逢人且说三分话，未可全抛一片心 When meeting people, say only three tenths of what is on the mind. Do not throw out the whole heart. (Words to Broaden Wisdom, a collection of old sayings)
酒逢知己千杯少，话不投机半句多 With a close friend, a thousand cups of wine are too few. When the talk does not suit, half a sentence is too many.
In 1944, the Chinese anthropologist Hu Hsien Chin published “The Chinese Concepts of ‘Face'” in the journal American Anthropologist. Hu described two Chinese words for face, lian (脸) and mianzi (面子), as “two sets of criteria by which prestige is gained and status secured or improved.”
Lian, Hu wrote, is “a social sanction for enforcing moral standards and an internalized sanction.” It “is conceived of as being maintained or lost as a whole.”
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.”
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.”
In the first half of 2011, according to the Wenzhou branch of the central bank, the city’s informal lending market had reached 110 billion yuan. Nearly nine in ten families or individuals and nearly six in ten companies took part.
In 2011 the chain broke. Zhou Dewen, head of a Wenzhou association of small and medium firms, said that in August and September alone, more than 100 bosses fled. A commentary in October 2011 called it “a defeat of the business model of the acquaintance society.”
In 1823, the Rishengchang draft bank opened in Pingyao, Shanxi. It was the first of the Shanxi piaohao, houses that moved money across the empire on paper drafts. A Qing writer described them: “Their methods are most precise, their people most honest and simple, and their credit the best known.”
The Pingyao houses had a saying: 宁可赔折腰，不让客吃亏. “Better to lose until our backs break than let a customer suffer a loss.”
In January 2013, the Institute of Sociology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released its Blue Book of Social Mentality. Its survey of city residents found that fewer than half believed that most people in society can be trusted. Only 20 to 30 percent trusted strangers. More than 70 percent said they did not dare to trust strangers.
Article 533 of China’s Civil Code covers a contract whose basic conditions change in a major way that the parties could not foresee and that is not a commercial risk. If continued performance would be clearly unfair to one party, “the party adversely affected may renegotiate with the other party.” Only if they fail to agree within a reasonable time may either party ask a court or an arbitration body to change or end the contract.
In one reported case, a court refused a request for higher rent based on rising prices.
In Ming and Qing land sales, a seller could come back after the sale and ask the buyer for more money. The custom was called 找价, “seeking the price,” or 加找. A seller could claim that “the price was not enough.” The historian Cao Shuji found that after the Qianlong era, 加找 became a standard contract form.
A 2012 study in the law journal The Jurist cites the finding that repeated 找价, even after a deed of final sale, was “a very common custom.” Qing law later limited it. Where a deed of final sale did not mention extra payments, none were allowed.
In January 2019, a judge reviewed the book 情理法与中国人 (Feeling, Reason, Law and the Chinese) in a piece published by the Supreme People’s Court. She summed up the book’s view: “In the eyes of the Chinese, to accord with feeling comes first, to accord with reason second, and to accord with law third.”
She also defended the saying 法不容情, “the law makes no room for feeling.” It means, she wrote, that a judge must not bring private feeling into a case.