. He published the study in 1997 in the American Sociological Review as “Bringing Strong Ties Back In.”

Trust Without Contracts

In Rural China (乡土中国), the sociologist Fei Xiaotong describes rural society as a society of people who know one another. There, he writes, “trust does not rest on respect for contracts.” It comes from “the reliability of knowing the rules of conduct so well that one acts without thinking.”

Acquaintances, he notes, say: “We are all acquaintances. A greeting is enough, why say more?” In modern society people fear that “the spoken word is no proof,” so “they make a mark and sign their names. Only then does law begin.”

The Vocabulary of Acquaintance

熟人 An acquaintance, a person one knows well. Its opposite is 生人, a stranger, literally a “raw person.”

靠谱 Reliable, trustworthy. Said of a person who does things in a sensible way.

拉关系 To pull connections. To make friends with someone one barely knows, for a purpose.

走后门 To go through the back door. To get things done through improper private connections.

在家靠父母，出门靠朋友 At home, rely on parents. Away from home, rely on friends.