In chapter 65 of Dream of the Red Chamber, Second Sister You says she will go and see Wang Xifeng. Xing’er, a servant of Wang Xifeng’s husband, begs her not to go. “Never meet her in all your life. Sweet mouth and bitter heart, two faces and three knives. Above, a face full of smiles. Below, a foot that trips. In the open, a basin of fire. In the dark, a knife. She has all of it.”
The Village Worthy
Confucius said: “The village worthy is the thief of virtue.” (Analects 17.13)
Mencius later explained whom he meant. Such a man is hard to criticize and hard to attack. He goes along with common custom and fits in with a corrupt age. He seems loyal and honest, and everyone likes him. “That is why he is called the thief of virtue.” Mencius quotes Confucius again: “I hate the village worthy, for fear that he will confuse virtue.”
The classical ideal of harmony never included the man who pleases everyone.
Silent at the Meeting, Talking After
On October 27, 2016, the Communist Party’s Central Committee adopted its Several Norms on Political Life within the Party under the New Situation. The section on democratic centralism calls on members to “firmly oppose and correct wrong words and deeds such as not speaking to a person’s face but talking freely behind his back, not speaking at the meeting but talking freely after it, and saying one thing to a person’s face and another behind his back.”
Praise and Self-Praise
In September 2013, an editorial in the Global Times welcomed senior officials’ public criticism and self-criticism, piping yu ziwo piping. It also noted a habit of the opposite kind. “For some time, ‘praise and self-praise’ has been popular among some Chinese officials and even in mainstream society. Its negative effects go without saying.”
In 2015, an article from the Economic Observer on the “whole art” of officials’ self-criticism described the routine: “At the meeting, criticism and self-criticism, praise and mutual comfort are all fine. In short, congratulations on passing this time. After the meeting, don’t ask whether anything was carried out. You know.”
Three Kinds of Silence
In 2008, four researchers published a study in Acta Psychologica Sinica (心理学报) on the measurement of employee silence in the Chinese context. They surveyed 928 employees with a questionnaire of their own design. They found that employee silence takes three forms: acquiescent silence, indifferent silence and defensive silence.
Trust in the superior reduced all three. Trust in the organization reduced only the first two. It had no significant effect on defensive silence.
Good-Guy-ism
In September 2013, People’s Daily Online, carrying a Xinhua report, gave Xi Jinping’s call to “firmly oppose liberalism and good-guy-ism (好人主义) in Party life.” A Hebei official described the habit of avoiding conflict: “Afraid of touching contradictions, they plant more flowers and fewer thorns.” (多栽花少栽刺)
In 2021, an article in People’s Daily wrote: “A spirit of harmony, Mr. Nice Guys, you are good, I am good, everyone is good. This is not unity. It is slackness, and also a kind of numbness.”
The Vocabulary of Not Saying No
不置可否 To set down neither yes nor no. To give no position at all.
打哈哈 To go “haha.” To brush someone off and deal with a matter only on the surface.
打官腔 To speak in the official tone. To use official set phrases to deal with a request or to pass it on.
搪塞 To plug one hole. From an image in the Huainanzi of a dike with ten thousand holes, of which only one is plugged. To deal with something only for form’s sake.
婉拒 To refuse gently. To decline in a roundabout, polite way.
A Frank Exchange of Views
In 2015, the former foreign minister Li Zhaoxing explained the language of diplomatic statements. “If the newspaper says that the two leaders held frank talks, it means that they had different views.”
He went on: “What does ‘frankly exchanged views’ mean? It means that different views were also expressed.” (坦诚地交换了意见)
Slander in the Belly
The Records of the Grand Historian tell the fate of Yan Yi, a minister of agriculture under Emperor Wu of Han. Yan had once told the emperor that a new currency made of white deerskin was a bad idea, and the emperor was displeased. Later, a guest spoke to Yan about the problems with a new order. Yan did not reply, but his lips moved slightly.
The official Zhang Tang charged that Yan, a high minister, had seen that the order was harmful, “did not speak up, but slandered it in his belly” (不入言而腹诽). Yan was sentenced to death. “From then on,” the historian writes, “most ministers and officials flattered and sought to please.”
Mr. Good-Good
The Eastern Han scholar Sima Hui never spoke of other people’s faults. Whatever he heard, he answered “Good.” Asked how he was, he said “Good.” When a man told him that his son had died, he said “Very good.” His wife scolded him. Sima Hui replied: “What you say is also very good.”
The Ming writer Feng Menglong, who tells the story, says that the expression 好好先生, Mr. Good-Good, comes from it. Dictionaries define it as a person who does not ask what is right or wrong and only wants peace.