Trust Archives - understand-culture

Strong Wind

In the Book of the Later Han, Wang Ba is told: “Of those from Yingchuan who followed me, all have gone. You alone stayed. Strive on! A strong wind shows which grass is tough.” The last words, jifeng zhi jingcao (疾风知劲草), became an idiom. Another Han history, the Dongguan Hanji, names the emperor as the speaker.

The New Book of Tang records a poem given to the minister Xiao Yu: “A strong wind shows which grass is tough. Times of turmoil show which minister is sincere.” The Handian dictionary explains the idiom this way: only a severe test shows who is truly strong.

Probation Before Membership

Under the Communist Party’s rules for admitting new members, issued on May 11, 2026, an activist who has had one year or more of cultivation and examination, and who basically meets the conditions, may be listed as a target for admission (Article 13).

Once approved as a probationary member, a person serves a probationary period of one year (Article 31). At its end, a probationary member who has met the duties and conditions becomes a full member. One who needs more examination may have the period extended once, by at least six months and at most a year. One who does not meet the conditions loses the place.

Speaking Too Deeply

Jiao qian yan shen (交浅言深). The acquaintance is shallow, but the words are deep. The Handian dictionary defines it as talking about intimate matters with someone one does not know well, and says that it means speaking without proper measure. Confucius made a related point: “If a person can be spoken with and one does not speak, one loses the person. If a person cannot be spoken with and one speaks, one loses the words.” (Analects, chapter Wei Linggong)

The idiom comes from the Strategies of the Warring States, where the line reads: “Deep words in a shallow acquaintance are disorder.” Handian also cites a version of the same passage in which deep words in a shallow acquaintance are called loyalty.

How Trust Is Built

In 1999, Peng Siqing published a paper on how trust is built in the journal Sociological Studies (社会学研究). Its title names two ways: relationship work and legal means. The paper states that “the actual degree of trust between people is determined jointly by initial trust and by their interaction.” The degree of trust between two people, it says, “depends mainly on how good the real relationship between them is.”

The Vocabulary of Feeling

Ganqing (感情) Feeling. The Handian dictionary gives one of its senses as the friendship between people, with the example: “The two of them have always been in close contact, and their feeling is very good.” Jiaoqing (交情) The friendly feeling that grows out of dealing with each other. Handian’s example is lao jiaoqing, an old friendship. Lianluo ganqing (联络感情) To cultivate feelings. Handian lists it as an example of lianluo in the sense of cultivating connections and dealing with people.

A Hand Across the Ocean

On February 21, 1972, Richard Nixon arrived in Beijing. A Chinese account gives Zhou Enlai’s words of welcome: “You have reached your hand across the widest ocean in the world to shake mine. We have had no contact for 25 years.”

In his memoirs, Nixon wrote that he knew Zhou had been “deeply insulted” when John Foster Dulles refused to shake his hand at the Geneva Conference in 1954. “When I reached the bottom step, therefore, I made a point of extending my hand as I walked toward him.”

The Geneva story itself is disputed. Zhou told it to Edgar Snow in 1960 and raised it with Henry Kissinger in 1971. As quoted by the writer John Tkacik, the Chinese diplomat Wang Bingnan wrote in a 1984 memoir that nothing of the sort ever happened.

Sayings on Broken Trust

Po jing chong yuan (破镜重圆) The broken mirror is made whole again. The Handian dictionary tells the story behind it. When war separated Xu Deyan of the Chen dynasty and his wife, Princess Lechang, each kept half of a mirror as a token, and through it they were reunited. The idiom means a couple reunited after separation, or two people reconciled after their feelings broke. Fu shui nan shou (覆水难收) Spilled water is hard to gather. Handian lists it as the opposite. What is done cannot be undone. Hao shi bu chu men, e shi chuan qian li (好事不出门，恶事传千里) Good deeds do not leave the door, bad deeds travel a thousand li. The saying appears in the Water Margin and in Journey to the West.

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.

A Quince for Jade

Tou wo yi mugua, bao zhi yi qiongju. Fei bao ye, yong yi wei hao ye. “A quince was thrown to me. I gave back a red jade pendant. It was not a repayment. It was so that we would always be friends.” The ode Mugua, in the Airs of Wei of the Book of Songs, repeats this in three verses. Each time a piece of fruit is answered with jade.

The traditional Mao preface reads the poem as an expression of thanks. After the state of Wei was defeated by the Di, Duke Huan of Qi rescued it and gave it carriages, horses, vessels and clothing. The people of Wei “wished to repay him generously, and made this poem.”

Security Merchants

From 1745, according to Chinese and English accounts, every foreign ship that came to trade at Guangzhou needed a baoshang, a security merchant, from among the licensed hong merchants. He was fully responsible for the foreign merchants’ duties and conduct. If foreigners left taxes unpaid, the hong merchants had to pay them.

In 1754, the hong merchants were made jointly liable for one another, without limit.