An autumn revenge

And we're back!

After a summer hiatus, this newsletter will now be published on Tuesdays.

We begin with a Song dynasty betrayal a thousand years ago. After that we travel to April this year in an illegal bakery in locked-down Shanghai, and then delve into critical comments about it in Chinese cyber space last week.?

The Southern Song dynasty military general, Yuè Fēi 岳飞, lead his army against the Jurchen invaders of the Jin dynasty in northern China during the 12th Century.

But after helping win the war, Yue was put to death in 1142 under a concocted charge created by his own boss, the Southern Song Chancellor, Qín Huì 秦桧.

Qin’s betrayal of Yue is still used in modern Chinese language as a metaphor for the authorities punishing the wrong person, such as in this sentence:?

Not dealing with Qin Hui, and instead doing everything to punish Yue Fei and Han Shizhong?

不处理秦桧，却拼命整岳飞韩世忠?

This is a comment from a Chinese netizen last week in response to a Korean bakery chain, Paris Baguette (巴黎贝甜 bā lí bèi tián), being fined by the Shanghai Municipal Administration for Market Regulation.

Paris Baguette was found to be baking and selling bread without permission during Shanghai’s lockdown in April.

It’s employees couldn’t go home due to restrictions at the beginning of the city-wide lockdown.?

So some staff stayed at one of the company’s training centres.?

With even basic food hard to come by at that time, they began taking group orders (团购 tuán gòu) from the local residents.?Over four days in late April they made around 58,500 yuan profit.?

Shanghai's market regulator decided that was not allowed. The equipment at the training centre was not licensed, so it was confiscated, and the operation closed down.?

This week, the market regulator announced that Paris Baguette will be fined 10 times the amount their unlicensed operation made during the lockdown, a fine of 585,000 yuan.

Customers rushed to support the brand, buying bread, cakes and other yummies from bakeries in Shanghai and across China, and posting recommendations on social media urging their friends to do the same.

Netizens say the authorities should not punish the company. And that the fine has had the opposite effect:?

This fine has backfired. It has become their best advert for driving up sales.

这张罚单，是反向带货，成了他们最好的广告?

Old idioms and colloquial phrases are used on social media creatively to comment on the situation, and even invent new advertising slogans for the bakery.

So that’s what we devour this week with these five phrases....

1. 秋后算账 qiū hòu suàn zhàng

Translation: a reckoning after autumn; a time to settle old scores

This idiom literally translates as 'after autumn' (秋后 qiū hòu) and 'settle accounts' (算账 suàn zhàng), referring farmers settling their financial accounts after the harvest at the end of autumn. It's usually not used literally, but as a metaphor for revenge.?

The idiom first appeared in the 1980?General’s Chant?(将军吟 jiāng jūn yín) by the novelist Mò Yīngfēng 莫应丰.

General’s Chant?follows the stories of three air force generals who are badly caught up in the chaos of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). The novel is highly critical of the politics of the time.?

It’s a metaphor for waiting until the final moment, or after something has already finished, before making an accusation of wrongdoing, trying to catch someone out, or taking revenge.?

Example sentence:

Autumn is here; it is time to settle old scores.?

秋天到了，很多事也要秋后算账了

2. 众生皆苦 zhòng shēng jiē kǔ

Translation: everyone has their own pain

This is a creative adaptation of an eight-character couplet:?众生皆苦，唯有自渡 zhòng shēng jiē kǔ, wéi yǒu zì dù - "Life is hard, you can only rely on yourself to get through it".

There's also some clever word play in there with characters and tones which we go into in the podcast .

Example sentence:

Don't be the enemy of the people. Don’t forget people know right from wrong. Life is full of bitterness, but Paris Baguette has brought some sweetness to it.

不要与人为敌，忘了人心背向，众生皆苦，巴黎贝甜

3. 捡了芝麻，丢了西瓜 jiǎn le zhī ma, diū le xī gua

Translation: picked up a sesame and dropped a melon; to focus on the unimportant and miss out on what is important

This is a common colloquial phrase which has a number of variations. Sesame is used in Chinese as a metaphor for being tinny or insignificant.

Example sentence:

Is baking bread at a training centre such a big problem? Why do the authorities always get things wrong?

在封城期间，他们在培训中心做面包这算很大的问题吗？为什么总是丢了西瓜去盯芝麻

4. 发国难财 fā guó nàn cái

Translation: make money while the country is suffering

This is technically not an idiom, but a colloquial phrase 俗语.

It’s a relatively new one too - first appearing in 红岩 - Red Crag, a 1961 novel based partly on fact by Chinese authors Luo Guangbin and Yang Yiyan, who were former inmates in a Kuomintang prison in Sichuan.?

Example sentence:

They did not need that RMB 58,500 during lockdown, and they kept their normal prices. Is this not much better than so many other people who made money while people were suffering during lockdown?

在封城期间又不缺那5.85万元，还要平价烤面包，这不比很多发国难财的国人要好很多吗

5. 为众人抱薪者，不可使其冻毙于风雪 wèi zhòngrén bào xīn zhě, bùkě shǐ qí dòng bì yú fēng xuě

Translation: we must not let those who bring firewood for the rest of us, freeze to death on the road

Netizens also evoked another Chinese saying in their creative criticism of local authorities, which some even said could become Paris Baguette’s new advertising slogan.

In this new variation,?'bring firewood'?(抱薪 bào xīn) is replaced with?bake bread?(烤面包 kǎo miànbāo) to create the phrase:

"We must not let those who bake bread for the rest of us be punished".

为众人烤面包者，不可使其冻毙于风雪.

wèi zhòngrén kǎo miànbāo zhě, bùkě shǐ qí dòng bì yú fēngxuě.

Example sentence:

When the next crisis comes around, we need more people to choose to stand up and do the right thing. So we must not let those who bake bread for the rest of us be punished.

当未来再次面对困境和风险时，需要更多人愿意选择正直和善良。“为众人烤面包者，不可使其冻毙于风雪”

That's our five phrase for this week!?

You can learn another 20-or-so idioms, words, phrases and slang expressions in the full edition of my Slow Chinese 每周漫闻 newsletter.?

Click here to access it!